Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  king in person. But the pope knew how to prolong the prosecution on all sorts of pretexts. Philip represented himself as concerned for the interests of religion, and Nogaret and the other conspirators insisted that the assault at Avignon was a religious act, negotium fidei. Nogaret sent forth no less than twelve apologies defending himself for his part in the assault.95 In 1310 the formal trial began. Many witnesses appeared to testify against Boniface,— laymen, priests and bishops. The accusations were that the pope had declared all three religions false, Mohammedanism, Judaism and Christianity, pronounced the virgin birth a tale, denied transubstantiation and the existence of hell and heaven and that he had played games of chance. Clement issued one bull after another protesting the innocency of the offending parties concerned in the violent measures against Boniface. Philip and Nogaret were declared innocent of all guilt and to have only pure motives in preferring charges against the dead pope.96 The bull, Rex gloriae, 1311, addressed to Philip, stated that the secular kingdom was founded by God and that France in the new dispensation occupied about the same place as Israel, the elect people, occupied under the old dispensation. Nogaret’s purpose in entering into the agreement which resulted in the affair at Anagni was to save the Church from destruction at the hands of Boniface, and the plundering of the papal palace and church was done against the wishes of the French chancellor. In several bulls Clement recalled all punishments, statements, suspensions and declarations made against Philip and his kingdom, or supposed to have been made. And to fully placate the king, he ordered all Boniface’s pronouncements of this character effaced from the books of the Roman Church. Thus in the most solemn papal form did Boniface’s successor undo all that Boniface had done.97 When the Oecumenical Council of Vienne met, the case of Boniface was so notorious a matter that it had to be taken up. After a formal trial, in which the accused pontiff was defended by three cardinals, he was adjudged not guilty. To gain this point, and to save his predecessor from formal condemnation, it is probable Clement had to surrender to Philip unqualifiedly in the matter of the Knights of the Temple. After long and wearisome proceedings, this order was formally legislated out of existence by Clement in 1312. Founded in 1119 to protect pilgrims and to defend the Holy Land against the Moslems, it had outlived its mission. Sapped of its energy by riches and indulgence, its once famous knights might well have disbanded and no interest been the worse for it. The story, however, of their forcible suppression awakens universal sympathy and forms one of the most thrilling and mysterious chapters of the age. Döllinger has called it "a unique drama in history."98 The destruction of the Templar order was relentlessly insisted upon by Philip the Fair, and accomplished with the reluctant co-operation of Clement V.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  On the other hand, the provocation seemed too gross, too flagrant not to give me some thoughts of revenge; the very start of which idea restored me to perfect composure; and delighted as I was with the confused plan of it in my head, I was easily mistress enough of myself to support the part of ignorance I had prescribed to myself; and as all this circle of reflections was instantly over, I stole a tip-toe to the passage door, and opening it with a noise, passed for having that moment come home; and after a short pause, as if to pull off my things, I opened the door into the dining room, where I fund the dowdy blowing the fire, and my faithful shepherd walking about the room, and wistling, as cool and unconcerned as if nothing had happened. I think, however, he had not much to brag of having out-dissembled me: for I kept up, nobly, the character of our sex for art, and went up to him with the same open air of frankness as I had ever received him. He stayed but a little while, made some excuse for not being able to stay the evening with me, and went out. As for the wench, she was now spoiled, at least for my servant; and scarce eight and forty hours were gone round, before her insolence, on what had passed betwen Mr. H.... and her, gave me so fair an occasion to turn her away, at a minute’s warning, that, not to have done it would have been the wonder; so that he could neither disapprove it nor find in it the least reason to suspect my original motive. What became of her afterwards, I know not; but generous as Mr. H.... was, he undoubtedly made her amends: though, I dare answer, that he kept up no further commerce with her of that sort; as his stooping to such a coarse morsel, was only a sudden sally of lust, on seeing a wholesome looking, buxom country wench, and no more strange than hunger, or even a whimsical appetite’s making a fling meal of neck-beef, for change of diet. Had I considered this escapade of Mr. H.... in no more than that light and contented myself with turning away the wench, I had thought and acted right; but, flushed as I was with imaginary wrongs, I should have held Mr. H... to have been cheaply off, if I had not pushed my revenge farther, and repaid him, as exactly as could for the soul of me, in the same coin. Nor was this worthy act of justice long delayed: I had it too much at heart. Mr.

• From Between Us

  The remainder of this chapter is devoted to two emotions: anger and shame. Both are considered “right” in some cultures (or positions), but “wrong” in others. These emotions, associated as they are with dominance and avoiding exclusion, respectively, allow us to see how emotions weave the social fabric of our relationships, but also how they become part of, and are shaped by, the relationship in which they occur. By the end of this chapter, you will understand that anger and shame may run many different courses, depending on whether they are considered right or wrong in your culture (and for your position)—that is, depending on how others respond to them. And what, might you ask, does this mean for the universality of anger and shame? Are the same anger and the same shame hidden behind the different ways in which these emotions unfold? Stay tuned. Anger Rather than being merely an internal force that prods an individual, an emotion is a taking of a stance in a relationship. To illustrate this, let’s stay close to home. Suppose I am angry that my husband is late for dinner: I cooked us a special meal, one that I know he likes, and he did not bother to let me know he was going to be late. Perhaps I am angry that dinner is getting cold, or more likely I feel my efforts went unappreciated. When my husband eventually does come home, I give him an earful. It is not hard to see how this could change our relationship, at least momentarily. But the point I want to make is slightly more subtle than that anger comes with behavior that affects your relationship. Anger itself takes a stance in your relationship: By getting angry, I take the position that what my husband did—disrespecting me when I made an effort—is not okay. I demand and expect better treatment. The majority of emotions take place in unfolding social interactions. What happens to my anger—the stance I initially take—is dependent on its reception. Does my husband express regret, does he promise change, does he tread more carefully around me than he usually does and try to please me? Or, to the contrary, does he contest my version of the reality and replace it with his own? If my husband legitimizes my anger by being receptive to it, it may first flare up. However, once I feel seen, and my goals—at least for the future—seem to be met, my anger will fade away. If my husband contests my anger by yelling back, and saying that he is the one to be angry, that this is no way to come home, that my whining drives him mad as well as making him angry, I may have to choose another stance: swallow my anger, apologize. Over time, my husband’s responses to my anger will also predict whether I become angry in similar situations in the future.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  The church operated a secret base there in a former resort known as Gilman Hot Springs. Two Sea Org bases are located on the old Gilman resort, Gold and Int. Gold Base is named after Golden Era Productions, the lavishly equipped film and recording studio set up by Hubbard to make his movies and produce Scientology materials. Int. Base is the church’s international headquarters. On the north side of the highway, nestled against the dry hills, is Bonnie View, the house that Hubbard hoped one day to live in. Miscavige keeps an office on the property. Few Scientologists, and almost no one outside of the church, knew of its existence. The local community was told that the bankrupt property on California Highway 79 had been purchased in 1978 by the “ Scottish Highland Quietude Club.” Most of the Sea Org members on the base had no idea where they were; they had been transported there overnight from the former base at La Quinta in a deliberately circuitous route. Gold Base was the only place deemed secure enough for Brennan to send his dispatches. Brennan says that in late 1982 he witnessed Miscavige abusing three Scientology executives who had made some small error. The three offenders were lined up before their leader. According to Brennan, he punched the first one in the mouth. The next he slapped hard in the face. He choked the third executive so hard that Brennan thought the man would black out. No explanation was offered. This came at a time when Hubbard was furious that his legal situation left him in limbo, and he was upset about the church’s finances. Brennan had access to all the correspondence coming from Hubbard to the Watchdog Committee, and he knew that Hubbard was demanding action. “ He wanted a head on a pike,” Brennan said. [image file=Image00019.jpg] Gold Base, the Scientology compound in Gilman Hot Springs, California. It includes Bonnie View (center rear), awaiting Hubbard’s anticipated return from other realms; the management building (to its right), which houses David Miscavige’s offices; and staff apartments (right front). Brennan says that after the beating, the three executives were held as prisoners on the base.3 They were assigned lowly tasks and Sea Org members spat on them whenever they passed. Later, one of the three men approached Brennan, in tears, worried about what might happen to him. “He had to have great courage just to speak to me, because they were not allowed to speak unless spoken to,” Brennan recalled. “I had Hubbard’s orders in my hand to spit on him. I couldn’t do it.” In December 1982, David Miscavige married Michele “Shelly” Barnett, a slight blonde, twenty-one years old. She had been one of the early Commodore’s Messengers on the Apollo . She was quiet, petite, and younger than most of the other Messengers at the time—about twelve when she joined—and a bit overshadowed by the older girls.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  And so the executives of the church who had given their lives to the Sea Org directed their confusion and their anger inward, or toward their helpless colleagues. Rinder was an inevitable target. He was seen as being arrogant and above it all. Few people other than Rathbun really understood Rinder’s job; unlike the others, the two men were often off the base, dealing with lawyers, the government, and the press. No doubt there was resentment at work as well. The next time the Sea Org executives turned on Rinder, Rathbun exploded. He caught his friend in a headlock and slammed him to the ground, then sat astride him, pounding his head into the floor and shouting at him, nose to nose. Rinder managed to whisper, “ Marty, I don’t want to play this game anymore.” Suddenly, Rathbun froze. Words had been spoken that broke the spell. But it was only a moment. One evening about eight o’clock, Miscavige arrived, with his wife and his Communicator, Shelly and Laurisse, flanking him as usual with tape recorders in their hands. He ordered that the conference table be taken away and chairs be brought in for everyone in the Hole—about seventy people at the time, including many of the most senior people in the Sea Org. He asked if anyone knew what “ musical chairs” meant. In Scientology, it refers to frequent changes of post. About five hundred people had been moved off their jobs in the last five years, creating anarchy in the management structure. But that wasn’t the point he was trying to make. Finally, someone suggested that it was also a game. Miscavige had him explain the rules: Chairs are arranged in a circle and then, as the players march around them, one chair is removed. When the music stops, everybody grabs a seat. The one left standing is eliminated. Then the music starts again. Miscavige explained that in this game the last person to grab a chair would be the only one allowed to stay on the base; everyone else was to be “offloaded”—kicked out of the Sea Org—or sent away to the least desirable Scientology bases around the world. Those whose spouses were not in the Hole would be forced to divorce. While Queen’s Greatest Hits played on a boom box, the church executives marched around and around, then fought for a seat when the music stopped. As the number of chairs diminished, the game got more physical. The executives shoved and punched one another; clothes were torn; a chair was ripped apart. All this time, the biting lyrics of “Bohemian Rhapsody” floated over the saccharine melody: Is this the real life? Is this just a fantasy? Caught in a landslide No escape from reality . Rathbun, with his bad back, was eliminated fairly quickly.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  19 Later, Cruise went to: Interview with Mike Rinder. 20 In 2003, he met: Reitman, Inside Scientology , p. 286. 21 “Bush may be an idiot”: Interview with Mark “Marty” Rathbun. 22 “They don’t die easily”: Interview with Paul Haggis. 23 “I think you’ll discover”: Ibid. 24 “You’ll win an Academy Award”: Interview with Deborah Rennard Haggis. 25 “That’s great”: Interview with Paul Haggis. 26 While he was still editing: Haggis would share screen credit with William D. Broyles, Jr. 27 “It’s really remarkable to me”: Interview with Paul Haggis. 28 He accompanied the star: Headley, Blown for Good , p. 118. 29 “It was a joke”: Interview with Tommy Davis, who said Haggis “apologized profusely.” 30 funded a school: Jana Winter, “Will Smith Funds Private Scientology School,” FoxNews.com , May 30, 2008, www.foxnews.com/story/2008/05/30/will-smith-funds-private-scientology-school . 31 Cruise called a meeting: Reitman, Inside Scientology , p. 289. 32 Erika Christensen: www.zimbio.com/Erika+Christensen/articles/3/Surprising+Celebrity+Scientologist+9+Erika . 33 No one had been more instrumental: Reitman, Inside Scientology , p. 266. 34 “Have a good show”: Interview with Allen Barton. 35 “Scientological McCarthyism”: Allen Barton letter to Jenna Elfman, June 1, 2004. 36 After Cruise rallied the: Interviews with Tom McCafferty and Art Cohan. 37 Katselas refused: Interviews with Art Cohan and Allen Barton. 38 Miscavige even wondered: Morton, Tom Cruise , p. 337. 39 “He’d say that Tom Cruise”: Jeff Hawkins, quoted in Reitman, Inside Scientology , p. 290. 40 “Miscavige convinced Cruise”: Rathbun, The Scientology Reformation , p. 77. 41 “He didn’t have”: Interview with Marshall Herskovitz. 42 “Well, John, if you have powers”: Interview with Josh Brolin. Travolta, through a lawyer, agreed that the incident with Brando occurred, but characterized it as “tabloid-esque.” 43 The cook was summarily sent: Lana Mitchell, personal correspondence. 44 “At Flag”: Interview with Mark “Marty” Rathbun. 45 showed him how to shoot: Ibid. 46 “I am writing this public announcement”: Marty Rathbun, “Public Announcement,” Sept. 28, 2003. Freedom , “The Posse of Lunatics,” undated. 47 forty or fifty people: Mariette Lindstein, personal communication. 48 the Hole: Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin, “Ex-Clearwater Scientology Officer Debbie Cook Testifies She Was Put in ‘The Hole,’ Abused for Weeks,” Tampa Bay Times , Feb. 10, 2012. 49 “Org Board”: Lauren Wolf interview with Mike Rinder. 50 nine hundred positions: Ibid. 51 for four years: Mariette Lindstein, personal communication; Reitman, Inside Scientology , p. 340. 52 The entire base became paralyzed: Mariette Lindstein and Tom De Vocht, personal communication. 53 Mike Rinder was in the Hole: Interview with Mike Rinder; Rathbun, The Scientology Reformation , p. 88. 54 open scabs: Mark “Marty” Rathbun, personal communication. 55 “he’s just an SP”: Interview with Tom De Vocht. 56 When another executive spoke up: Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin, “Ex-Clearwater Scientology Officer Debbie Cook Testifies She Was Put in ‘The Hole,’ Abused for Weeks,” Tampa Bay Times , Feb. 10, 2012. 57 “Pie Faces”: Interview with Tom De Vocht. 58 “punch you guys out”: markrathbun.wordpress.com/category/debbie-cook/ ; also, Rathbun, The Scientology Reformation , p. 81.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I look down at the smooth wood tabletop. Pressing down, I carve the line we made deeper. I wriggle the blade around a little bit. It feels good. I do it some more. I add more lines, more curves. My movement becomes more frantic each time the knife meets the table. He must think I’ve gone mad. But even if he does, he doesn’t move. He stands behind my shoulder as if he’s there to supervise my assault. When I’m done I toss the knife away from me. Both hands are pressed against my carvings as I lean over the table. I’m breathing hard, like I’ve just run six miles. I have, emotionally. Isaac reaches down and touches the word I’ve made. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t even know what it said until I watched his fingers trace it. Surgeon’s fingers. Drummer’s fingers. HATE “Who do you hate?” he asks. “I don’t know.” I do a short spin into his chest, forgetting that he’s right behind me. He grabs the tops of my arms and clutches me against him. Then he wraps his arm around my head, forcing my face against his chest. The other is circling my back. He holds me and I shake. And I swear … I swear he’s just healed me a little bit. “I still see you, Senna,” he says into my hair. “You can’t ever stop seeing what you recognize as part of yourself.” A week later, Landscape stops playing. I am stepping out of my shallow, lukewarm bath when her voice cuts off in the middle of the chorus. I wrap a towel around myself and dart out of the bathroom to find Isaac. He’s in the kitchen when I come careening around the corner still clutching the towel to my dripping body. We stare at each other for a good two minutes, waiting for it to start up again, thinking there is a kink in the system. But it never comes back. It feels like a relief until the silence kicks in. True, deafening silence. We are so used to the noise, it takes a few days to acclimate to the loss of it. That’s what it’s like to be a prisoner of anything. You want your freedom until you get it, then you feel bare without your chains. I wonder if we ever get out of here, will we feel the loss? It sounds like a joke, but I know how the human mind works. Two days later the power goes. We are in darkness. Not just in the house. November has come. The sun will not rise on Alaska for two months. It’s the ultimate darkness. There is nowhere to find light, except crouched in front of the fire as our logs dwindle. That’s when I know we’re going to die.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  In this political message too were the overtones of a holy war. This war of the American nation was directed by God himself. “All of you—all in this generation of our military—have taken up the highest calling of history,” he proclaimed, quoting the Prophet Isaiah: “And wherever you go, you carry a message of hope—a message that is ancient and ever new. To the captives, ‘come out’—and to those in darkness ‘be free.’ ” 90 Use of this biblical verse, which Jesus had quoted to describe his own mission, 91 revealed the messianic streak of the Bush administration. It was ironic that Bush announced the liberation of captives. In October 2003, the media published photographs of U.S. military police abusing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Saddam’s notorious prison; later, almost identical cruelty was shown to have taken place in British- run prisons. These photographs were a cruder vision of the official U.S. media presentation of the Iraq War. Hooded, naked, writhing on the ground, the Iraqis were depicted as dehumanized, craven, bestial, and utterly dominated by America’s superior power. The cocky stance of the low-ranking GIs implied: “We are high, they are low; we are clean, they are dirty; we are strong and brave, they are weak and cowardly; we are lordly, they are virtually animals; we are God’s chosen, they are estranged from everything divine.” 92 “The photos are us,” the late Susan Sontag declared. Nazis were not the only people to commit atrocities; Americans do so too, “when they are led to believe that the people they are torturing belong to an inferior, despicable race or religion.” 93 Clearly the GIs saw nothing untoward in their behavior and had no fear of punishment. “It was just for fun,” said Private Lynndie England, who had appeared in the photographs walking a prisoner on a leash like a dog. They behaved in this way, the official investigation concluded, “simply because they could.” 94 Within a month of Bush’s carrier speech, Iraq had descended into chaos. Most Iraqis gave no credence to Bush’s exalted rhetoric; instead they were convinced that the United States simply wanted their oil and intended to use their country as a military base from which to defend Israel. They may have been glad to get rid of Saddam, but they did not regard the American and British troops as liberators. “They’re walking over my heart,” said one Baghdad resident. “Liberate us from what?” demanded another. “We have [our own] traditions, morals, customs.” 95 The Iraqi cleric Sheikh Muhammad Bashir complained that if the Americans had brought freedom to the country, it was not for the Iraqis: It is the freedom of occupying soldiers in doing what they like....

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  What horrors you have just uttered in my hearing! Cruel man, were you to be miserable for but two days, you would see these doctrines upon humanity swiftly obliterated from your heart: it is prosperity blinds and hardens you: mightily blase you are before the spectacle of the evils whence you suppose yourself sheltered, and because you hope never to suffer them, you consider you have the right to inflict them; may happiness never come nigh unto me if it can produce this degree of corruption! O Just Heaven! not merely to be content to abuse the misfortunate! To drive audacity and ferocity to the point of increasing it, of prolonging it for the unique gratification of one's desires! What cruelty, Monsieur! the wildest animals do not give us the example of a comparable barbarity." "You are mistaken, Therese, there is no roguery the wolf will not invent to draw the lamb into his clutches: these are natural ruses, while benevolence has nothing to do with Nature: charity is but an appurtenance of the weakness recommended by the slave who would propitiate his master and dispose him to leniency; it never proclaimed itself in man save in two cases: in the event he is weak, or in the event he fears he will become weak; that this alleged virtue is not natural is proven by the fact it is unknown to the man who lives in a state of Nature. The savage expresses his contempt for charity when pitilessly he massacres his brethren from motives of either revenge or cupidity... would he not respect that virtue were it etched in his heart? but never does it appear there, never will it be found wherever men are equal. Civilization, by weeding certain individuals out of society, by establishing rank and class, by giving the rich man a glimpse of the poor, by making the former dread any change of circumstances which might precipitate him into the latter's misery, civilization immediately puts the desire into his head to relieve the poor in order that he may be helped in his turn should he chance to lose his wealth; and thus was benevolence born, the fruit of civilization and fear: hence it is merely a circumstantial virtue, but nowise a sentiment originating in Nature, who never inserted any other desire in us but that of satisfying ourselves at no matter what the price.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  What do you want now? “Dangerous potentialities were slumbering in me, but you were the first to awaken them. If I now take pleasure in torturing you, abusing you, it is your fault; you have made of me what I now am, and now you are even unmanly, weak, and miserable enough to accuse me.” “Yes, I am guilty,” I said, “but haven’t I suffered because of it? Let us put an end now to the cruel game.” “That is my wish, too,” she replied with a curious deceitful look. “Wanda!” I exclaimed violently, “don’t drive me to extremes; you see that I am a man again.” “A fire of straw,” she replied, “which makes a lot of stir for a moment, and goes out as quickly as it flared up. You imagine you can intimidate me, and you only make yourself ridiculous. Had you been the man I first thought you were, serious, reserved, stern, I would have loved you faithfully, and become your wife. Woman demands that she can look up to a man, but one like you who voluntarily places his neck under her foot, she uses as a welcome plaything, only to toss it aside when she is tired of it.” “Try to toss me aside,” I said, jeeringly. “Some toys are dangerous.” “Don’t challenge me,” exclaimed Wanda. Her eyes began to flash, and a flush entered her cheeks. “If you won’t be mine now,” I continued, with a voice stifled with rage, “no one else shall possess you either.” “What play is this from?” she mocked, seizing me by the breast. She was pale with anger at this moment. “Don’t challenge me,” she continued, “I am not cruel, but I don’t know whether I may not become so and whether then there will be any bounds.” “What worse can you do, than to make your lover, your husband?” I exclaimed, more and more enraged. “I might make you his slave,” she replied quickly, “are you not in my power? Haven’t I the agreement? But, of course, you will merely take pleasure in it, if I have you bound, and say to him. “Do with him what you please.” “Woman, are you mad!” I cried. “I am entirely rational,” she said, calmly. “I warn you for the last time. Don’t offer any resistance, one who has gone as far as I have gone might easily go still further. I feel a sort of hatred for you, and would find a real joy in seeing him beat you to death; I am still restraining myself, but—” Scarcely master of myself any longer, I seized her by the wrist and forced her to the ground, so that she lay on her knees before me. “Severin!” she cried. Rage and terror were painted on her face. “I shall kill you if you marry him,” I threatened; the words came hoarsely and dully from my breast. “You are mine, I won’t let you go, I love you too much.”

• From Between Us

  At least part of the way that anger operates in ongoing social interactions depends on its legitimacy, based on general ideas of morality, on the angry person’s social position, age, or gender, and perhaps on the wiggle room perceived by someone else to challenge that legitimacy. Challenged anger may extinguish, legitimized anger will run its course. Woven into the emotion of anger are stories of morality: Is the emotion right or wrong? Who is supposed to have it, and who is not? Who can be their target? These contextualized stories are different across cultures. The Course of Anger Once you see anger as acting between people, there are countless ways of being angry. The way I am angry at my child for not finishing their plate is different from the way I am angry at my human resources department for making a shortsighted decision, and different from the anger I felt at the Trump administration for separating children from their parents at the Mexican border. There are endless variations of anger. But despite this variation within individuals and within cultures, it is also clear that the typical acts of anger differ between cultures (and between different positions within a culture), depending on what it means to be angry. When entitlement, blame, and nonacceptance are legitimate or even warranted, the course of anger will be different than when a stance of anger is seen as “selfish” or “childish.” In the interview study my colleague Mayumi Karasawa and I conducted with American and Japanese college students and adults of the general population (chapter 2), anger seemed to run a very different course in these two cultural contexts. We asked our respondents to tell us about a situation in which they felt “offended or not taken seriously by someone else” as this represents a core theme of anger. Our American respondents were recruited through churches and community centers in North Carolina, where I lived at the time. Jim, who had been accused by a co-worker of making rude sexual remarks, told us that the “young lady” “tried to get attention,” that “she always wanted attention.” He also accused her of being a liar and a cheater: “It turned out that she lies a lot. She was trying to get money out of the store.” When American respondents told us about such situations, they focused on all the bad properties of their offender. Notice that blaming “the young lady” freed Jim himself of any blemish, leaving his self-esteem intact. “She found out that she and another guy were going to be fired. I think that is why she did this. She took it out on me.” Jim was not the only one to tell us about the bad dispositions of their offenders, and the unjustness of their deeds.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Ordinarily, when a Scientologist does something wrong, especially something that might damage the image of the organization, he has to make amends, often in the form of a substantial contribution. But now the situation was reversed, Beghe maintained. He proposed that the church buy some property and lease it to him at a negligible rate. “You guys don’t have any policies to make up the damage, so I’m doing this for your own good—and for mine,” he explained to Davis and others. “Because I don’t have a policy of taking it in the ass.” 4 While talking to Haggis, Beghe was reluctant to use the word “brainwashing”—“whatever the fuck that is”—but he did say that somehow his mind had been taken over. “You have all these thoughts, all these ways of looking at things, that are L. Ron Hubbard’s,” he explained. “You think you’re becoming more you, but within that is an implanted thing, which is You the Scientologist.” Haggis was disturbed by Beghe’s account of what had happened after he left the church. He claimed that none of his Scientology friends would talk to him, his son had been kicked out of school, he was being followed by private investigators and threatened with lawsuits. Perhaps because Haggis had never been as much of a true believer as some members, he didn’t nurse the same sense of betrayal. “I didn’t feel that some worm had buried itself in my ear, and if you plucked it out you would find L. Ron Hubbard and his thought,” he said. But he did feel that he had been cautioned. “TOMMY,” HAGGIS’S LETTER of August 19, 2009, abruptly begins. “As you know, for ten months now I have been writing to ask you to make a public statement denouncing the actions of the Church of Scientology of San Diego. Their public sponsorship of Proposition 8, which succeeded in taking away the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens of California— rights that were granted them by the Supreme Court of our state—is a stain on the integrity of our organization and a stain on us personally. Our public association with that hate-filled legislation shames us.” The tone of the letter is both aggrieved and outraged, mixing Haggis’s personal experiences with the results of his one-man investigation into the church. He mentions how Katy Haggis’s friends had turned against her when she came out to them as a lesbian. Katy had told him that another friend of hers had applied to be the assistant for Jenna and Bodhi Elfman, the Scientology acting couple. Lauren Haigney, Tom Cruise’s niece in the Sea Org, had been assigned to vet the applicants.

• From Between Us

  Another example from our interviews illustrates the outside-in emotions well. Chiemi, a twenty-year-old Japanese student who lives with her grandparents, tells us she always tries to be home on time for dinner. Recently though, she has joined an extracurricular activity for which she stays out late a couple of days a week. When she mentions to her grandparents that she will be late that night, they complain that she is “never on time.” Chiemi is annoyed about this exaggeration, but she tries to understand her grandparents: They must be worrying; they surely mean well; they care about her. When the interviewer asks her what she does or tells her grandparents, Chiemi answers she never mentions to them that she is annoyed: How can I say . . . I want to say “I want to have more fun, I want to have fun until late at night.” But at the same time, you know, I know how much they worry about me. So I try not to say anything like that. I just try to laugh it off/smile it away. Chiemi accommodates to her grandparents’ wishes, and starts making even more of an effort to come home early. She plays her role. Sen’s relatives, the Utku Inuit, Hiroto, and Chiemi are all focused outwards, not inwards. When an OURS model of emotions prevails, emotional acting is Situated: individuals accommodate to the social norms, expectations, and roles in their social context. What matters is whether your emotions match up to others’ needs and expectations, whether you fit with the norms, and whether you fulfill your role. In fact, in a large-scale international questionnaire study, psychologist David Matsumoto and his colleagues found emotional suppression to be highest in national cultures that are strong on social order, norms and traditions, and power hierarchy, and lowest in national cultures that prioritize the individual and their feelings. Does this mean that Sen’s relatives, the Utku Inuit, Hiroto, Chiemi, or all the international students in order- and hierarchy-loving countries feel alienated from their feelings? When Sen’s relatives showed no emotion, did they feel unnatural? When the Utku Inuit stayed calm in the face of frustration, did they feel alienated? When Hiroto nodded in the committee, or Chiemi smiled to her grandparents, did they feel phony? Does it make them unhappy to not express their emotions? Does their anger or grief resurface at other, improper times?

• From Going Clear (2013)

  She pleaded with him to undergo marriage counseling at the church. Cruise refused, publicly declaring, “ Nic knows exactly why we are getting a divorce.” This was a decisive moment in Cruise’s relationship with Scientology. Rathbun provided the star with more than two hundred hours of auditing over the next couple of years. From July through Thanksgiving, 2001, Rathbun was with Cruise at the Celebrity Centre frequently, doing auditing rundowns and the PTS/SP (Potential Trouble Source/Suppressive Persons) course. He paired Cruise with another actor, Jason Beghe, to do training drills; for instance, Beghe would think of a hypothetical date, which Cruise had to figure out, using the E-Meter, an exercise Cruise found really frustrating. A young man named Tommy Davis began acting as Rathbun’s assistant. He brought sandwiches and helped out with Cruise’s children, making sure they were receiving church services. Despite his youth, Davis was already a unique figure in the church: He was a second-generation Scientologist, a Sea Org member, and the scion of the Hollywood elite. His mother was Anne Archer, a talented and popular actress who had starred in a number of movies, including Patriot Games and Fatal Attraction , for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She had been a deeply committed Scientologist since she began studying with Milton Katselas at the Beverly Hills Playhouse in her twenties. She had always been proud to associate herself with Scientology in public, speaking at innumerable events on behalf of the church. Her son Tommy embodied the aspiration of the church to establish itself in the Hollywood community; indeed, he was living proof that it had done so. He had known Cruise since he was eighteen years old, so it was natural that he soon became the church’s liaison with the star, reporting directly to Shelly Miscavige. He had a relationship with Cruise similar to the one that Spanky Taylor once enjoyed with John Travolta. Rathbun assigned Davis to sit with Cruise in the parking lot of Home Depot in Hollywood while the star was doing his Tone Scale drills—guessing the emotional state of random people coming out of the store. Cruise then took a break to promote his movie Vanilla Sky . The following February through April 2002, Cruise and Rathbun were once again working together full-time, mostly at Gold Base. Cruise was preparing for his role in The Last Samurai , directed by Ed Zwick, and between sessions with Rathbun he would go into the courtyard to practice his swordplay. Cruise had begun dating the Spanish actress Penélope Cruz, and in the fall of 2001 Rathbun began auditing her as well. At the same time, he was still acting as Nicole Kidman’s Ethics Officer in the church, even though she and Cruise were engaged in a bitter divorce proceeding. One of the issues was whether the children would be educated in schools using the Hubbard method, which Kidman opposed. That was another battle she lost.

• From Between Us

  In a study with an unknown politician (played by an actor), American students judged the angry (as compared to sad) politician more competent and worthy of their vote. In another study, she found that angry employees were more likely to be promoted in a tech company. And in yet another study, angry job applicants (again as played by actors) were more likely to be hired, and to be offered both a better job and a better salary than sad job applicants, even if all other qualities were the same. And remember who got the better business deal? The angry person who moves to not accept the deal if they do not get what they see as fair. Voters, managers, job committee members, and business negotiators seem to honor the power moves of the angry individuals (in the polls, in the hierarchy of the company, and at the negotiation table). There is an important caveat, however. Anger will only work if others yield to your claims: when anger is contested, you lose control of the direction in which the relationship changes. Anger may backfire. I referred above to women in the Victorian era. Their role of providing selfless love to their children and spouses was in direct contradiction with claims of entitlement and nonacceptance. A good wife maintained her temper even as her husband lost his, and a good mother loved her children, and was both calm and cheerful. Anger, the opposite, “showed bad character, pure and simple.” Similarly, in many cultures anger is so demonized that even the mildest sign of arousal may be met with disapproval. But in many other cases, anger is negotiated—not always successfully. Let’s start with contemporary examples. Larissa Tiedens’s research had focused on male politicians and male job candidates. But some ten years later, two of her colleagues, Victoria Brescoll and Eric Uhlmann, were struck by the fate of another Clinton. Hillary Clinton was in a bind. As one opinion maker put it: If she seemed angry, she was “a witch and a shrew”; if she did not, she looked “timid and girly.” This observation spurred a series of studies, comparing angry expressions in men and women. In one study, Brescoll and Uhlmann literally replicated Tiedens’s study with job applicants, this time including both male and female job applicants. They replicated her findings for male job applicants who fared better if they expressed anger than not, but not for female job applicants who did not benefit from an angry expression at all. Anger did not successfully claim entitlement for women; there is an emotional glass ceiling. Black Americans suffer the same fate, or worse. The legitimacy of their anger is often challenged, and any anger is held against them. In a 2020 Op-Ed in the New York Times, political scientist Davin Phoenix makes this point precisely: . . . America has very different standards for who gets the privilege of expressing anger and defiance, without fear of grave consequence.

• From Between Us

  If my husband contests my anger by yelling back, and saying that he is the one to be angry, that this is no way to come home, that my whining drives him mad as well as making him angry, I may have to choose another stance: swallow my anger, apologize. Over time, my husband’s responses to my anger will also predict whether I become angry in similar situations in the future. In my cultural context, being angry is acceptable under these circumstances. Communicating to my husband that I am angry may not be pleasant in the moment, but it tells him to respect me, and ultimately may result in a more honest and satisfying relationship between us, one in which both of us get our needs met. The act of nonacceptance can be “right” when the relationship goal is that both partners express their own needs, and that each makes sure that their individual goals are met. Anger is considered a useful and normal, if not pleasant, emotion in many Western European and American contexts. In adolescence, anger and conflict are often accepted as necessary steps towards the important developmental goal of independence (see chapter 3 ). Even beyond adolescence, anger has a good role to play in a variety of relationships, private and public: it sets clear boundaries in both. It is the “normal” response to goal-blockage or frustration: a representative study of middle-aged U.S. Americans reportedly acted angry more often, the more frustration they met. Anger has not always been an acceptable emotion, not even in the United States. In the nineteenth-century Victorian era, women’s selfless love was the cornerstone of marriage. Had I been a Victorian woman, I would have shouldered the inconvenience of my husband being late without ever becoming angry. My dignity would have consisted of meeting my role obligations and serving my husband selflessly. I would have had no reason, but also no justification, for being angry. And the slightest reference to anger might have prompted condemnation. Before the end of the seventeenth century, Western diarists had difficulty describing themselves as angry; they lacked the entitlement that is foundational to anger. Roger Lowe, a seventeenth-century shopkeeping apprentice who kept a diary, described many situations that were noxious and arousing, but he never described himself as angry. Some of his most difficult interactions were with his master, who did not do much to teach him the art of shopkeeping: “I thought it sad for me to be ingaged 9 yeares . . . to sell my Master’s ware . . . and get no knowledge.” When his master promises and then refuses to give him a new set of clothes, he also describes his feelings as grief: “soe I would have none and parted with grieve.”

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Miscavige pulled Rinder out of the Hole and ordered him to help Davis deal with the BBC, although he added, “ You’re Tommy Davis’s servant.” Sweeney immediately sensed that Rinder had been demoted. Rinder was “ gaunt, hollow-eyed, strange with a hint of niceness.” Tommy was now “the top dog, gleaming teeth, snappily suited, charming but creepily so.” When Sweeney refused to accede to the church’s restrictions (mainly that he agree not to use the word “cult” in his report) and began independently reporting on the accusations of defectors, he was shadowed by private investigators. A Scientology film crew showed up to document the making of the BBC documentary. Cameras were pointed at cameras. Davis appeared unannounced at Sweeney’s hotel and even traveled across the country to disrupt his interviews with Scientology dissidents. Sweeney had covered wars in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya, but he had never had such emotional and psychological pressure placed upon him. During these confrontations, Rinder trailed behind Davis, staring blankly into space as Davis goaded the reporter, inches from his face. When Sweeney suggested that Scientology is a “ sadistic cult,” Davis, wearing sunglasses, checked with his cameraman to see that the camcorder was running, then said, “Now listen to me for a second. You have no right to say what is and what isn’t a religion. The Constitution of the United States of America guarantees one’s right to practice and believe freely in this country. And the definition of religion is very clear. And it’s not defined by John Sweeney. For you to repeatedly refer to my faith in those terms is so derogatory and so offensive and so bigoted. And the reason you kept repeating it is ’cause you wanted a reaction like you’re getting right now. Well, buddy, you got it! Right here, right now, I’m angry! Real angry!” Davis turned and walked away, trailed by Sweeney, who protested, “It’s your turn to listen to me! I’m a British subject.…” Another confrontation took place at the “ Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” exhibit in Hollywood. Davis once again moved in, nose to nose with Sweeney. “You’re accusing members of my religion of brainwashing!” He was referring to an earlier interview Sweeney had conducted with another Scientologist. “No, Tommy,” Sweeney responded, his voice rising, “you were not there—” “Brainwashing is a crime,” Davis said. “Listen to me! You were not there! At the beginning! Of the interview!” Sweeney shouted in an oddly slow cadence. “You did not hear! Or record! The interview!” “Do you understand that brainwashing is a crime?” Davis said, unfazed by Sweeney’s enraged screams. Davis’s composure and his spirited defense of his church made quite a contrast with the sputtering and eventually deeply chagrined reporter, who apologized to BBC viewers on the air. In March 2007, John Travolta’s new movie, Wild Hogs , a comedy about two middle-aged men who decide to become bikers, was scheduled to open in Britain.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  But listen, all this is nothing... I make allowance for his imagination. It’s what happened after that that drives me crazy. All night long I’ve been tossing about, playing with these images he left in my mind. I can’t get it out of my head. It sounds so real to me that if it didn’t happen I could strangle the bastard. A guy has no right to invent things like that. Or else he’s diseased. ... “What I’m getting at is that moment when, he says, he got down on his knees and with those two skinny fingers of his he spread her cunt open. You remember that? He says she was sitting there with her legs dangling over the arms of the chair and suddenly, he says, he got an inspiration. This was after he had given her a couple of lays already... after he had made that little spiel about Matisse. He gets down on his knees—get this!—and with his two fingers... just the tips of them, mind you... he opens the little petals... squish-squish... just like that. A sticky little sound... almost inaudible. Squish-squish! Jesus, I’ve been hearing it all night long! And then he says—as if that weren’t enough for me—then he tells me he buried his head in her muff. And when he did that, so help me Christ, if she didn’t swing her legs around his neck and lock him there. That finished me! Imagine it! Imagine a fine, sensitive woman like that swinging her legs around his neck! There’s something poisonous about it. It’s so fantastic that it sounds convincing. If he had only told me about the champagne and the ride in the Bois and even that scene on the balcony I could have dismissed it. But this thing is so incredible that it doesn’t sound like a lie any more. I can’t believe that he ever read anything like that anywhere, and I can’t see what could have put the idea into his head unless there was some truth in it. With a little prick like that, you know, anything can happen. He may not have fucked her at all, but she may have let him diddle her... you never know with these rich cunts what they might expect you to do. ...” When he finally pulls himself out of bed and starts to shave the afternoon is already well advanced. I’ve finally succeeded in switching his mind to other things, to the moving principally. The maid comes in to see if he’s ready—he’s supposed to have vacated the room by noon. He’s just in the act of slipping into his trousers. I’m a little surprised that he doesn’t excuse himself, or turn away.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  It was raining and so we covered ourselves with newspapers. Weren’t there more than a half hour, I imagine, when a cop came along and, without a word of warning, gave us such a sound fanning that we were up and on our feet in a jiffy, and dancing a bit too, though we weren’t in any mood for dancing. I felt so goddamned sore and miserable, so dejected, so lousy, after being whacked over the ass by that half-witted bastard, that I could have blown up the City Hall. The next morning, in order to get even with these hospitable sons of bitches, we presented ourselves bright and early at the door of a Catholic priest. This time I let Joe do the talking. He was Irish and he had a bit of a brogue. He had very soft, blue eyes, too, and he could make them water a bit when he wanted to. A sister in black opened the door for us; she didn’t ask us inside, however. We were to wait in the vestibule until she went and called for the good father. In a few minutes he came, the good father, puffing like a locomotive. And what was it we wanted disturbing his likes at that hour of the morning? Something to eat and a place to flop, we answered innocently. And where did we hail from, the good father wanted to know at once. From New York. From New York, eh? Then ye’d better be gettin’ back there as fast as ye kin, me lads, and without another word the big, bloated turnip-faced bastard shoved the door in our face. About an hour later, drifting around helplessly like a couple of drunken schooners, we happened to pass by the rectory again. So help me God if the big, lecherous-looking turnip wasn’t backing out of the alley in a limousine! As he swung past us he blew a cloud of smoke into our eyes. As though to say—“That for you!” A beautiful limousine it was, with a couple of spare tires in the back, and the good father sitting at the wheel with a big cigar in his mouth. Must have been a Corona Corona, so fat and luscious it was. Sitting pretty he was, and no two ways about it. I couldn’t see whether he had skirts on or not. I could only see the gravy trickling from his lips—and the big cigar with that fifty-cent aroma. All the way to Dijon I got to reminiscing about the past. I thought of all the things I might have said and done, which I hadn’t said or done, in the bitter, humiliating moments when just to ask for a crust of bread is to make yourself less than a worm. Stone sober as I was, I was still smarting from those old insults and injuries.

• From Between Us

  A New Culture Honest authenticity is a Dutch virtue. This is well illustrated by the lyrics of a famous Dutch song (partially represented as): Life is a wonderful thing But spread your wings and don’t get trapped in a cage Have the courage to live life to the fullest . . . Don’t give a damn what others may think . . . Be a prince on your own square meter! By doing as you like and showing your true feelings, even if others may not like them or even if they cast you in an unfavorable light, you are true to yourself and honest in the relationship. I embodied this special Dutch form of “intellectual autonomy” when I left the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, you do what you feel like, but you also dig in your heels when you do not like what is happening. By feeling and expressing indignation and anger, you go against the grain, but this does not mean that you are antisocial. To the contrary, anger and indignation provide the opportunity for “real” connection, as they show you authentically. During my ten years in North Carolina, I gradually shed some of the “honest” anger and indignation. I shed them because they conflicted with the relationship goals of respect and politeness in my North Carolinian environment. In a Southern culture of honor, anger and strong indignation marked discord and were reserved for occasions where others had challenged your reputation or had treated you without due respect. Being angry and indignant were a last resort to help you avoid becoming a laughingstock. They were not signs of being merely opinionated and authentic, as they had been in the Netherlands; they certainly did not help to authentically connect with others, as they had helped me back in Europe. I also shed these emotions because no one else around me focused on self-expression the way I did, and because self-expression of this kind did not get positive responses. With help of subtle and not-so-subtle feedback, I came to see my Dutch way of self-expression as too forceful and unnecessarily impolite. There was the clearly written feedback on my teaching evaluations: “She is blunt at times” or “Professor Mesquita tried to impose her beliefs.” But there must have been more subtle signs as well—from colleagues, friends, my children’s schoolteachers—that I came to interpret as disapproval. A journalist from my university’s monthly magazine nodded politely when, during an interview, I volunteered my criticism on the university’s research policy. He seemed in a hurry to leave the topic behind us.