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The Agonistic Tone

Oral

Life takes on the belligerent, combative tone, reflecting the orientation of its members to the struggle for survival.

• People are seen as enemies or friends, with no in-between
• "Different" means "enemy"
• Physical violence is seen as a suitable strategy for dealing with difference
• Opponents receive verbal tongue-lashings
• Violence is enthusiastially and graphically described (Ong 43-45).

  Example

  See the Yo Mama putdowns sent to Lake Wobegon.

  From a 1993 film:

  [the sandlot kids and their arch-rivals come face-to-face]
  Phillips: It's easy when you play with rejects and a fat kid, Rodriguez.
  Benny: Shut your mouth, Phillips!
  Ham Porter: What'd you say, crap face?
  Phillips: You shouldn't be allowed to touch a baseball. Except for Rodriguez, you're all an insult to the game.
  Ham Porter: Come on! We'll take you on, right here! Right now! Come on!
  Sandlot Kids: Yeah!
  Phillips: We play on a real diamond, Porter. You ain't good enough to lick the dirt off our cleats.
  Ham Porter: Watch it, jerk!
  Phillips: Shut up, idiot!
  Ham Porter: Moron!
  Phillips: Scab eater!
  Ham Porter: Butt sniffer!
  Phillips: Pus licker!
  Ham Porter: Fart smeller!
  Bertram: [sniffs] Ahh.
  Phillips: You eat dog crap for breakfast, geek!
  Ham Porter: You mix your Wheaties with your mama's toe jam!
  Sandlot Kids: Yeah!
  Phillips: You bob for apples in the toilet! And you like it!
  Ham Porter: You play ball like a giiirrrrrrrrl! [entire group stands in shocked silence]
  Phillips: What did you say?
  Ham Porter: You heard me.
  Phillips: Tomorrow. Noon, at our field. Be there, buffalo-butt breath.
  Ham Porter: Count on it, pee-drinking crap-face!

-- The IMDB site for Sandlot the Sandlot

YouTube Clip. Watch first half or so only.

Literate

More typically uses a detached, disengaged tone.

--In addition to friends and enemies, there are acquaintances, VIPs, and non-entities.
--It is politically correct to view differences as something to be celebrated.
--Physical violence and war are seen mostly as strategies of last resort, if not totally contemptible.
-- Verbal hostility is seen as counterproductive.
--Violence is kept to a minimum.
--Excessive praise is seen as gushing and viewed negatively.

Example

"In the wake of September 11, it would have been easy in our grief and our anger to retreat behind a wall of defeatism and discrimination. But that is not the American way,” she said.

Instead, she noted, the country remains committed to diversity and individual rights, but said that view wasn’t shared by the terrorists.

“The intellectual foundation of terrorism, just like that of slavery and segregation, rests on arbitrarily dividing the human race into friends and enemies. The perpetrators of 9-11 were people who believed that difference is a license to kill,” she said. “You know better, that differences should not be a source of fear, but an opportunity to learn.”

-- From Dr. Condoleezza Rice's
MSU Commencement Speech, May 8, 2004

Exception: Primally-strong emotions trigger a default back to the oral mode.

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