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 The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Both sexes often experience at least a hint of anger when they violate prohibitions. It asserts the primacy of the self over restrictive rules and regulations—and their perceived sources. More often than not, embedded in the joy of violational sex is an implied or direct “Fuck you” to prudes and naysayers everywhere. Anger says, “Your stupid rules don’t apply to me; I’m in control of my sex life!” Thus it is a key emotion behind sexual acts or fantasies of defiance and rebellion. THE RHYTHMS OF EMOTIONAs you’ve focused on each of the emotional aphrodisiacs, you’ve probably been giving considerable thought to the feelings that have played a part in your own peak turn-ons. To facilitate your observations about the emotional aspects of your eroticism, I suggest that you use a simple rating scale from the SES to help give you a clearer picture of which emotions have energized each of your memorable encounters and fantasies. The scale ranges from zero (for emotions that were not at all important) to four (for emotions that were very important). Begin by rating the importance of the response emotions in each of your peak turn-ons. As I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, one or more of these feelings is mentioned by almost everyone in The Group. They are the emotional rewards of memorable sex: Response Emotions Not at all important [-0-1-2-3-4-] Very important Exuberance Related emotions: joy, celebration, surprise, freedom, euphoria, and pride. Satisfaction Related emotions: contentment, happiness, relaxation, and security. Now rate the importance of the emotional aphrodisiacs in each of your most memorable encounters and fantasies: Emotional Aphrodisiacs Not at all important [0-1-2-3-4-] Very important Closeness Related emotions: love, tenderness, affection, connection, unity (oneness), and appreciation. Anxiety Related emotions: fear, vulnerability, weakness, worry, and nervousness. Guilt Related emotions: remorse, naughtiness, dirtiness, and shame. Anger Related emotions: hostility, contempt, hatred, resentment, and revenge. These are the paradoxical emotions; they can either intensify or inhibit arousal. Consequently, rating them may be a bit more complicated. For one thing, the importance of any of the paradoxical emotions in peak sex is not necessarily related to its strength. This is especially true of the unexpected aphrodisiacs—anxiety, guilt, and anger—which are most likely to have had an aphrodisiac effect in their more subdued forms. Whereas few people have ever experienced “too much” satisfaction during or after peak sex, most of us have experienced too much anxiety, guilt, or anger. You may even recall instances when you became so emotionally enmeshed with a lover that your closeness turned you off.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Katy says that Lauren wrote up a report saying that Katy’s friend was known to hang out with lesbians. The friend did not get the job, Katy said. 5 Haggis also recounted the scene at John Travolta and Kelly Preston’s house, when another Scientologist made the slur about the gay waiter. “I admire John and Kelly for many reasons; one of them is the way they handled that,” Haggis stated. “You and I both know there has been a hidden anti-gay sentiment in the church for a long time. I have been shocked on too many occasions to hear Scientologists make derogatory remarks about gay people, and then quote LRH in their defense.” He said that the church’s decision not to denounce the bigots who supported Proposition 8 was cowardly. “Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent.” He referenced Davis’s interview on CNN. “I saw you deny the church’s policy of disconnection. You said straight-out there was no such policy, that it did not exist,” he wrote. “I was shocked. We all know this policy exists. I didn’t have to search for verification. I didn’t have to look any further than my own home.” He reminded Davis of Deborah’s experience with her parents. “Although it caused her terrible personal pain, my wife broke off all contact with them.... That’s not ancient history, Tommy. It was a year ago.” He added: “To see you lie so easily, I am afraid to ask myself: what else are you lying about?” Then, he said, he had read the series of articles in the St. Petersburg Times. “They left me dumbstruck and horrified. These were not the claims made by ‘outsiders’ looking to dig up dirt against us. These accusations were made by top international executives who had devoted most of their lives to the church. Say what you will about them now, these were staunch defenders of the church, including Mike Rinder, the church’s official spokesman for 20 years! “Tommy, if only a fraction of these accusations are true, we are talking about serious, indefensible human and civil rights violations.” He continued: And when I pictured you assuring me that it is all lies, that this is nothing but an unfounded and vicious attack by a group of disgruntled employees, I am afraid that I saw the same face that looked in the camera and denied the policy of disconnection. I heard the same voice that professed outrage at our support of Proposition 8, who promised to correct it, and did nothing. I was left feeling outraged, and frankly, more than a little stupid. Haggis was especially disturbed by the way the church’s Freedom magazine had responded to the newspaper’s revelations.

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

  the essence of the Minorite rule, that Christ was still living at the time the lance was thrust into his side, and that the rational soul has not the form of a body. Olivi’s memory was defended by Ubertino da Casale, and the council passed no sentence upon his person. In the bull Exivi de paradiso,123 issued 1813, and famous in the history of the Franciscan order, Clement seemed to take the side of the Spirituals. It forbade the order or any of its members to accept bequests, possess vineyards, sell products from their gardens, build fine churches, or go to law. It permitted only "the use of necessity," usus arctus or pauper, and nothing beyond. The Minorites were to wear no shoes, ride only in cases of necessity, fast from Nov. 1 until Christmas, as well as every Friday, and possess a single mantle with a hood and one without a hood. Clement ordered the new general, Alexander of Alessandra, to turn over to Olivi’s followers the convents of Narbonne, Carcassonne and Béziers, but also ordered the Inquisition to punish the Spirituals who refused submission. In spite of the papal decree, the controversy was still being carried on within the order with great heat, when John XXII. came to the throne. In the decretal Quorumdam exegit, and in the bull Sancta romana et universalis ecclesia, Dec. 30, 1317, John took a positive position against the Spirituals. A few weeks later, he condemned a formal list of their errors and abolished all the convents under Spiritual management. From this time on dates the application of the name Fraticelli124 to the Spirituals. They refused to submit, and took the position that even a pope had no right to modify the Rule of St. Francis. Michael of Cesena, the general of the order, defended them. Sixty-four of their number were summoned to Avignon. Twenty-five refused to yield, and passed into the hands of the Inquisition. Four were burnt as martyrs at Marseilles, May 7, 1318. Others fled to Sicily.125 The chief interest of the controversy was now shifted to the strictly theological question whether Christ and his Apostles observed complete poverty. This dispute threatened to rend the wing of the Conventuals itself. Michael of Cesena, Ockam, and others, took the position that Christ and his Apostles not only held no property as individuals, but held none in common. John, opposing this view, gave as arguments the gifts of the Magi, that Christ possessed clothes and bought food, the purse of Judas, and Paul’s labor for a living. In the bull Cum inter nonnullos, 1323, and other bulls, John declared it heresy to hold that Christ and the Apostles held no possessions. Those who resisted this interpretation were pronounced, 1324, rebels and heretics. John went farther, and gave back to the order the right of possessing goods in fee simple, a right which Innocent IV.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  One might argue that almost everybody writing poetry in English, and p er haps in most ot h e r European languages as well, has been i nfluenced by th e p oetics of this great pair. Many sh are the opposition to i ndustrial civilization; but not all by any means concur in the politics. Adorno and Horkheimer show early on how some of the key features of this modernism can be integrated into a stance on the left. The reactions and prolongation s differ greatly dependi n g on what they associate and dis sociate. There is a kind of response which associated the epiphanies of 'pure' auto-telic poet ry with reaction and anti-humanism, and which tries to recover a public poetry, one which could be part of a conversation between poet and the broader public of a nation or class. Thi s p oetry turns away from epiphany; it aims to reveal, or celebrate, or make m ore intense and vivid some dimension of public experience. Something of this impetus made Auden write: All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The Romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the l ie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky; There is no such thing as the Stat e And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no :Choice To the citize n or t he police; We must love one another or die. 74 Br echt in anothe r way was mov ed by this to a more aggressive rejection of 'p ur e p oetry '. What these writers have taken from modernism is a facet of its n eg ative movement, the p itiless stripping of Romantic illusion and confront i n g us with a hard-edged reality . Like the mod ernists t hey retrieve and release 48 4 • S U B TL ER LANG U A GE S a certain experience; but it is not so much the inner dimension of meanin g which is restored to vividness as common realities and hopes, pains an d fulfilments. In the same vein in 1935 Pablo Neruda called for an "impure poet ry", on e which was to be "ravaged by the labour of our hands as by an acid, saturated with sweat and smoke, a poetry that smells of urine and white lilies, a poetry on which every human activity, permitted or forbidden, has imprinted its mark". Later, when he joined the Communist p arty, he supplemented this with a ringing attack on "Gidean intellectualists, Rilkean obfuscators of lif e, specious existentialist jugglers, surrealist poppy flowers, bright only in y o ur graves, europeanizing modish carcas ses, pale maggots in the cheese of capitalism".

• From Between Us

  Andrew, a supervisor of an electrical department for the state government, was called in to solve a problem in some public building. Against protocol, a security guard in the building demanded that Andrew justify his intervention for a fire report. Andrew declined, but the security guard insisted, and asked for Andrew’s qualifications, which Andrew perceived as “overstepping his bounds.” I was very angry . . . that anybody . . . would even question my ability. . . . And . . . to me [he] would be a subordinate . . . and so that seemed to be the worst that he was kind of on a lower level than me questioning me. I think he was trying to maybe get ahead, thinking that would help him in his job. Andrew lashes out briefly, but then withdraws from the conversation. Bob, Andrew’s friend and colleague, steps in on Andrew’s behalf, and asks the guard for his ID. Andrew reports that, as a result, [The guard] ended up getting fired over it. . . . He ended up losing his job over it, . . . he was very aggressive, yeah. Like Jim before, Andrew attributes improper motives (“he was trying to maybe get ahead”) and norm-violating behavior (“he was very aggressive”) to the security guard. These attributions justify his anger, while also eschewing challenges to his self-esteem. Our U.S. respondents often indicated that they did not think much good of the people who had offended them, and understandably, they distanced themselves (as did Jim), or took stance against the offender (as did Andrew). On the Japanese side, anger looked very different. Remember that angry behavior is considered “immature” in Japan. The Japanese interviews referred to different situations, so a direct comparison of emotional episodes in the same circumstances is not possible. Yet, the gestalt of the Japanese “anger” episodes was really different. Emiko, a Japanese woman in her thirties, had been waiting at home for her sister to call and make final arrangements to go out for dinner with their father, but her sister did not call until the next morning. Emiko was clearly inconvenienced, and yes, offended: I thought she would be coming, and so I was stuck at the house and unable to make plans, but I did not hear from her all day . . . my father was coming to Tokyo, and the three of us had made a promise to eat out together. At the very least, she could have let us know if she was not coming but she did not. . . . I ended up going to the meeting place myself. If it had just been me waiting, that would have been bearable–I would have thought to myself “as usual”—but the promise included our father, so . . .

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

  He was given episcopal consecration and thus the three sees were joined in the hands of a man who was only 24. But Albrecht’s confirmation as archbishop was not secured without the payment of a high price. The price,10,000 ducats, was set by the authorities in Rome and did not originate with the German embassy, which had gone to prosecute the case. The proposition came from the Vatican itself and at the very moment the Lateran council was voting measures for the reform of the Church. It carried with it the promise of a papal indulgence for the archbishop’s territories. The elector Joachim expressed some scruples of conscience over the purchase, but it went through. Schulte exclaims that, if ever a benefice was sold for gold, this was true in the case of Albrecht.1332 The bull of indulgences was issued March 31,1516, and granted the young German prelate the right to dispose of pardons throughout the half part of Germany, the period being fixed at 8 years. The bull offered, "complete absolution—plenissimam indulgentiam — and remission of all sins," sins both of the living and the dead. A private paper, emanating from Leo and dated two weeks later, April 15, mentions the 10,000 ducats proposed by the Vatican as the price of Albrecht’s confirmation as having been already placed in Leo’s hands.1333 To enable him to pay the full amount of 30,000 ducats his ecclesiastical dignities had cost, Albrecht borrowed from the Fuggers and, to secure funds, he resorted to a two-years’ tax of two-fifths which he levied on the priests, the convents and other religious institutions of his dioceses. In 1517, "out of regard for his Holiness, the pope, and the salvation and comfort of his people," Joachim opened his domains to the indulgence-hawkers. It was his preaching in connection with this bull that won for Tetzel an undying notoriety. Oldecop, writing in 1516, of what he saw, said that people, in their eagerness to secure deliverance from the guilt and penalty of sin and to get their parents and friends out of purgatory, were putting money into the chest all day long. The description of Tetzel’s sale of indulgences and Luther’s protest are a part of the history of the Reformation. It remains, however, yet to be said, as belonging to the mediaeval period, that the grace of indulgences was popularly believed to extend to sins, not yet committed. Such a belief seems to have been encouraged by the pardon-preachers, although there is no documentary proof that any papal authorities made such a promise. In writing to the archbishop of Mainz, Oct. 31,1517, Luther had declared that it was announced by the indulgence-hawkers that no sin was too great to be covered by the indulgence, nay, not even the sin of violating the Virgin, if such a thing had been possible.

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

  18 no less than four thousand copies—an enormous number for those days—were published, and a new edition called for, besides reprints which soon appeared in Leipzig and Strassburg. The book is a most stirring appeal to the German nobles, who, through Hutten and Sickingen, had recently offered their armed assistance to Luther. He calls upon them to take the much-needed Reformation of the Church into their own hands; not, indeed, by force of arms, but by legal means, in the fear of God, and in reliance upon his strength. The bishops and clergy refused to do their duty; hence the laity must come to the front of the battle for the purity and liberty of the Church. Luther exposes without mercy the tyranny of the Pope, whose government, he says, "agrees with the government of the apostles as well as Lucifer with Christ, hell with heaven, night with day; and yet he calls himself Christ’s Vicar, and the Successor of Peter." The book is divided into three parts: — 1. In the first part, Luther pulls down what he calls the three walls of Jericho, which the papacy had erected in self-defense against any reformation; namely, the exclusion of the laity from all control, the exclusive claim to interpret the Scriptures, and the exclusive claim to call a Council. Under the first head, he brings out clearly and strongly, in opposition to priestcraft, the fundamental Protestant principle of the general priesthood of all baptized Christians. He attacks the distinction of two estates, one spiritual, consisting of Pope, bishops, priests, and monks; and one temporal, consisting of princes, lords, artificers, and peasants. There is only one body, under Christ the Head. All Christians belong to the spiritual estate. Baptism, gospel and faith,—these alone make spiritual and Christian people.245 We are consecrated priests by baptism; we are a royal priesthood, kings and priests before God (1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 5:10). The only difference, then, between clergy and laity, is one of office and function, not of estate. Luther represents here the ministerial office as the creature of the congregation; while at a later period, warned by democratic excesses, and the unfitness of most of the congregations of that age for a popular form of government, he laid greater stress upon the importance of the ministry as an institution of Christ. This idea of the general priesthood necessarily led to the emancipation of the laity from priestly control, and their participation in the affairs of the Church, although this has been but very imperfectly carried out in Protestant state churches. It destroyed the distinction between higher (clerical and monastic), and lower morality; it gave sanctity to the natural relations, duties, and virtues; it elevated the family as equal in dignity to virginity; it promoted general intelligence, and sharpened the sense of individual responsibility to the Church.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  God knows I didn’t want to be in love. It was cliché—men and women and their social conformities to celebrate love. Engagement pictures made me want to vomit—especially when they were taken on railroad tracks. I always pictured Thomas the Train rolling over them, his smiley blue face beaded with their blood. I didn’t want to want those things. Love was good enough, without the three-layered almond/fondant wedding cake and the sparkly blood diamonds encased in white gold. Just love. And I loved Nick. Hard. Nick loved wedding cake. He told me so. He also told me that he’d like for us to have one someday. In that moment, my heart rate slowed, my eyes glazed and I saw my entire life flash before my eyes. It was pretty—because it was with Nick. But I hated it. It made me angry that he’d expect me to live that way. The way normal people lived. “I don’t want to get married,” I told him, trying to control my voice. We used to have this game we’d play. As soon as we’d see each other, we’d dialogue the physical description of what the other person looked like. It was a writer’s game. He’d always start with, button nose, limpid eyes, full lips, freckles. Now he was looking at me like he’d never seen me before. “Well, what do you want to do then?” We were sitting on our knees in front of his coffee table, sipping warm sake and eating lo mein with our fingers. “I want to eat with you, and fuck and see things that are beautiful.” “Why can’t we do that after the wedding?” he asked. He licked each of his fingers and then mine, and leaned back against the couch. “Because I respect love too much to get married.” “That’s bitter.” I stared at him. Was he kidding? “I don’t think I’m bitter just because I don’t want the same things you want.” “We can come to a compromise. Be like Persephone and Hades,” he said. I laughed. Too much sake. “You’re not brooding enough to be Hades, and unlike Persephone, I don’t have a mother.” My mouth clamped shut and I started sweating. Nick’s head immediately tilted to the right. I wiped my mouth with a napkin and stood up, grabbing the containers of food and carrying them to the kitchen. He followed me in there. I wanted to kick him off my heels. Nick’s mother was still married to his father. Thirty-five years. And from what I’d seen they were happy, uncomplicated years. Nick was so well balanced it was ridiculous. “Is she dead?” He had to ask twice. “To me.” “Where is she?” “Off being selfish somewhere.” “Aha,” he said. “Do you want dessert?”

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Christmas comes. Isaac is very quiet. But I was wrong; we don’t eat beans. He cooks us a feast over our little makeshift stove in the attic: canned corn, spam, green beans and, to top it all off, a can of pumpkin pie filling. For breakfast. For a moment, we are happy. Then Isaac looks at me and says, “When I first opened my eyes and saw you standing over me, I felt like I took my first breath in three years.” I grind my teeth. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! “We only knew each other for three months before this,” I say. “You don’t know me.” But, even as I say it, I know it’s not true. “You were just my doctor…” He’s wearing the expression of someone being slapped over and over again. I slap him once more to put an end to this. “You took things too far.” He walks out before I can say any more. I bury my face. “Fuck you, Isaac,” I say into my pillow. At noon the lights turn on. Isaac’s head appears through the trapdoor a minute later. I wonder where he’s been. My bet is on the carousel room. He takes one look at my face and says, “You knew.” I knew. “I suspected.” He looks incredulous. “That the power would come back?” “That something would happen,” I correct him. I knew that the power would come back. He disappears again, and I hear his steps pounding down the stairs. Clomp, clomp, clomp. I count them until he reaches the bottom. Then I hear the front door hit the wall as he swings it wide. I flinch at all the cold air he’s letting in, then remember that the power is back. HEAT! LIGHT! A WORKING TOILET! I feel impassive. This is a game. The zookeeper gave us light. As a gift. On Christmas Day. It’s symbolic. He thinks light came into my life on Christmas Day when I met Isaac. “You’re just a badly written character,” I say out loud. “I’ll kill you off, my darling.” When Isaac comes back his face is ashen. “The zookeper was here,” he says. I get chills. They skitter up my legs and arms like little spiders. “How do you know?” He holds out his hand. “We have to go downstairs.”

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I moan. It’s an ugly, guttural sound. “Why did I forget all that?” I’m still treating her like she’s my shrink; asking her questions like she’s sane enough to know the answers. She’s your zookeeper. She tried to kill you. “It happens. We block out things that thrrreaten to break us. It’s the brain’s best defense mechanism.” I’m struggling for air. “This was all an experiment to you. You took advantage of your position. Of what I told you.” All my gusto is gone. I just need answers so I can get out of here. Get out of here and go where? Home, I tell myself. Whatever that is. “Do you remember what you asked me in our last session?” I stare at her blank faced. “You asked, ‘If there were a God, why would he let these terrible things happen to people?’” I remember. “With free will comes bad decisions; decisions to drink and drive and kill someone’s child. Decisions to murder. Decisions to choose whom we love, whom we spend our life with. If God decided to never let anything bad happen to people, he would have to take away their free will. He would become the dictator and they would be his puppets.” “Why are you talking about God? I want to talk about what you did to me!” And then I know. Saphira locking me in the house with Isaac, the man she believed was my safety and salvation, controlling the medicine, the food, what we saw, how we saw it—it was all her experimenting with free will. She became God. She’d said something once in one of our sessions: Picture yourself standing on a cliff where you not only fear falling, but dread the possibility of throwing yourself off. Nothing is holding you back, and you experience freedom. The cliff! Why hadn’t I seen it? “Do you know how many people there are just like you? I heard it every day; pain, sadness, regret. You wanted a second chance. So I gave it to you. I gave you not the person you wanted, but the person you needed.” I don’t know what to say. My ten minutes are almost over. “Don’t make out like you did this for me. You’re sick. You’re—” “You are sick, my dear,” she interrupts. “You were self destructing. Ready to die. I just gave you some perspective. Helped you to see the truth.” “What’s the truth?” “Isaac is your truth. You were too blinded by your past to see that.” I’m breathless. My mouth hangs open as I stare at her. “Isaac has a wife. He has a baby. You act like you care so much, but you did this to him, too. Made him suffer for no reason. He almost died!”

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Therefore, when he imposes punishments on them, it is not out of hatred of the people, but he does so simply out of concern for them.” 10 He should be impartial and unselfish, punishing friends and family if necessary and rewarding his enemies. A poem attributed to Han Fei gave the ruler’s wu wei almost mystical significance: By doing without knowledge, he possesses clear-sightedness, By doing without worthiness, he gets results, By doing without courage, he achieves strength. 11 The law was not supposed to be a method of punishment and suppression. It was an education that would accustom king and subjects to behave in a different way. Once this reformation was complete, there would be no further need for punishments; everybody would act in accordance with the best interests of the state. Yet for all his good intentions, Han Fei also suffered a violent end; he was slandered and imprisoned, and in 233, rather than submit to execution, accepted the option of committing suicide. Before he had become a Legalist, Han Fei had studied under the most distinguished Confucian philosopher of his time and probably acquired much of his idealism from his teacher. Xunzi (c. 340–245), a passionate, poetic, yet rigorously rational thinker, managed to absorb insights of other philosophers into his own Confucian perspective and created a powerful synthesis. 12 He did not think that Mohists, Yangists, and Legalists were wrong; they simply stressed only one side of a complex argument, and it was possible to learn something from them all. Xunzi was also profoundly influenced by Daoist ideas. His book was more cogently argued and organized than any other text of Axial Age China, yet at times his prose modulated easily into poetry and his logic into mystical insight. Xunzi was appalled by the new pragmatism, which he believed had led to a decline in moral standards. Everywhere he went he saw “scheming and plotting,” and the selfish pursuit of wealth, power, and luxury. 13 Because princes refused to allow themselves to be restrained by the li, they pursued their own ambitions ruthlessly, and violence and warfare became endemic. Xunzi did not accept the realism of the Legalists; he still believed that a compassionate king was the only person who could restore peace and order, but he was prepared to consider any system that might bring relief, even if it departed from traditional Confucian principles. Xunzi was an activist; he longed for a government post, but was no more successful than Confucius and Mencius. He was three times appointed master of the Jixia Academy, but had to leave Qi when its tyrannical King Min expelled the scholars from his kingdom. In 255, he moved to Chu, where the prime minister made him a magistrate, but he lost his post in 238 when his patron was assassinated.

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

  Those Christians who remained loyal to the Church but could see how the intrinsic violence of Christendom violated the gospel teaching were inevitably conflicted. Unable to admit that the “heretics” had a point, yet furious with them for drawing attention to their dilemma, they projected these sentiments outward, in forms monstrous and inhuman. There were paranoid fantasies of a highly organized, clandestine Catharist Church determined to destroy the human race and restore Satan’s kingdom.102 We shall see that similar conspiracy fears would later erupt in other societies that were going through a traumatic modernization process and would also result in violence. The Council of Rheims (1157) described the Cathars “hiding among the poor and under the veil of religion … moving from place to place and undermining the faith of simple people.”103 Soon Jews would be said to belong to a similar international conspiracy.104 Even a fair-minded man like Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, who claimed to be reaching out to the Muslim world with love rather than force, described Islam as a “heresy and diabolical sect” addicted to “bestial cruelty.”105 At the outset of the Second Crusade he wrote to King Louis VII of France that he hoped he would kill as many Muslims as Moses and Joshua had killed Amorites and Canaanites.106 During this period Satan, often pictured as a monstrous human being with horns and a tail, became a far more menacing figure in Western Christianity than in either Judaism or Islam. As they made their stressful transition from a political backwater to a major world power, Europeans were terrified of an unseen “common enemy,” representing what they could not accept in themselves and associated with absolute evil.107 [image file=image_rsrcDZA.jpg] Innocent III had achieved a virtual papal monarchy in Europe, but no other pope would match his power. Secular rulers, such as Louis VII of France (1137–80), Henry II of England (r. 1154–89), and Frederick II all challenged this papal supremacy. They had built powerful kingdoms with government institutions that could intrude more than ever before into the lives of ordinary people, so they were all zealous persecutors of “heretics” who threatened the social order.108 They were not “secularists” in our sense; they still regarded royal power as sacred and war as holy, but they had developed a Christian theology of war that was quite different from that of the official church. Again, we find it impossible to pinpoint a single, essentialist “Christian” attitude to war, fighting, and violence. The Christian template could be used to very different effect by different groups.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  “Why would you do that?” I cry. That was so cruel. I grab the only thing I see—a dishtowel—and I hold it against the cut that we made together. He has blood running down his chest, I have it running down my arm. It’s morbid and confusing. When I look up for his answer he is looking at me intently. “What did you feel?” he asks. I shake my head. I don’t know what he’s asking me. Does he need stitches? There must be a needle somewhere around here … thread. “What did you feel when that happened?” He’s trying to catch my eyes, but I can’t take my eyes from his blood. I don’t want the life to bleed out of Isaac. “You need stitches,” I say. “At least two…” “Senna, what did you feel?” It takes me a minute to focus. He really wants me to answer that? I open and close my mouth. “Hurt. I don’t want you to hurt. Why would you do that?” I am so angry. Confused. “Because that’s what I feel when you hurt yourself.” I drop the dishtowel. Nothing dramatic—it’s just become too heavy to hold along with my understanding. I look down at where it lies between my feet. There is a bright red stain on one side of it. Isaac bends to pick it up. He also picks up the knife and places it back in my hand. Grabbing my wrist, he leads me back to the table and firmly plants me in front of it. “Write,” he says, gesturing to the wood. “What?” He grabs the hand that’s holding the knife. I try to pull away again, but his eyes still me. “Trust me.” I stop fighting. He presses the tip into the wood this time. Carves a straight line. “Write here,” he says. I know what he’s telling me, but it’s not the same. “I don’t write on my body. I cut it.” “You write your pain on your skin. With a knife. Straight lines, deep lines, jagged lines. It’s just a different kind of word.” I get it. All at once. I feel grief for everything that I am. Landscape is playing in the background, a strange soundtrack, a constant soundtrack.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  51 Yahweh had annihilated the other deities and become in effect the only God, his vitality in sharp contrast with the lifeless, inanimate effigies of the Babylonian deities. 52 “I am Yahweh, unrivalled,” he announced proudly. “There is no other god besides me.” 53 This is the first unequivocal biblical assertion of monotheism, the belief that only one God exists. The doctrine is often seen as the great triumph of the Jewish Axial Age, but in the way that it is phrased, it seems to retreat from some fundamental Axial principles. Instead of looking forward to a period of universal peace and compassion, Second Isaiah’s aggressive deity looks back to the pre-Axial divine warrior: Yahweh advances like a hero, His fury is stirred like a warrior’s. He gives the war shout, raises hue and cry, Marches valiantly against his foes. 54 Unlike the self-emptying servant, this God cannot stop asserting himself: “I, I am Yahweh!” Where the servant refused to “break the crushed reed,” 55 this aggressive deity could not wait to see the goyim marching behind the Israelites in chains. Instead of recoiling from the violence, like so many of the other Axial sages, Second Isaiah gave it sacred endorsement. The prophet’s focus on the earthly city of Jerusalem also seemed to turn the clock back to an older, less developed theological vision. In India and China, the cult was being steadily internalized, and in Israel too Ezekiel’s mandala of a holy city had represented an interior, spiritual ascent to the divine. But the pivot of Second Isaiah’s hopes was the earthly Zion. Yahweh would work a miracle there, transforming its desolate ruins into an earthly paradise. The “glory” of Yahweh, which Ezekiel had seen leaving the city, would return to Mount Zion, and—most important—“all mankind shall see it.” 56 Second Isaiah was expecting something dramatic. Before the exile, the “glory” had been evoked and reenacted in the temple rituals, but in the restored Jerusalem (whose walls and battlements would be studded with precious jewels), the divine presence would be more tangible. The returned exiles would experience the glory directly, and because Yahweh would be with his people in such a public, incontrovertible way, they would be safe forever. No nation would dare to attack them again: Remote from oppression, you will have nothing to fear; Remote from terror, it will not approach you. . . . Not a weapon forged against you will succeed. 57 Second Isaiah’s promises were disconcertingly close to those of the “false prophets” who had predicted that Jerusalem could never fall to the Babylonians.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  His teaching was shocking, because it overturned so many traditional certainties. Israel had always seen Yahweh as a divine warrior; from the earliest days, they had imagined their god marching from the southern mountains to come to their aid. Now Yahweh was back on the warpath. He would shatter the kingdoms of Damascus, Philistia, Tyre, Moab, and Ammon, but this time he would not be fighting on Israel’s side. He was leading a holy war against Israel and Judah, using Assyria as his favored instrument. 9 The spirituality of the Axial Age could often be iconoclastic. Religion was not about holding on to cherished practices and beliefs; it often demanded that people question their traditions and criticize their own behavior. Besides turning the ancient devotion to Yahweh, the divine warrior, upside down, Amos also poured scorn on Israel’s beloved rituals. “I hate your feasts,” Yahweh complained; “I take no pleasure in your solemn festivals.” He was sick of listening to his people’s noisy chanting and their devout strumming of harps. Instead, he wanted justice to “flow like water and integrity like an unfailing stream.” 10 Finally, Amos undermined the Israelites’ pride in their unique relationship with Yahweh. Other peoples had been liberated by Yahweh too; he had brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir and settled them in their promised lands. 11 Now he was preparing to wipe the kingdom of Israel off the map. Amos had delivered a swingeing blow to Israel’s self-esteem. He wanted to puncture the national ego. This was one of the earliest expressions in Israel of the spirituality of self-surrender, which was at the heart of the Axial ideal. Instead of using religion to shore up their sense of self-worth, the Israelites had to learn to transcend their self-interest and rule with justice and equity. The prophet was a walking example of what the Greeks would call kenosis, “emptying.” Amos felt that his subjectivity had been taken over by God. 12 He was not speaking his own words, but Yahweh’s; the prophet had left himself behind in passionate empathy with his God, who had experienced the injustice committed by Israel as a personal humiliation. 13 This was an important moment. Axial Age religion would be conditioned by a sympathy that enabled people to feel with others. Amos did not experience anger on his own part; he felt the anger of Yahweh himself. Hosea, who was active in the northern kingdom at about the same time as Amos, learned sympathy with Yahweh through a tragedy in his own life, when his wife, Gomer, became a sacred prostitute in the fertility cult of Baal.

• From Between Us

  In recent studies, Michael Boiger, Alexander Kirchner-Häusler, Anna Schouten, Yukiko Uchida, and I studied emotional interactions in Belgian and Japanese couples who came to the lab to discuss a disagreement. The Belgian and Japanese couples danced to very different types of music: the dance of “meeting each partner’s personal needs” and the dance of “relationship harmony,” respectively. The Belgian couples reported and showed mutual anger (as rated by independent judges) throughout discussion of conflict—more than any other emotion we measured, and much more so than the Japanese couples. The Japanese couples reported more mutual empathy and showed more validation than any other emotion during the discussions on conflict, and also more than their Belgian counterparts. In focus groups, Belgian men and women told us that anger and conflict were “right” for the relationship, as they helped the couple to figure out and negotiate each partner’s needs. Japanese men and women in this study, told us they avoided “bad feelings” in the relationship as much as possible by evading discussion about a disagreement, by adjusting to their partner’s wishes, and by empathizing (putting themselves in the shoes of their partners). Of course, it happened that Belgian couples felt empathy and validated each other, and of course, Japanese couples were judged as angry occasionally, but the episode—the dance in which the couple joined—was different. When unpacking the emotional episodes, it is important to try to understand the dance that is being performed: the interpersonal goals. Expectations for the dance in monocultural couples, and monocultural interaction partners in general, are shared to a certain extent. But what if you are the person to make a next step in an intercultural encounter? Many of us are these days. I do not think there is a shortcut to unpacking the emotional episode. Unpacking becomes easier when you know the many ways in which emotional episodes may develop across cultures, as these cultural differences reveal the junctures at which emotions are OURS. Some cultural competence does make it easier to imagine how emotions are tied to the sociocultural contexts in which they occur—to be aware of “opportunities.” Knowing about cultural differences in the ways emotional episodes typically unfold in other cultures also stretches your imagination beyond your habitual way of doing emotions. And yet, understanding the emotions of people from other cultures will never be like botanizing tropical plants. There is no finite number of well delineated entities to be known.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Most of us think of anger as a dangerous, destructive emotion—which, of course, it most certainly can be—but its primary function is self-protection. Fear alerts you to danger, but anger helps you mobilize the energy necessary to take action. As Carol Tavris says in her fine book Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, “anger is ultimately an emphatic message: Pay attention to me. I don’t like what you are doing. Restore my pride. You’re in my way. Danger. Give me justice.”14 Anger is self-protective, and because risks and dangers abound in the erotic adventure, we shouldn’t be surprised that sex and anger are intricately linked, with results ranging from positive to destructive. Obviously, those who are chronically angry, who feel as if life itself has done them wrong, are rarely available for sensitive lovemaking, although some are very interested in hostile sex. More than a few angry people lose interest in sex altogether or are plagued by sexual dysfunctions. Angry couples can go either way. Some conflict-ridden partners rely on clashes between them to add drama to their sex lives, while others sink into sexless bickering or outright war. Luckily, most of us are neither ruled nor defined by our anger. Instead we occasionally become angry, with varying degrees of comfort or distress. In examining your own peak turn-ons, don’t be surprised if you come across one or more in which anger functioned as an aphrodisiac. The role of anger as an arousal intensifier is crystal-clear when a fight or argument is followed by a passionate reconciliation, as in this story told by Sheila, a graduate student in her mid-thirties: I remember a night in our second year of marriage when my husband Rick and I had a terrible fight. At least I felt it was terrible. Rick says it was no big deal. It started out as a normal argument until Rick was really getting pissed off. I felt so frustrated that he wouldn’t listen to me and became very agitated myself. He can be so stubborn! He talks like a damn attorney, pounding away at me like I’m on the witness stand. Before long I became totally emotional with tears streaming down my face. Rick tried to hold me but I pushed him away. After I calmed down a little we were able to talk things out.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I’d told her I was writing a new book. One about Nick. She’d become flustered at that. Not in the extreme outward way a normal person becomes flustered. I don’t even know if I can pinpoint how I knew it upset her. Maybe her bracelets tinkled a little extra that day as she jotted notes down on her yellow pad. Or maybe her ruby lips pulled a little tighter. But I knew. I’d confessed to her that I’d messed everything up, but I wasn’t sure how. When we ended our session she’d grabbed my hand. “Senna,” she’d said, “do you want another chance at the truth?” “The truth?” I’d repeated, not sure of what she was getting at. “The truth that can set you free...” Her eyes had been two hot coals. I’d been close enough to smell her perfume; it smelled exotic like myrrh and burning wood. “Nothing can set me free, Saphira,” I’d said in turn. “That’s why I write.” I’d turned to leave. I was halfway out the door when she’d called my name. “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” I’d half smiled, and gone home and forgotten what she’d said. I’d written my book in the month after that meeting. I only needed thirty days to write a book. Thirty days in which I didn’t eat or sleep or do anything at all but clack away at my keyboard. And after the book was finished and catharsis was complete, I’d never made another appointment to see her. Her office called and left messages on my phone. She eventually called and left a message. But I was finished. “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” I say it out loud, the memory aching in my brain. Is that where she had the idea? To put me in this place where for a time both the sun and the moon were hidden? Where like slow, seeping molasses I would discover the crickets of truth in my heart? My zookeeper thought it kind to be my savior. And now what? I would starve and freeze here alone? What was the point of that? I hate her so. I want to tell her that her sick game didn’t work, that I’m just the same as I’ve always been: broken, bitter and self-destructive. Something comes to me then, a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. “Fuck you, Saphira!” I call out. Then I reach out in defiance and grab the fence.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  It sprang from his outrage at the suffering of his people and his yearning for justice. He wanted the wicked to be punished for the pain they had inflicted on good, innocent people. But as time passed, he began to realize that he would not be alive to see the Last Days. Another would come after him, a superhuman being, “who is better than a good man.” 25 The Gathas call him the Saoshyant (“One Who Will Bring Benefit”). He, not Zoroaster, would lead Lord Mazda’s troops into the final battle. When—centuries later—the Axial Age began, philosophers, prophets, and mystics all tried to counter the cruelty and aggression of their time by promoting a spirituality based on nonviolence. But Zoroaster’s traumatized vision, with its imagery of burning, terror, and extermination, was vengeful. His career reminds us that political turbulence, atrocity, and suffering do not infallibly produce an Axial-style faith, but can inspire a militant piety that polarizes complex reality into oversimplified categories of good and evil. Zoroaster’s vision was deeply agonistic. We shall see that the agon (“contest”) was a common feature of ancient religion. In making a cosmic agon between good and evil central to his message, Zoroaster belonged to the old spiritual world. He had projected the violence of his time onto the divine and made it absolute. But in his passionately ethical vision, Zoroaster did look forward to the Axial Age. He tried to introduce some morality into the new warrior ethos. True heroes did not terrorize their fellow creatures but tried to counter aggression. The holy warrior was dedicated to peace; those who opted to fight for Lord Mazda were patient, disciplined, courageous, and swift to defend all good creatures from the assaults of the wicked. 26 Ashavans, the champions of order (asha), must imitate the Holy Immortals in their care for the environment. “Good Purpose,” for instance, who had appeared to Zoroaster on the riverbank, was the guardian of the cow, and ashavans must follow his example, not that of the raiders, who drove the cattle from their pastures, harnessed them to carts, killed, and ate them without the proper ritual. 27 “Good Dominion,” the personification of divine justice, was the protector of the stone Sky, so ashavans must use their stone weapons only to defend the poor and the weak. 28 When Zoroastrians protected vulnerable people, looked after their cattle tenderly, and purified their natural environment, they became one with the Immortals and joined their struggle against the Hostile Spirit.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  **Voice — Sheila:** I remember a night in our second year of marriage when my husband Rick and I had a terrible fight. At least I felt it was terrible. Rick says it was no big deal. It started out as a normal argument until Rick was really getting pissed off. I felt so frustrated that he wouldn’t listen to me and became very agitated myself. He can be so stubborn! He talks like a damn attorney, pounding away at me like I’m on the witness stand. Before long I became totally emotional with tears streaming down my face. Rick tried to hold me but I pushed him away. After I calmed down a little we were able to talk things out. When we went to bed Rick wanted to have sex but I said “forget it” because I was still mad at him and didn’t feel sexy at all. But in the morning I felt different. I opened my eyes and there was Rick’s beautiful face, our noses almost touching. He gave me one of those big grins that made me fall in love with him and we embraced passionately. His penis felt wonderful as it pressed against my clit. What followed was surely one of our most amazing lovemaking sessions. I was totally excited. I couldn’t get enough of him. I remained in a steamy mood all day long and we had boisterous sex again that night. Maybe we should fight more often.