In this article, Ong shows how what is labeled "high art" (the works of
Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein, for example) and what is
referred to as "popular culture" (specifically, the comic strip Pogo)
are not as separate from each other as people make them out to be.
Ong cites the nonsense songs found in Pogo as linguistic constructions
that might as well be in the work of Joyce, but he asserts that what makes
these nonsense songs acceptable in popular culture is that people have
had time to get used to (and perhaps forget) the avant-garde world from
which they came. Ong urges people, especially the Catholic readers
of America, to adopt a more open view of what is new and unfamiliar
to them rather than waiting for a certain level of comfort before accepting
new ideas into their world.