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June 12, 2025

Maia Szalavitz on Love as a Drug, and Walter J. Ong's Thought (REVIEW ESSAY)

By Thomas Farrell

In the present wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 5,796-word OEN article, I review some of my OEN articles from the past to establish the cultural matrix with which I am working in the present OEN article. Then I turn to addressing Maia Szalavitz's guest op-ed titled Love Is a Drug. A.I. Chatbots Are Exploiting That" in The New York Times (dated June 3, 2025).

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Season One of Wonder Woman signed by Lynda Carter
Season One of Wonder Woman signed by Lynda Carter
(Image by Castles, Capes & Clones from flickr)
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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) June 12, 2025: In recent months, I have discussed various inter-related themes in some of my OEN articles. For example, I have explored how becoming a fan of a certain person involves being infatuated with that person and how being infatuated with a particular person is a form of love for that person.

In my case, I became a fan of the American Jesuit Father Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) in the fall semester of 1964, when I took my first course with him at Saint Louis University, the Jesuit university in the city of St. Louis, Missouri (USA). Over the years, I took five courses from Father Ong. Subsequently, I devoted an enormous amount of time and energy to writing and speaking about his work. Indeed, my claim to fame is my writing and speaking about Ong's work. So, in my life, my infatuation with Father Ong as a teacher and an author of work I admired when I was a twenty-year-old junior English major at Saint Louis University in the fall semester of 1964 blossomed into a lifelong love for the man and for his work. So, infatuation is a form of love that can blossom into a deeper experience of love. In my case my love for Father Ong is the most prominent aspect of my adult life.

I have written about Ong's media-ecology thought in my OEN article titled "Walter J. Ong's Philosophical Thought" (dated September 20, 2020):

Click Here

In my award-winning book Walter Ong's Contributions to cultural Studies: The Phenomenology of the Word and I-Thou Communication (Hampton Press, 2000), I survey Ong's life and eleven of his books and selected articles. My book received the Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the field of Media Ecology, conferred by the Media Ecology Association on June 15, 2001.

For a briefly annotated, chronologically arranged bibliography of Ong's 400 or so distinct publications (not counting translations and reprintings as distinct publications), see Thomas M. Walsh's "Walter J. Ong, S.J.: A Bibliography 1929-2006" in the anthology Language, Culture, and Identity: The Legacy of Walter J. Ong, S.J., edited by Sara van den Berg and Thomas M. Walsh (Hampton Press, 2011, pp. 185-245).

Now, around 1992, I also became a fan of the later Jungian psychotherapist and psychological theorist Robert Moore's work on the four masculine archetypes of maturity in the human psyche. According to Robert Moore, each of the four masculine archetypes of maturity involves one optimal and positive form accompanied by two bipolar "shadow" forms: (1) the King archetype of masculine maturity in the human psyche; (2) the masculine Warrior/Knight archetype of maturity in the human psyche; (3) the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype of maturity in the human psyche; and (4) the masculine Lover archetype of maturity in the human psyche. My infatuation with Father Ong and his work in the fall of 1964 involved the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype of maturity on my psyche. In audiotapes of Robert Moore's presentations about the masculine archetypes of maturity at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, he frequently speaks of "mainlining" a certain "shadow" form of an archetype of maturity. His use of this drug-related expression reinforces the addictive quality of the various "shadow" forms of the archetypes of maturity.

I have written about Robert Moore's theory of the archetypes of maturity in my OEN article titled "Robert Moore on Optimal Human Psychological Development" (dated September 17, 2024; viewed 1,200 times):

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Now, with Douglas Gillette as his co-author, the late Jungian psychotherapist and psychological theorist Robert Moore (1942-2016; Ph.D. in psychology and religion, University of Chicago, 1975) of the Chicago Theological Seminary published the following five books about the four masculine archetypes of maturity:

(1) King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Mature Masculine (HarperSanFrancisco/ HarperCollins, 1990);

(2) The King Within: Accessing the King [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (revised and expanded second edition, Exploration Press, 2007; original edition, 1992a);

(3) The Warrior Within: Accessing the Knight [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (William Morrow, 1992b);

(4) The Magician Within: Accessing the Shaman [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (William Morrow, 1993a);

(5) The Lover Within: Accessing the Lover [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (William Morrow, 1993b).

In Robert Moore's complete theory of the archetypes of maturity in the human psyche, he also posits four similarly named feminine archetypes in the human psyche: ((1) The queen archetype of maturity; (2) the feminine Warrior/Knight archetype of maturity; (3) the feminine Magician/Shaman archetype of maturity; and (4) the feminine Lover archetype of maturity.

Now, In Roman Catholic circles today, a process of careful introspection is known as discernment of spirits. It strikes me that Robert Moore's complete theory of the eight archetypes of maturity and their accompanying sixteen "shadow" forms call for us to engage in the introspective process known as discernment of spirits.

Now, in the 1970s fantasy television series Wonder Woman, starring the busty (37") young Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman is portrayed as an Amazon princess; her mother is the queen of the Amazon women on Paradise Island. However, Wonder Woman represents the optimal and positive form of the feminine Warrior/Knight archetype of maturity and the optimal and positive form of the feminine Magician/Shaman archetype of maturity. But, apart from some flirtatious behavior occasionally, we do not see much of the feminine Lover archetype of maturity in Wonder Woman, just as we do not see much of the Queen archetype of maturity in Wonder Woman.

Now, when we turn our attention to the fantasy skits in the ubiquitous mom-son porn videos that are available free on the internet and in DVDs, we see the exhibitionistic women playing the role of the mom as manifesting the feminine Lover archetype in the human psyche.

For further discussion of the ubiquitous mom-son porn videos that are available free on the internet, see my OEN article titled "On Interpreting the Ubiquitous Mom-Son porn on the Internet" (dated December 19, 2024; viewed 1,430 times):

Click Here

In my OEN article dated December 19, 2024, I mention Jung's book Symbols of Transformation, I draw on his chapter titled "Symbols of the Mother and of Rebirth" (pp. 207-273) to suggests that the young boys and men of all ages who enjoy watching an exhibitionistic woman such as the now-retired pornstar Mandy Flores perform in the role of the mom in mom-son porn videos that are available free on the internet and in DVDs are most likely thereby expressing their desire for rebirth through the mom in the fantasy porn skit.

For a further personal and cultural interpretation of the appeal of mom-son porn videos, we can turn to the Jungian psychoanalyst Edward C. Whitmont's book titled Return of the Goddess (Crossroad Publishing, 1982). What Whitmont refers to as the return of the goddess in the human psyche involves the archetypal level of the psyche in our contemporary secondary oral culture (in Ong's terminology). In other words the young boys and men of all ages who enjoy watching mom-son porn videos that are available free on the internet and in DVDs are motivated, in part, by their secondary-oral-cultural conditioning to be oriented in their psyches and consciousness to experience what Whitmont refers to as the return of the goddess in their psyches - and they then project the goddess in their psyches onto exhibitionistic women such as the now-retired pornstar Mandy Flores who perform the role of the mom in mom-son porn.

However, we may also wonder about the imagery implicit in the title of Whitmont's book Return of the Goddess. According to the imagery in the title, the goddess at the archetypal level of the psyche is "returning." But from where? Where has the goddess at the archetypal level of the psyche been previously - from which the goddess is now returning?

I need to proceed carefully here, because I have not interpreted this before. But here's my interpretation. In Ong's book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (Methuen, 1982, pp. 178-179), he refers to the inward turn of consciousness. No doubt the inward turn of consciousness is good for the development of ego-consciousness. However, the development of ego-consciousness may also involved the distancing in the psyche of the archetypal level of the collective unconsciousness. If this is indeed what happened historically in our Western cultural history as a concomitant of the inward turn of consciousness, then what Whitmont referred to as the return of the goddess means that somehow now the archetypal level of the collective unconscious is, figuratively speaking, returning to interacting with ego-consciousness.

Now, in my OEN articles about the busty (37") young Lynda Carter, I wrote about my extraordinary infatuation with her gloriously beautiful body in her wonderfully revealing Wonder Woman costume as I watched the DVD version of the 1970s fantasy television series Wonder Woman television series, starring the busty (37") young Lynda Carter, on the big-screen television in the living room of my home in Duluth, Minnesota, in late August 2024 into September 2024. I interpreted my extraordinary infatuation with the busty (37") young Lynda Carter as involving the masculine Lover archetype of maturity in my psyche:

See my OEN article "Young Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman" (dated September 3, 2024; viewed 1,655 times):

Click Here

Also see "Thomas J. Farrell's Encore on Young Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman" (dated September 30, 2024; viewed 1,088 times):

Click Here

For further information about the 1970s Wonder Woman fantasy television series, starring the busty (37") young Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, see the Wikipedia entry on "Wonder Woman (TV series)":

Click Here

Also see the Wikipedia entry titled "List of Wonder Woman episodes":

wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wonder_Woman_episodes

For further information about Lynda Carter, see the Wikipedia entry "Lynda Carter":

Click Here

In any event, the buxom comic book fantasy figure of Wonder Woman emerged from the imagination of the Harvard-educated (A.B., LL.B., and Ph.D.) Harvard professor William Moulton Marson (1893-1947). Because I accentuate young Lynda Carter's big (37") boobs in the present essay, I want to note here that the comic book Wonder Woman figure was buxom - and young Lynda Carter's wonderfully revealing Wonder Woman costume was designed to resemble the buxom fantasy comic book Wonder Woman's costume.

For further information about him, see the Wikipedia entry "William Moulton Marston":

Also see Harvard historian Jill Lepore's exhaustive book titled The Secret History of Wonder Woman, 2nd ed. (Vintage Books, 2015).

In any event, the buxom comic book fantasy figure of Wonder Woman emerged in American culture in the early 1940s, when American culture was deeply misogynistic. The 1970s Wonder Woman television series emerged in American culture alongside second-wave feminism to counter and combat the deep misogyny of American culture. Today the deep misogyny in American culture is manifested in President Donald Trump's misogyny - and in the misogyny of Trump's male MAGA supporters. Today misogynistic American men are not candidates for working through the liberation of endogamous kinship libido that is "married within" their psyches to their early childhood image on their moms (or their mother-figures).

Now, I borrow the expression endogamous kinship libido from Ong's succinct summary of the Jungian analyst Erich Neumann's grand synthesis of Jung's work in his landmark book titled The Origins and history of Consciousness, translated by R. F. C. Hull (Pantheon Books, 1954; orig. German ed., 1949). Ong sets forth his succinct summary of Neumann's Jungian account of the eight stages of consciousness in his (Ong's book Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture (Cornell University Press, 1971, pp. 10-11):

"The stages of psychic development as treated by Neumann are successively (1) the infantile undifferentiated self-contained whole symbolized by the uroboros (tail-eater), the serpent with its tail in its mouth, as well as by other circular or global mythological figures [including Nietzsche's imagery about the eternal return?], (2) the Great Mother (the impersonal womb from which each human infant, male or female, comes, the impersonal femininity which may swallow him [or her] up again), (3) the separation of the world parents (the principle of opposites, differentiation, possibility of change, (4) the birth of the hero (rise of masculinity and of the personalized ego) with its sequels in (5) the slaying of the mother (fight with the dragon: victory over primal creative but consuming femininity, chthonic forces), and (6) the slaying of the father (symbol of thwarting obstruction of individual achievement, [thwarting] what is new), (7) the freeing of the captive (liberation of the ego from endogamous [i.e., "married" within one's psyche] kinship libido and the emergence of the higher femininity, with woman now as person, anima-sister, related positively to ego consciousness), and finally (8) the transformation (new unity in self-conscious individualization, higher masculinity, expressed primordially in the Osiris myth but today entering new phases with heightened individualism [such as Nietzsche's overman] - or, more properly, personalism - of modern man [sic])."

Ong also sums up Neumann's Jungian account of the stages of consciousness in his (Ong's) book Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness (Cornell University Press, 1981, pp. 18-19; but also see the "Index" for further references to Neumann [p. 228]), the published version of Ong's 1979 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University.

I have quoted Ong's succinct summary of the eight stages of consciousness from Ong's 1971 book Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology in my essay "Secondary Orality and consciousness Today" in the well-organized anthology titled Media, Consciousness, and Culture: Explorations of Walter Ong's Thought, edited by Bruce E. Gronbeck, Thomas J. Farrell, and Paul A. Soukup (Sage Publishing, 1991, pp. 194-209).

Now, on some level of my psyche and consciousness, I am sure that busty (37") young Lynda Carter's big (37") boobs reminded me of my Mom's big boobs. Consequently, my extraordinary infatuation with busty (37") young Lynda Carter in the fall of 2024 helped me further experience the liberation of endogamous kinship libido that is "married within" my psyche to my early childhood image of my Mom and her big breasts. When I speak of working through the liberations of endogamous kinship libido that is "married within" my psyche to my early childhood image of my mom in my psyche, I assume that my early childhood image of my Mom included her breasts.

Years ago, in an email message to the now retired pornstar Mandy Flores, I told her that her big (39") boobs and her eye-catching big nipples reminded me of my Mom's big boobs and eye-catching big nipples. I mention now-retired pornstar Mandy Flores and her big (39") boobs and her eye-catching big nipples extensively in my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 28,800-word OEN article titled "Fareed Zakaria and Ezra Klein on President Trump's Foreign Policy" (dated March 24, 2025; viewed 1,867 times as of June 12, 2025):

Click Here

Ah, but why do I refer here to "my extraordinary infatuation with busty (37") young Lynda Carter in the fall of 2024"? What, exactly, made my infatuation with busty (37") young Lynda Carter's body extraordinary? My infatuation with her body was extraordinary because it made me feel mildly euphoric for about ten weeks in the fall of 2024 - which is an extraordinary long time to feel mildly euphoric every waking moment of the day.

I eventually stopped feeling mildly euphoric a few days before the election on November 5, 2024.

Apart from the fact that my infatuation with busty (37") young Lynda Carter's body evidently triggered my feeling mildly euphoric, I have no explanation to offer as to why I felt mildly euphoric for about ten weeks in the fall of 2024. In any event, I have no reason to suspect that I could somehow again induce feeling mildly euphoric for about ten weeks. Moreover, I have never read or heard of anyone else ever feeling mildly euphoric for about ten weeks.

When I was in the Jesuits (1979-1987), I learned the lingo of Jesuit spirituality and consolation and desolation, including consolation without a cause. For all practical purposes, my experience of feeling mildly euphoric for about ten weeks in the fall of 2024 was an experience of consolation without a cause. Yes, my infatuation with the busty (37") young Lynda Carter's body apparently triggered my feeling mildly euphoric for about ten weeks. Even so, I have a hard time believing that my infatuation with her body could cause me to feel mildly euphoric for about ten weeks. Consequently, I suspect that something more was going on in my psyche when I felt infatuated with her body and when I felt mildly euphoric for about ten weeks. I discuss this possible "something more" going on in my psyche below.

In terms of Roman Catholic theology, I could attribute my feeling mildly euphoric for a bout ten weeks in the fall of 2024 to the work of the Holy Spirit in giving me that consolation without a cause.

In terms of C. G. Jung's thought, I could attribute my feeling mildly euphoric for about ten weeks in the fall of 2024 to the work of the archetypal Self in my psyche.

Now, without mentioning the 1970 fantasy television series Wonder Woman, starring the busty (37") young Lynda Carter, I have written about certain other popular fantasy forms of entertainment in my OEN article titled "About J. R. R. Tolkien's Fantasy Novel, The Lord of the Rings" (dated February 15, 2025; viewed 1,088 times):

Click Here

Now, becoming infatuated with a certain actress in the fall of 2024 was not exactly a new experience in my life in the fall of 2024. You see, over the years, I have occasionally become infatuated with certain other actresses in television shows that I liked - and in certain cases, I have also bought the DVD version of the fantasy television series so that I could enjoy watching the actress I was infatuated with on the big-screen television in the living room of my home.

In any event, feeling mildly euphoric for about ten weeks in the fall of 2024 reminded me that I had felt mildly euphoric in the days before my mental breakdown in late February 1974 and my hospitalization for about a week to ten days in later February into early March 1974 - yes, more than 50 years earlier. Yes, in 2024, I interpreted my 1974 experience of feeling mildly euphoric and my 2024 experience of feeling mildly euphoric as involving the masculine Lover archetype in my psyche. I have candidly discussed my 1974 experiences in my OEN article titled "I Am a Hypomanic Personality Type Person" (dated May 26, 2025):

Click Here

Now, at the website CFake.com, where male fans post fake nude pics of female celebrities, Lynda Carter's male fans have posted 205 fake nude pics of her - almost all of which accentuate her big (37") boobs. My favorite fake nude pic of her at CFake.com was posted there on December 30, 2024. It features her big boobs in a representation of her big boobs that resembles the picture of her real big boobs that I bought at Amazon.com. I have 13X19 framed nude photo of her big (37") boobs displayed in my work office at my home - along with certain other framed photos of Lynda Carter's gloriously beautiful body that I also have displayed in my home office. In addition to showing off her gloriously beautiful body in her wonderfully revealing Wonder Woman costume, busty (37") young Lynda Carter often posed for alluring photos of her gloriously beautiful body, including the 13X19 nude photo of her big (37") boobs that I have on display in my home office. (Amazon.com has a wide selection of photos of young Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman for sale, including a wonderful 8X10 signed photo of her in a wonderfully revealing skimpy variation of her Wonder Woman costume - revealing her gloriously beautiful body, especially her big (37") boobs. Many, many thanks to bold busty (37") young Lynda Carter for posing for those two wonderful photos of her - as well as for the other wonderful photos of her.)

If Lynda Carter ever suffered from the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity that I have written about in some of my OEN articles, she clearly manifested her body-positivity in showing off her gloriously beautiful body in her wonderfully revealing Wonder Woman costume and in alluring photos of herself that she posed for. Good for her!

Oh my God, I love busty (37") young Lynda Carter's body - especially her big (37") boobs! She has a gorgeous body! Her body is magnificent! Ah, but is my love of busty (37") young Lynda Carter's magnificent body an addictive drug for me - or is my love of her body a healthy form of love on my part? If my love of young Lynda Carter's body is an addict drug for me, then I must be mainlining (to use Robert Moore's expression) the Addicted Lover "shadow" form of the masculine Lover archetype in my psyche - rather than the healthy optimal and positive form of the masculine Lover archetype in my psyche. I return to this consideration toward the end of the present essay.

I first articulated my criticism of the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity in my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 28,800-word OEN article titled "Fareed Zakaria and Ezra Klein on President Trump's Foreign Policy" (dated March 24, 2025), mentioned above.

But also see my subsequent OEN article "Thomas J. Farrell's Encore on the Tragic Anti-Body Heritage of Christianity" (dated April 29, 2025):

Click Here

For a deep background study of the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity, see Stepen Greenblatt's fine book titled The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve (W. W. Norton and Company, 2017).

I discussed Harvard Professor Greenblatt's fine 2017 book in my OEN article titled "Stephen Greenblatt on Adam and Even" (dated August 22, 2018 viewed 1,446 times):

Click Here

Now, even though I see the anti-body heritage of Christianity as tragic and as something that American men and women today need to combat and counter with body-positivity and sex-positivity, I am well aware that many conservative American Christians today are not yet prepared to combat and counter the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity. On the contrary, they are prepared to defend the tragic anti-body heritage from what they see negatively as pro-body-positivity messages in American culture today.

In any event, Lynda Carter's male fans who like her big (37") natural boobs may also find that their infatuation with her big (37") boobs may help them work though the liberation of endogamous kinship libido in their psyches that is "married within" to their early childhood image of their own mom's (or mother-figure's) breasts. I have also suggested in some of my OEN articles that American men of a certain age could find it helpful and beneficial to adopt, figuratively speaking, a fantasy mom from mom-son porn videos that are available free on the internet and in DVDs - and use their adopted fantasy mom to help them work through the endogamous kinship libido that is "married within" their psyches to the image of their own mom in their psyches from early childhood image of their mom's beasts (or mother-figure's breasts).

Now, the various images of the gloriously beautiful busty (37") young Lynda Carter that I have on display in my home office help me honor the spirit of what Jung referred to as fantasy thinking involving images and associative thinking in his book Symbols of Transformation (pp. 7-33), mentioned above. Jung differentiated fantasy thinking involving images and associative thinking from directed thinking involving logic. To spell out the obvious, I became infatuated with the image of the busty (37") young Lynda Carter's body as I watched her perform in her wonderfully revealing Wonder Woman costume on the big-screen television in the living room of my home.

In any event, how appropriate it is for me to display images of the busty (37") young Lynda Carter, who starred as Wonder Woman in the 1970s fantasy television show Wonder Woman, as my way of honoring what Jung referred to as fantasy thinking involving images!

In any event, Ong's massively researched 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (Harvard University Press) is a history of the formal study of logic in our Western cultural history from Aristotle down to the French Renaissance logician and educational reformer and Protestant martyr Peter Ramus (1515-1572). So, yes, what Jung referred to as directed thinking involving logic has a long history in our Western cultural history. No doubt what Jung referred to as directed thinking involving logic is still today the predominant form of thinking in Western culture - despite the popularity of fantasy thinking involving images and associative thinking in the fantasy television series Wonder Woman in the 1970s and, more recently in the popular fantasy television series Game of Thrones (April 17, 2011, to May 19, 2019; 73 episodes) - and in the fantasy skits of the ubiquitous mom-son porn videos that are available free on the internet and in DVDs - such as the charming Mandy Flores' many delightful mom-son porn videos that are available free of the internet.

For further discussion of Ong and Jung, see my OEN article titled "Some Reflections on the Work of C. G. Jung and Walter J. Ong" (dated December 28, 2024; viewed 1,210 times):

Click Here

Now, a further word is in order here about the word "Transformation" in the title of Jung's book Symbols of Transformation. In the 1970s television series Wonder Woman, the busty (37") young Lynda Carter plays the roles of both the stylishly dressed beautiful Diana Prince and Wonder Woman in her wonderfully revealing Wonder Woman costume. The transformation of Diana Prince into Wonder Woman involves Diana Prince spinning around. The transformation of Diana Prince involves a flash of bright light and a sound like a thunderclap. In any event, the transformation occurs in a moment. Now, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychological theorist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) wrote about psychological transformation in his 1952 extensively revised and re-titled book Symbols of Transformation second edition, translated by R. F. C. Hull (Princeton University Press, 1967; original work published 1912). However, the psychological transformations that Jung had in mind do not happen if a moment. Rather, when they do happen, they happen over time.

Now, in the fall of 2024, I also published my OEN article titled "John A. Desteian on Love Relationships" (dated September 19, 2024; viewed 1,121 times as of June 7, 2025):

Click Here

Basically, my OEN article dated September 19, 2024, is a wide-ranging discussion of the Jungian psychotherapist John A. Desteian's book titled Coming Together - Coming Apart: The Play of Opposites in Love Relationships (Chiron Publications, 2021). Basically, Desteian's book is about the experience of heterosexual love. In other words, it is not about the experience of infatuation that we have as adult when we become fans of a certain person - as I myself became a fan of Father Ong and his work when I was twenty years old in the fall semester of 1964 - and also as I myself became a fan of the busty (37") young Lynda Cater's gloriously beautiful body in her wonderfully revealing Wonder Woman costume when I was eighty years old in the fall of 2024. Nevertheless, I found certain points that Desteian makes about infatuation pertinent to my own experiences of inflation - and pertinent not just to my infatuation with Father Ong in the fall semester of 1964 and my more recent infatuation with the busty (37") Lynda Carter in the fall of 2024.

In any event, I have often written about love in my various recent OEN articles.

Now, my daily routine is to drink my morning coffee as I read The New York Times online. One morning recently, I read the guest NYT op-ed titled "Love Is a Drug. A.I. Chatbots Are Exploiting That" (dated June 3, 2025) by Maia Szalavitz, the author of the book titled Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Understanding of Addiction (St. Martin's Press, 2016):

Click Here

As you may well imagine, the first sentence in the title "Love Is a Drug" got my attention. Ah, but does this mean that my love of young Lynda Carter's body is a drug for me?

Ah, but does "Love Is a Drug" also mean that my decades-long love of Ong and his media-ecology work is a drug for me?

Well, it turns out that Maia Szalavitz offers further thoughts about love as healing and as expansive. She says, "Genuine love enables care, nurtures connections to kin and community and generally expands our world." "In contrast to love, addiction makes life smaller and less rich. . . . addiction is, in essence, love gone awry.: a singular passion directed destructively at a substance or activity rather than an appropriate person."

But Maia Szalavitz offers to guidance for us to use in discerning who is "an appropriate person" and who is not an appropriate person for us to direct our singular passion to. Consequently, I hereby declare that the busty (37") young Lynda Carter in her wonderfully revealing Wonder Woman costume in the 1970s Wonder Woman television series may not be an appropriate person for me to love her body with singular passion, because the real Lynda Carter today is several decades older than the gloriously beautiful busty (37") young Lynda Carter with whose body I am still infatuated.

Now, I further declare here that the now-deceased Father Ong may not be an appropriate person for me to love his work with singular passion, because I myself have been working out my own distinctive applications and extensions of his landmark media-ecology thought in my various media-ecology OEN articles over the years, including my insightful wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 28,800-word OEN article titled "Fareed Zakaria and Ezra Klein on President Trump's Foreign Policy" (dated March 24, 2025), mentioned above, in which I first articulated my critique of the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity.

Now, as I have noted above, Robert Moore says, in effect, that the sixteen "shadow" forms of the eight archetypes of maturity are, each, addictive, when he characterizes being dominated by each "shadow" form as "mainlining" that "shadow" form. So, if I were to say that my love of busty (37") young Lynda Carter's body is a singular passion for an inappropriate person, I would thereby be saying that my love of busty (37") young Lynda Carter's body and her big (37") boobs involves me mainlining the Addicted Lover "shadow" form of the masculine Lover archetype in my psyche. Yes, I do think that that has been the case since the fall of 2024.

However, for me personally, my mainlining of the Addicted Lover "shadow" form of the masculine Lover archetype in my psyche was a significant - and welcome -- shift for me at the age of 80 from a lifetime of mainlining the Impotent Lover "shadow" form of the masculine Lover archetype in my psyche.

As I mentioned above, the busty (37") young Lynda Carter in her wonderfully revealing Wonder Woman costume represent body-positivity - a necessary antidote to the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity - and the now-retired pornstar Mandy Flores also represents the body-positivity that is necessary not only for young boys and men of all ages who enjoy watching her perform in her many mom-son porn videos that are available free on the internet, but also for young girls and women of all ages to counter and combat the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity in American culture today.

Now, if I were to say that my decades-long love of the now-deceased Father Ong and his media-ecology work represents a singular passion for an inappropriate person, I also would be saying that my singular passion for Ong and his media-ecology work has been the expression of the Addicted Lover "shadow" form of the feminine Lover archetype in my psyche. I think that that has been the case in my life since the fall of 1964 until March 2025 when I wrote my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 28,800-word OEN article titled "Fareed Zakaria and Ezra Klein on President Trump's Foreign Policy" (dated March 24, 2025), mentioned above, in which I first articulated my criticism of the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity - and in which I also articulated my admiration of the body-positivity of the now-retired pornstar Mandy Flores and her big (39") boobs with their eye-catching big nipples.

I now need to clarify those two observations about the import of my 28,800-word OEN article for me and my life. I have just noted that my infatuation with the gloriously beautiful body of busty (37") young Lynda Carter in the fall of 2024 represented a dramatic shift in my life from a my previous life-long mainlining of the Impotent Lover --shadow" form of the masculine Lover archetype in my psyche to mainlining the Addicted Lover "shadow" form of the masculine Lover archetype (addicted to loving the busty (37") young Lynda Carter's gloriously beautiful body).

Well, I am now suggesting that my March 24, 2025 extensive meditation in my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 28.800-word OEN article on the body of the now-retired pornstar Mandy Flores with her big (39") boobs and her eye-catching big nipples quite possibly represented another significant in my psyche from the Addicted Lover "shadow" form of the masculine Lover archetype in my psyche to the optimal and positive form of the masculine Lover archetype in my psyche.

Now, when I turn my attention to my articulation of my criticism of the tragic anti-body heritage in Christianity in my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 28,800-word OEN article titled "Fareed Zakaria and Ezra Klein on President Trump's Foreign Policy" (dated March 24, 2025), I have to point out here that I would not expect Father Ong to cheer me on in criticizing the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity - not even if he happened to agree with my criticism of the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity.

I now need to clarify something further about the significance for me in my life of my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal OEN article dated March 24, 2025. For me personally, with respect to my life-long love of Father Ong and his media-ecology work, my articulation of my criticism of the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity in my 28,800-word OEN article represented a major shift in my psyche from my mainlining the Addicted Lover "shadow" form of the feminine Lover archetype in my psyche to quite possibly accessing the optimal and positive form of the feminine Lover archetype in my psyche. Time will tell if this is the case.

In the meantime, thank you for reading my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 5,795-word OEN article. As you can see, Maia Szalavitz's claim in her guest NYT op-ed that "Love Is a Drug" was extremely thought-provoking for me.



Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview


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