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 What Are Biblical Values? (2019)

  The prophet Joel has the Lord summon all the nations to the valley of Jehoshaphat to be destroyed: “Put in the sickle for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the wine press is full. The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great” (Joel 3:13). In Isaiah 63, the Lord is bespattered with blood, like one who has been treading a winepress. Similar fantasies of vengeance figure prominently in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, which has been called “that most consistently and relentlessly violent text in all the canonical literature of all the world’s greatest religions.”31 Here Rome takes on the role of Babylon, the destroyer of Jerusalem. John the visionary eagerly anticipates its fall: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! It has become a dwelling place of demons, a haunt of every foul spirit, a haunt of every foul bird, a haunt of every foul and hateful beast” (18:2). He calls on heaven, and on “saints, apostles and prophets,” to rejoice over the violence of its fall. Even more violent is the destruction wrought by the Word of God, a rider who appears from heaven, astride a white horse and with a sharp sword emanating from his mouth. Taking a cue from Ezekiel, John summons the birds of heaven to the “great supper of God”—“to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of the mighty, the flesh of horses and their riders—the flesh of all, both free and slave, both small and great” (19:17–18). The beast (representing Rome) and the false prophet are thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. The vengefulness and gore of this scene are worthy of a Mel Gibson movie. It is ironic that the rider on the white horse, the one who initiates such an orgy of violence, is presumably none other than Jesus of Nazareth, who advocated turning the other cheek. It is also ironic that the conquering Jesus mimics the kind of violence that was so objectionable in the Roman empire.32 While Revelation is exceptional in the violence of its imagery, its expectations for the future are not greatly different from what we find in the Gospels.33 The Synoptic Gospels all have Jesus, shortly before his arrest, issue a prophecy of the coming of the Son of Man from heaven as the eschatological judge. Whether these prophecies reflect the beliefs of the historical Jesus is a matter of endless debate in New Testament scholarship, but this is how his message was framed in the early Christian tradition. APOCALYPSE AND TERROR A widespread belief, or at least suspicion, in contemporary society is that apocalyptic beliefs and terrorist violence are directly linked.34 The charge has substance, but the issue of apocalyptic violence is a good deal more complicated than the paradigm of straightforward aggression offered by the conquest story. First, apocalyptic literature is primarily the product of people who are, or at least conceive themselves to be, powerless and persecuted.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  ears off? “Who’s the greaseball?” Tad says. You reach down for a bottle and pour yourself a large drink. “Must be lucky Pierre.” “I’ve seen him somewhere.” “Gentlemen’s Quarterly.” “No. I’ve seen him around. I know it.” Tad nods his head up and down, as if trying to dislodge a memory. “I saw him at a party. Note the coke spoon dangling betwixt his hairy pecs.” “I don’t want to hear about it.” “He wasn’t with Amanda. Some other bimbo.” Stevie returns from the bathroom. “Here’s the dancing fool,” she says. “I don’t need to dance to be foolish.” Tad says, “Batten down the hatches, Coach. She’s coming at you.” Sure enough, here’s Amanda. She says, “Ciao, bello,” and before you can react she kisses your cheek. Is she out of her mind? Doesn’t she know that you desist from strangling her only through the exercise of heroic restraint? She kisses Tad with the same formal benevolence. Tad introduces Stevie to Amanda. You can’t even believe this is happening. Shouldn’t someone say what a nice party this is? “Is that your Italian stallion?” Tad says, nodding in the direction from which Amanda has come. “Or your Greek peak? Your French mensch? Or some other species of wetback?” “That’s Odysseus,” Amanda says. “My fiancé.” “Odysseus,” Tad says. “Odysseus. Right, the Greek.” You wish Tad would shut up. Amanda smiles at you as if you were an acquaintance whose name she is eager to remember. Won’t she at least berate you for trying to trash her fashion show? “So, how’s it going?” she says. You stare at her, craving a glimmer of irony or shame in her big blue eyes.

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  modernity’ – in other words, those whom modernity has created, only to fail to offer them any worthwhile purpose.51 That victory of Jimmy Carter in 1977 marked the return to national American politics of Evangelicals self-exiled over the previous half-century (see pp. 961–3). But the road to their political self-assertion was not straightforward: Carter quickly proved a sore disappointment to them. The problem was that Carter came from that progressive side of Southern Evangelicalism exemplified, as we have seen, in the career of Belle Harris Bennett, and Carter’s instincts leaned dangerously towards Protestant liberalism and ecumenism (both of which were rapidly becoming part of the Evangelical repertoire of hate words). Carter was equivocal on abortion, a matter which Evangelicals were increasingly seeing as a litmus test of doctrinal soundness. On one issue he fatally alienated the Evangelical constituency: faith schools, which Evangelicals had founded, among other reasons, to avoid the teaching of sex education now on offer in the public (state) system. In 1978, through a bureaucratic decision which was in fact quite independent of the new Carter administration, the US Internal Revenue Service withdrew the tax-exempt status of independent faith schools, claiming (on the whole unfairly) that many were deliberately practising racial discrimination. This was an ironic result of the civil rights campaigns which once had involved so many Evangelicals. Already two legal judgements had infuriated Evangelical voters: the banning of school prayer in America’s public schools in 1962, the result of the courts trying to enforce the principle of the American constitutional separation of Church and State, and the Roe v. Wade judgement effectively legalizing abortion in 1973. Only now did they begin to make the connection to the power of their vote. Sex clinched their feelings: Carter’s long-promised White House Conference on the Family pluralized its subject to ‘Families’, and made thoughtful statements about gay relationships which were beyond the Evangelical pale. Angry Evangelical leaders met in 1979 and stumbled across a resonant title for an organization to do something about their anger: the ‘Moral Majority’. By the end of Carter’s troubled period in office, he had lost the conservative Evangelical constituency. In 1980 it helped to eject him, voting instead for Ronald Reagan. There was plenty of irony here, for as a Republican Reagan was – in terms of institutional politics – the heir to the party which had defeated the South in the civil war. Moreover, he was a social libertarian of cosily amorphous religious views and his wife regularly consulted an astrologer. In all this, the Reagans were not untypical products of Hollywood, in contrast with the deeply pious Southern Democrat Carter. Nevertheless the alliance between Republicans and conservative Evangelicals

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Harshness and Kindness I n 1972, Henry Kissinger, then President Richard Nixon's assistant for national security affairs, received a request for an interview from the fa- mous Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci. Kissinger rarely gave interviews; he had no control over the final product, and he was a man who needed to be in control. But he had read Fallaci's interview with a North Vietnamese general, and it had been instructive. She was extremely well informed on the Vietnam War; perhaps he could gather some information of his own, pick her brain. He decided to ask for a preinterview, a preliminary meeting. He would grill her on different subjects; if she passed the test, he would grant her an interview proper. They met, and he was impressed; she was extremely intelligent—and tough. It would be an enjoyable challenge to outwit her and prove that he was tougher. He agreed to a short interview a few days later. To Kissinger's annoyance, Fallaci began the interview by asking him whether he was disappointed by the slow pace of the peace negotiations with North Vietnam. He would not discuss the negotiations—he had made that clear in the preinterview. Yet she continued the same line of question- ing. He grew a little angry "That's enough," he said. "I don't want to talk any more about Vietnam." Although she didn't immediately aban- don the subject, her questions became gentler: what were his personal feel- ings toward the leaders of South and North Vietnam? Still, he ducked: "I'm not the kind of person to be swayed by emotion. Emotions serve no purpose." She moved to grander philosophical issues—war, peace. She trample you mercilessly. " • "Madam!" • "You do not know me yet. I admit that I am cruel—since the word gives you so much delight—but am I not entitled to be so? It is man who desires, woman who is desired; this is woman's only advantage, but it is a decisive one. By making man so vulnerable to passion, nature has placed him at woman's mercy, and she who has not the sense to treat him like a humble subject, a slave, a plaything, and finally to betray him with a laugh— well, she is a woman of little wisdom." • "My dear, your principles . . ." I protested. • "Are founded on the experience of a thousand years," she replied mischievously, running her white fingers through the dark fur.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  “Omniscience must be a terrible burden, Michael. How do you bear it?” “Mr. Wonderful, who galloped in from New York last year like some kind of fucking knight in his British sports-car, just in time for the dramatic finale of Mom’s life. Like it was some goddamn New York party that you didn’t want to be early for, God forbid.” “Shut up.” “Don’t tell me to shut up.” “How about if I make you shut up?” You stand up. Michael stands up. “I’m getting out of here,” you say. You turn away. You can hardly see your way to the door. Your eyes are dim and cloudy. You hit your knee on a chair. “You’re not going anywhere.” Michael grabs your arm as you reach the door. You yank it away. He slams you against the doorframe and bangs your head against the metal. He’s got you pinned. You jam your elbow into his belly and he lets go. You turn and punch him in the face. You punch him hard. You hit him with the hand the ferret bit and it hurts like hell. You fall backward into the hall. You get to your feet and look to see what’s happened to Michael. He is on his feet. You remember thinking, He’s going to hit me. When you come around, you are stretched out on the couch. Your head feels truly awful. You can feel the point of contact just below your left temple. Michael comes out of the kitchen holding a paper towel to his nose. The towel is stained with blood. “You all right,” you ask him. He nods. “That kitchen faucet needs a washer. Drips like crazy.” “Amanda isn’t shopping,” you say. “She left me.” “What?” “She called up from France one day and said she wasn’t coming home.” Michael scrutinizes your face to see if you are serious. Then he leans back in the chair and sighs. “I don’t know what to say,” he says. He shakes his head. “Goddamn. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” Michael stands up and comes over to the couch. He crouches down, then says, “Are you all right?” “I miss Mom,” you say.

• From What Are Biblical Values? (2019)

  THE BIBLE AND DEBATE ABOUT ABOLITION Both sides in the debate on abolition in nineteenth-century America drew on the Bible. The anti-abolitionists could point out, quite validly, that slavery is never proscribed in either Testament. One pro-slavery minister wrote that Jesus must have presumed mightily on the intensity of intellect of his followers if he expected them to infer from the command to love your neighbor that slavery should be abolished. God himself, he wrote, had failed to draw that inference in the Hebrew Bible.48 That argument was undercut to a degree by the observation of Moses Stuart, the leading American biblical scholar of his day, that those who defended slavery because it is accepted in the Bible should also “insist on the liberty of polygamy and concubinage.”49 Frederick Douglass made an even more telling comment. Insisting that he did not believe that the Bible sanctioned slavery, he added that if someone were to persuade him that it did, he would consign it to the flames. For of what value to men would a religion be which not only permitted, but enjoined upon men, the enslavement of each other, which would leave them to the sway of physical force and permit the strong to enslave the weak?50 Implicit in that argument is that we must look not to specific laws in the Bible, but to the general principles that inform it, even if they are not well embodied in this particular case. Slavery is no longer a matter of public debate. No one would now argue that because it is accepted in the Bible it should be accepted in modern society. But for that very reason it provides an illuminating test case in biblical values. In this case, at least, it is indisputable that positions endorsed in the Bible are morally unacceptable. We may still look to more general principles in the Bible for moral guidance. Freedom remains a biblical value, proclaimed ringingly in the story of the Exodus and in the baptismal formula in Galatians 3:28. But we must also acknowledge that the implementation of these principles in the Bible often falls short, even by the Bible’s own standards. CHAPTER SEVEN Violence and Zeal “Y OU have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, ‘Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also’ ” (Matthew 5:38–39). The legitimation of violence is one of many aspects of biblical tradition with which Jesus takes issue in the Sermon on the Mount. Such legitimation is pervasive in the biblical record. Yahweh, we are told, is a man of war (Exodus 15:3). He can be pictured as a blood-stained warrior, who treads the nations as one treads grapes in a winepress and spatters his garments with blood (Isaiah 63:3).

• From What Are Biblical Values? (2019)

  Similarly, the members of the sect known to us from the Dead Sea Scrolls, who lived in anticipation of a great war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness, pledged to “pay to no man the reward of evil” and “not [to] grapple with the men of perdition until the Day of Revenge” (1QS [Community Rule] 10:19). In all these cases, and in the case of nearly all ancient Jewish and Christian apocalypses, the message is quietistic rather than violent. The quietistic ethic is framed and supported by predictions of great eschatological violence, to be unleashed from heaven. There is an intrinsic connection between present forbearance and eschatological vengeance in this literature. In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul tells his readers: “Never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God . . . No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink’; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads” (12:19–21). As Krister Stendhal shows in a famous article, this attitude has more to do with the perfection of hatred than with disinterested love: “With the Day of Vengeance at hand, the proper and reasonable attitude is to forego one’s own vengeance and to leave vengeance to God. Why walk around with a little shotgun if the atomic blast is imminent?”40 From this perspective, the violence of apocalyptic eschatology serves as a kind of release valve whereby the oppressed can vent their frustration and anger without actually translating their feelings into violent action.41 The demand for justice and the tendency toward quietism go some way toward rebutting the charge that fantasies of eschatological violence are conducive to terrorism. But the issues are more complicated still. Brutal oppression has always been a fact of life for a significant proportion of the world’s population, but fantasies of vengeance are not always justified or excusable. What constitutes “intolerable oppression” can vary greatly from one situation to another. From the letters of Pliny we know something about Roman policy toward Christianity in Asia Minor when the Apocalypse of John was written. It was not benevolent, but it stopped well short of systematic persecution.42 John found it intolerable because it exalted Rome and its emperor above the God of Jews and Christians. Analogously, American influence in the Arab world may not always be benevolent, but whether it qualifies the United States to be reckoned the Great Satan and warrants calls for jihad is open to dispute. Apocalyptic fantasies can serve to create a sense of crisis where crisis is not generally perceived. This is not to deny that extreme oppression exists, or even is relatively commonplace, but only to point out that the apocalyptic view of the world is not necessarily an objective one, and that it is not necessarily justified by oppression in all cases.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  "Hey, baby, my little sisterwantsusto split.What doyou saytoa little nookie?" "Groovy." "Seeyou, sis. We'llbe upstairsin flagrante delicto? Where could allthislead? Onlyto familydissension, shouting matches, and heartbreak. OnNew Year'sEve, as Miltonand Tessie toasted thenew year withglassesof ColdDuck,ChapterElevenand Meg swigged onbottles of ElephantMaltLiquor,goingoutside everyso oftentosecretiy smokea joint.Miltonsaid,"Youknow,I've been thinkingabout finallymaking thattriptotheoldcountry.We couldgo backandseepapou zndyiayia''s village." "Andfixthat church,likeyou promised,"saidTessie. "Whatdoyouthink?" MiltonaskedChapter Eleven."Maybewe couldtakeafamilyvacation thissummer." "Notme,"saidChapter Eleven. "Whynot?" "Tourismisjustanotherform ofcolonialism." Andsoonandsoforth.Before long,ChapterEleven declared thathedidn'tshareMiltonandTessie'svalues. Miltonaskedwhat waswrongwiththeirvalues.ChapterElevensaid hewasagainstma- terialism. "Allyoucareaboutismoney,"hetold Milton."Idon'twant to livelike this."Hegesturedtowardtheroom. ChapterElevenwas againstourliving room,everythingwehad, everythingMiltonhad workedfor.Hewas againstMiddlesex!Then shouting;andChapter Eleven uttering twowordstoMilton,one beginningwith /, the otherwith y; andmore shouting,andChapter Eleven's motorcycle roaringaway, withMeg ontheback. Whathad happened toChapterEleven?Why hadhechangedso much? Itwasbeing awayfrom home, Tessiesaid.Itwasthe times.It was allthis trouble withthewar.I,however,havea differentanswer. Isuspect that Chapter Eleven'stransformationwas causedinnosmall partbythat day onhis bedwhenhis life was decided by lottery.AmI projecting? Saddling mybrotherwithmyownobsessionswith chance andfate? Maybe. Butasweplanneda trip— a trip thathad been promised whenMilton wassavedfromanotherwar— itap- peared that Chapter Eleven,takingchemicaltripsofhis own,was trying to escapewhat hehaddimlyperceivedwhile wrappedin an afghan: the possibilitythatnot onlyhisdraftnumber wasdecidedby 317 lottery,but that everythingwas.ChapterEleven washidingfromthis discovery, hiding behindwindowpane, hidingonthetopofeleva- tors, hiding inthebedofMeg Zemka withhermultiple O'sandbad teeth,Meg Zemkawhohissedinhisearwhiletheymade love,"For- get your family, man!They'rebourgeois pigs!Tourdad'sanexploiter, man! Forget'em.They'redead,man.Dead. Thisiswhat'sreal.Right here.Come andgetit,baby!" 318 THE OBSCURE OBJECT t occurredtometoday thatI'mnotas far alongasIthought.Writ- ingmystoryisn'tthe courageousactofliberationIhadhopedit , I wouldbe. Writingissolitary,furtive,andIknowallaboutthose things.I'm an expertinthe undergroundlife.Isitreallymyapolitical temperamentthatmakesmekeepmy distancefromtheintersexual rightsmovement?Couldn'titalso be fear?Ofstanding up. Of be- comingoneofthem. Still,you can only do what you'reable. Ifthisstoryiswrittenonly formyself,then sobeit.Butitdoesn't feelthat way. Ifeelyou out there,reader.Thisistheonly kind ofintimacyI'mcomfortablewith. Just thetwo ofus,hereinthedark. Thingsweren't alwayslikethis.Incollege,Ihad a girlfriend.Her namewasOlivia. Weweredrawntogetherbyourcommonwound- edness. Oliviahadbeen savagelyattacked when shewasonlythir- teen,nearly raped.The policehad caughtthe guywhodiditand Olivia hadtestified incourtnumeroustimes.Theordealhad arrested herdevelopment. Instead ofdoingthenormalthings a highschool girl did,she hadhadtoremainthatthirteen-year-oldgirl onthewit- nessstand. WhileOlivia andIwerebothintellectually capableof handling thecollege curriculum,ofexcellinginit even,weremained in keyways emotionallyadolescent. Wecriedalotin bed.Iremem- berthefirst timewe took off ourclothesinfront ofeachother. Itwas like unwinding bandages.I wasasmuch ofaman asOlivia could bearat thatpoint. Iwasherstarterkit. 319 After college,Itookatriparound theworld.I tried toforget my body by keepingitinmotion.Nine monthslater, backhome, I took the ForeignServiceexamand, ayearafter that,started working for theState Department.Aperfect jobfor me.Threeyears inoneplace, two in another. Neverlongenough toform a solid attachment to anyone.InBrussels,Ifellinlove with a bartender whoclaimed not tocareabout theuncommon wayIwas made.Iwas sogratefulthat Iaskedhertomarryme,thoughI foundher dullcompany, ambi- tionless,toomuchof a shouter, ahitter.Fortunately, sherefused my proposaland ran offwithsomeoneelse. Whohasthere beensince?A fewhereandthere,neverlong-lasting. And so,withoutpermanence, Ihave falleninto the routine ofmyincomplete seductions.The chat- ting up I'mgood at. Thedinnersand drinks.Theclinches indoor- ways.Butthen I'm off."I'vegotameeting withtheambassador in themorning,"I say. Andtheybelieveme. Theybelieve theambassa- dorwantstobe briefed ontheupcomingAaron Coplandtribute. It'sgettingharderallthetime. WithOliviaandeverywoman who cameafterhertherehasbeenthisknowledgetodealwith: thegreat factofmycondition.TheObscure ObjectandImetunawares, how- ever,inblissfulignorance. Afterallthescreaming in ourhouse, there reigned,that winteron Middlesex, onlysilence.Asilencesoprofoundthat,liketheleftfoot ofthePresident's secretary,iterasedportionsoftheofficialrecord.A soggy,evasive seasonduringwhich Milton,unable toadmitthat Chapter Eleven's attackhadbrokenhisheart, began visiblytoswell withrage,sothatalmostanything set himoff,a long redlight,ice milkfor dessert instead oficecream. (His was aloudsilencebut a si- lence nonetheless.) A winter duringwhichTessie'sworriesabouther children immobilized her,sothatshefailedto returnChristmaspres- entsthat didn'tfit, andmerelyputthemin thecloset,withoutget- ting a refund.Attheendofthiswounded, dishonestseason, as the firstcrocuses appeared, returningfrom theirwinterinthe under- world,Calliope Stephanides, whoalsofelt something stirring in the soilofherbeing, found herselfreading the classics. Springsemester ofeighth gradebroughtme intoMr. da Silva's 320

• From Middlesex (2002)

  "Don't look too excited," Zoe told her brother. "Why don't you shut up?" "Don't get sore at me," she said, blind to the future. "I'm not mar- rying him. You'd have to shoot me first." 180 "If she wants to marry a priest," Milton said, "let her marry a priest. The hell with her." His face turned red and he bolted from the table and fled up the stairs. But why did my mother do it? She could never explain. The rea- sons people marry the people they do are not always evident to those involved. So I can only speculate. Maybe my mother, having grown up without a father, was trying to marry one. It's possible, too, that her decision was a practical one. She'd asked Milton what he wanted to do with his life once. "I was thinking of maybe taking over my dad's bar." On top of all the other oppositions, there may have been this final one: bartender, priest. Impossible to imagine my father weeping from a broken heart. Impossible to imagine him refusing to eat. Impossible, also, to imag- ine him calling the boardinghouse again and again until finally Mrs. O'Toole said, "Listen, sugar. She don't want to talk to you. Get it?" "Yeah"— Milton swallowing hard—"I got it." "Plenty of other fish in the sea." Impossible to imagine any of these things, but they are, in fact, what happened. Maybe Mrs. O'Toole's maritime metaphor had given him an idea. A week after Tessie became engaged, on a steamy Tuesday morning, Milton put his clarinet away for good and went down to Cadillac Square to exchange his Boy Scout uniform for another. "Well, I did it," he told the family at dinner that night. "I enlisted." "In the Army!" Desdemona said, horrified. "What did you do that for?" said Zoe. "The war's almost over. Rider's finished." "I don't know about Hitier. It's Hirohito I've got to worry about. I joined the Navy. Not the Army." "What about your feet?" Desdemona cried. "They didn't ask about my feet." My grandfather, who had sat through the clarinet serenades as he sat through everything, aware of their significance but unconvinced of the wisdom of getting involved, now glared at his son. "You're a very stupid young man, do you know that? You think this is some kind of game?" "No, sir." "This is a war. You think it is some kind of fun, a war? Some kind of big joke to play on your parents?" 181 "No, sir." "You will see what kind of a big joke it is." "The Navy!" Desdemona meanwhile continued to moan. "What if your boat it sinks?" "You see what you do?" Lefty shook his head. "You're going to make your mother sick worrying so much."

• From Middlesex (2002)

  To anyone who never personally experienced it, it's difficult to de- scribe the ominous, storm-gathering quality of my grandmother's fanning. Refusing to argue anymore with my father, she walked on swollen ankles into the sun room. She sat down in a cane chair by the window. The winter light, coming from the side, reddened the far, translucent wing of her nose. She picked up her cardboard fan. The front of the fan was emblazoned with the words "Turkish Atrocities." Below, in smaller print, were the specifics: the 1955 pogrom in Is- tanbul in which 15 Greeks were killed, 200 Greek women raped, 4,348 stores looted, 59 Orthodox churches destroyed, and even the graves of the Patriarchs desecrated. Desdemona had six atrocity fans. They were a collector's set. Each year she sent a contribution to the Patriarchate in Constantinople, and a few weeks later a new fan ar- rived, making claims of genocide and, in one case, bearing a photo- graph of Patriarch Athenagoras in the ruins of a looted cathedral. Not appearing on Desdemona's particular fan that day, but denounced nonetheless, was the most recent crime, committed not by the Turks but by her own Greek son, who refused to give his daughter a proper Orthodox baptism. Desdemona's fanning wasn't a matter of moving the wrist back and forth; the agitation came from deep within her. It originated from the spot between her stomach and liver where she once told me the Holy Spirit resided. It issued from a place deeper than her own buried crime. Milton tried to take shelter behind his newspaper, but the fan-disturbed air rustied the newsprint. The force of Desdemona's fanning could be felt all over the house; it swirled dustballs on the stairs; it stirred the window shades; and, of course, since it was winter, it made everyone shiver. After a while the entire house seemed to be hyperventilating. The fanning even pursued Mil- ton into his Oldsmobile, which began to make a soft hissing from the radiator. In addition to the fanning, my grandmother appealed to family 219 feeling. Father Mike, her son-in-law and my very own uncle, was by this time back from his years in Greece and serving— in an assistant capacity— at Assumption Greek Orthodox Church. "Please, Miltie," Desdemona said. "Think of Father Mike. They never give him top job at the church. You think if his own niece she no gets baptized it will look good? Think of your sister, Miltie. Poor Zoe! They no have much money." Finally, in a sign that he was weakening, my father asked my mother, "What do they charge for a baptism these days?" "They're free." Milton's eyebrows lifted. But after a moment's consideration he nodded, confirmed in his suspicions. "Figures. They let you in for free. Then you gotta pay for the rest of your life."

• From Middlesex (2002)

  "How can I help you? You don't even understand what it takes to make money in this country. You think I'm having a good time down there?" "You play music, you drink. I can hear the music in the kitchen." "That's my job. That's why the people come. And if they don't come, we can't pay our bills. The whole thing rests on me. That's what you don't understand. I work all day and night and then when I come to bed I can't even sleep. There's no room!" "Milton had a nightmare." "I'm having a nightmare every day." He switched the light on and, in its glow, Desdemona saw her husband's face screwed up with a malice she'd never seen before. It was no longer Lefty's face, no longer that of her brother or her hus- band. It was the face of someone new, a stranger she was living with. 137 And this terrible new face delivered an ultimatum: "Tomorrow morning," Lefty spat, "you're going to go get a job." The next day, when Lina came over for lunch, Desdemona asked her to read the newspaper for her. "How can I work? I don't even know English." "You know a little." "We should have gone to Greece. In Greece a husband wouldn't make his wife go out and get a job." "Don't worry," Lina said, holding up the recycled newsprint. "There aren't any." The 1932 Detroit Times classifieds, advertised to a population of four million, ran to just over one column. Sourmelina squinted, looking for something appropriate. "Waitress," Lina read. "No." "Why not?" "Men would flirt with me." "You don't like to flirt?" "Read," Desdemona said. "Tool and dye," said Lina. My grandmother frowned. "What is that?" "I don't know." "Like dyeing fabric?" "Maybe." "Go on," said Desdemona. "Cigar roller," Lina continued. "I don't like smoke." "Housemaid." "Lina, please. I can't be a maid for somebody." "Silk worker." "What?" "Silk worker. That's all it says. And an address." "Silk worker? I'm a silk worker. I know everything." "Then congratulations, you have a job. If it's not gone by the time you get there." An hour later, dressed for job hunting, my grandmother reluc- tantiy left the house. Sourmelina had tried to persuade her to borrow a dress with a low neckline. "Wear this and no one will notice what 138 kind of English you speak," she said. But Desdemona set out for the streetcar in one of her plain dresses, gray with brown polka dots. Her shoes, hat, and handbag were each a brown that almost matched.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The response was enthusiastic, but a little less so than usual. The speech had tired many representatives. Then a lone voice was heard, that of a man named Bourdon, who spoke against printing Robespierre's speech, a veiled sign of disapproval. Suddenly others stood up on all sides, and accused him of vagueness: he had talked of conspiracies and threats without naming the guilty. Asked to be specific, he refused, preferring to name names later on. The next day Robespierre stood to defend his speech, and the representatives shouted him down. A few hours later, he was the one sent to the guillotine. On July 28, amid a gathering of citizens who seemed to be in an even more festive mood than at the Festival of the Supreme Being, Robespierre's head fell into the basket, to resounding cheers. The Reign of Terror was over. Many of those who seemed to admire Robespierre actually harbored a gnawing resentment of him—he was so virtuous, so superior, it was oppressive. Some of these men had plotted against him, and were waiting for the slightest sign of weakness—which appeared on that fateful day when he gave his last speech. In refusing to name his enemies, he had shown either a desire to end the bloodshed or a fear that they would strike at him before he could have them killed. Fed by the conspirators, this one spark turned into fire. Within two days, first a governing body and then a nation turned against a Charismatic who two months before had been revered. Charisma is as volatile as the emotions it stirs. Most often it stirs sentiments of love. But such feelings are hard to maintain. Psychologists talk of "erotic fatigue"—the moments after love in which you feel tired of it, resentful. Reality creeps in, love turns to hate. Erotic fatigue is a threat to all Charismatics. The Charismatic often wins love by acting the savior, rescuing people from some difficult circumstance, but once they feel secure, charisma is less seductive to them. Charismatics need danger and risk. They are not plodding bureaucrats; some of them deliberately keep danger going, as de Gaulle and Kennedy were wont to do, or as Robespierre did through the Reign of Terror. But people tire of this, and at your first sign of weakness they turn on you. The love they showed before will be matched by their hatred now. The only defense is to master your charisma. Your passion, your anger, your confidence make you charismatic, but too much charisma for too long creates fatigue, and a desire for calmness and order. The better kind of 118 • The Art of Seduction

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  had been struck, and the Republican Party saw the huge electoral advantage of hanging on to it. The Evangelical televangelist turned politician Pat Robertson declared in 1980, ‘We have enough votes to run the country … and when the people say, “We’ve had enough” we are going to take over.’52 So far that has not happened, partly thanks to the sheer variety and perennial fissiparousness of American Evangelicalism. Yet the effect of Evangelicalism in American politics hardly needs demonstrating, baffling though it is to Europeans, who overwhelmingly disapprove of their own politicians making a public fuss of their personal religious convictions. On no political issue has this been more significant than American policy towards the State of Israel – the source of so much Arab and Muslim fury and frustration with the West. For some years after the founding of a state of Israel in 1948, American relations with Israeli governments were dominated by power-political considerations. They were not even particularly cordial, especially at the time of the 1956 crisis, in which the Israelis aligned themselves militarily with the British and French around Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal. When the decisive American swing towards an alliance with Israel came in 1962, it was still motivated by power politics, and was not associated with Republicans but with President John F. Kennedy’s liberal Democratic administration, which was furious at the aggressive policies adopted by President Nasser of Egypt.53 At that stage, of course, American politicians were not generally keeping a worried eye on Evangelical political opinion. When in the 1980s they did, they discovered a large constituency emphatically in favour of Israel, for reasons related to the apocalypse. It was the same longing to bring on the Last Days which back in the 1840s had enthused the newly founded Evangelical Alliance and the promoters of the Jerusalem Bishopric (see pp. 836–7), and which derived its particular premillennialist roots from the Millerites and the dispensationalism of John Nelson Darby.54 Millenarianism routed the widespread contrary impulse in American Protestant circles to anti-Semitism, historically seen at its worst in the racism of the Ku Klux Klan. Now American Evangelicals made common cause with the Jewish community in the United States, and they seemed to care little if at all for the opinions or the sufferings of their fellow Christians in the ancient Churches of the Middle East. Israeli politicians were not slow to exploit this political windfall, caring little for the fact that Evangelical apocalypticism expected the conversion of the Jews to Christianity. Likewise the Amsterdam Jews who had encouraged philo-Semitism in Puritan England in the 1650s had not been too worried about Protestant motives when Oliver Cromwell had readmitted the Jewish community to his country (see pp. 773–4). American foreign policy has for decades seemed locked

• From The Greatest Controversies of Early Christian History (2013)

  e The narratives of the book of Acts provide numerous accounts of Christians being persecuted, principally through the synagogues. Christian proclamations about Jesus as the messiah caused irritation among non-Christian Jews, who eventually drove out the Christians and sometimes inflicted punishments on them Eventually, Christianity became less of a Jewish religion and more of a religion that was intent on converting Gentiles, leading to greater persecution. e One of the most important books of the New Testament with respect to persecution is the letter of | Peter. The author of this letter is principally concerned about the suffering that Christians are experiencing. o In this letter, we learn that Christians accused the pagans of “living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, rebels carousing, and lawless idolatry.” Pagans responded by accusing the Christians of engaging in these same activities. o From the Christian point of view, their friends and neighbors were not happy about the fact that they had converted away from a licentious lifestyle. As a result, the Christians were persecuted. o The author of | Peter assures his readers that it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God's will, than to suffer for doing evil. e Most of the early persecution of Christians, then, came at the grassroots level, as friends or family members of Christians decided that the Christians were out of bounds and needed to be punished. The only time administrators got involved is when there was some kind of crowd or mob attack on Christians. Imperial Opposition to Christians e The first episode of imperial opposition to Christians came in the 60s C.E. with the emperor Nero. The episode is described by 131 Scanned by CamScanner 132 the Roman historian Tacitus around the year 115 in his book The Annals of Rome. © According to Tacitus, Nero hired arsonists to burn down parts of the city of Rome so that he could replace these quarters with some architectural designs of his own choosing. The populace who had been burned out suspected Nero, but the emperor blamed the Christians because they were known for their hatred of the human race. He rounded up Christians in Rome and subjected them to horrible tortures. o Note that Nero’s persecution was localized to Rome: it was not empire-wide. Moreover, it was not a persecution based on being Christian; although they were Christians, those who were tortured and executed were charged with arson. The next episode we learn about took place during the reign of the emperor Trajan, sometime between 110-112 C.E. We know about this persecution from the letters of Pliny the Younger.

• From The Greatest Controversies of Early Christian History (2013)

  o The wise men continue on their journey, following the star, which stops over the house where Jesus is in Bethlehem. The wise men worship Jesus, but they return by a different route to avoid informing Herod. Herod is enraged when he realizes that he has been deceived. He sends out his soldiers to kill every male child aged two and under. o When Joseph learms in a dream that Herod is out to kill the child, he flees with Jesus and Mary to Egypt. When Herod dies, Joseph and his family return home, but they can’t live in Bethlehem because Herod’s son, Archelaus, is now the king there. Instead, the family goes to Nazareth. Scanned by CamScanner Lecture 1: Was Jesus Born in Bethlehem? This account also has its implausibilities, especially a star that seems to travel and stop over a particular house. There are also inconsistencies between this account and the one in Luke. Anyone reading the two closely will notice the general differences: the annunciation to Mary versus the dream of Joseph, the trip to Bethlehem from Nazareth versus the flight to Egypt, the shepherds versus the wise men worshiping Jesus. These differences could easily be accounted for simply by saying that Matthew recorded some of the stories that happened and Luke recorded others. But there are also contradictions between Matthew and Luke. o = In Matthew’s story, it appears that the hometown of Joseph and Mary is Bethlehem. The wise men worship Jesus in a house, apparently one in which Joseph and Mary live. o Moreover, the wise men seem to come to Jesus many months, possibly up to two years, after he was born. We know this from Herod's decision to have boys under two years old slaughtered by his troops, based on the information he received from the wise men. o Finally, when Joseph and his family flee to Egypt and return, they are unable to relocate to Bethlehem, presumably their hometown, because it is now under the rule of Archelaus; for this reason, they go to Nazareth. This is obviously at odds with Luke's account, in which Joseph and Mary are from Nazareth. The other inconsistency between the two accounts involves what happens to Jesus and his family after his birth. According to Luke's account, 32 days after she gave birth, Mary had to perform a sacrifice in order to cleanse her ritual impurity; afterward, she and Joseph returned to Nazareth. But if that’s the case, how can Matthew be right that after Jesus's birth, the mother, father, and child fled to Egypt? There is no time for the flight to Egypt that Matthew tells about if Luke is right that they returned immediately to Nazareth. Scanned by CamScanner

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Interpretation. The Marquise de Merteuil, a character in Choderlos de La- state of feud. Wives thrive on wrangling, \ That's their clos's novel Dangerous Liaisons, is a practiced seductress who never lets her dowry. A mistress should affairs drag on too long. De Belleroche is young and handsome but that is always hear \ What she all. As her interest in him wanes, she decides to bring him to the secret wants to be told. . . . \ house to try to inject some novelty into the affair. This works for a while, Use tender blandishments, language that caresses \ but it isn't enough. The chevalier must be gotten rid of. She tries coldness, The ear, make her glad anger (hoping to start a fight), even a show of interest in another man. All you came. this only intensifies his attachment. She can't just leave him—he might be- — O V I D , T H E A R T O F L O V E , come vengeful, or try even harder to win her back. The solution: she delib- TRANSLATED BY PETER GREEN erately breaks the spell by overwhelming him with attention. Abandoning the pattern of alternating warmth with coldness, she acts hopelessly in love. Alone with her day after day, with no space to fantasize, he no longer sees In Paris the band played a her as enchanting and breaks off the affair. This was her goal all along. concert at the Palais If a break with the victim is too messy or difficult (or you lack the Chaleux. They played the first half, and then there nerve), then do the next best thing: deliberately break the spell that ties him was an hour interval— or her to you. Aloofness or anger will only stir the other person s insecurity, intermission, we call it— producing a clinging horror. Instead, try suffocating them with love and at- during which there was a fabulous bufet on a great tention: be clinging and possessive yourself, moon over the lover's every ac- long table laden with tion and character trait, create the sense that this monotonous affection will delicious foods and cognac, 420 • The Art of Seduction champagne, wine and that go on forever. No more mystery, no more coquetry, no more retreats—-just rarity in Paris . . . Scotch. endless love. Few can endure such a threat. A few weeks of it and they will The people, aristocrats and be gone. servants, some on their hands and knees, were busily searching for something on the floor. A 2. King Charles II of England was a devoted libertine. He kept a stable of duchess, who was one of lovers: there was always a favorite mistress from the aristocracy, and count-the hostesses, had lost one of her larger diamonds. . . .

• From The Greatest Controversies of Early Christian History (2013)

  e Josephus tells two important stories about Pilate that give us an insight into his character. The first comes to us in Josephus’s book The Wars of the Jews. This is an account of what happened when the Jews rose up against the Roman authorities in the year 66, starting a rebellion that lasted more than three years and eventually leading to the destruction of Jerusalem and the burning of the Temple. o Josephus tells us that when Pilate first came into Judea by night, he had the images of Caesar Augustus brought into Jerusalem; these were the standards for the Roman armies. According to Josephus, when the Jews saw the standards with an image of Caesar throughout the city of Jerusalem, they were incensed. o The Jews flocked to Pilate’s palace in the city of Caesarea and begged him to remove the standards. Displaying the 63 Scanned by CamScanner image of Caesar was thought to be a violation of the Ten Commandments, according to which no images were to be worshiped by Jews. o Pilate initially ordered his soldiers to kill a group of Jewish protesters who had refused to move from the palace grounds but then relented and had the standards removed. e In another story, Josephus tells us that Pilate raided the sacred treasury of the Temple to fund the building of aqueducts for Jerusalem. Outraged, many Jews flocked to Pilate’s presence in protest. Pilate ordered his soldiers to mix in with the crowd, concealing themselves in civilian clothing. They were then to beat the Jews who were protesting. Many Jews died from the beatings they received, and others were trampled in the ensuing riot. Pilate in the Gospel of Mark e The earliest account we have of Pontius Pilate in a Christian source is in the Gospel of Mark, the first gospel to be written. Pilate appears, of course, at the end, when Jesus has been handed over to him by the Jewish authorities, and Pilate puts Jesus on trial. o Jesus appears before Pilate, and Pilate asks him: Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus gives an ambiguous response: “You say so.” The chief priest of the Jews levels many accusations against Jesus, and Pilate is surprised that Jesus has no answer. o We're told then that Pilate had a custom at the festival of the Passover to release a prisoner chosen by the Jewish crowds. The crowds cry for the release of Barabbas, a rebel who had been involved in political insurrection and had committed murder. When Pilate asks what he should do with Jesus, the crowd cries out, “Crucify him!” ¢ Some historians have questioned whether this episode ever actually took place. The trial of Jesus before Pilate likely occurred in private, not before a Jewish crowd. Further, Pilate had a reputation for being ruthless, yet in this account, to satisfy the crowd, he releases a Scanned by CamScanner

• From Middlesex (2002)

  He didn't intend to use it. The idea was to scare the looter off. If that didn't work, Milton was prepared to leave. The Oldsmobile was parked out back. He could be home in ten minutes. The knob rattled again. And without thinking Milton stepped toward the glass door and shouted, "I've got a gun!" Except it wasn't the gun. It was the ham sandwich! Milton was threatening the looter with two pieces of toasted bread, a slice of meat, and some hot mustard. Nevertheless, because it was dark out, this worked. The looter outside the door held up his hands. It was Morrison from across the street. Milton stared at Morrison. Morrison stared back. And then my father said— this is what white people say in a situation like this, "Can I help you?" Morrison squinted, disbelieving. "What you doing here, man? You crazy? Ain't safe for no white people down here." A shot rang out. Morrison flattened himself against the glass. "Ain't safe for no- body." "I've gotta protect my property." "You life ain't you property?" Morrison raised his eyebrows to in- dicate the unimpeachable logic of this statement. Then he dropped the superior expression altogether and coughed. "Listen, chief, long as you here, maybe you can help me out." He held up small change. "Came over for some cigarettes." Milton's chin dipped, fattening his neck, and his eyebrows slanted in disbelief. In a dry voice he said, "Now'd be a good time to kick the habit." Another shot rang out, this time closer. Morrison jumped, then smiled. "It sure is bad for my health. And gettin' more dangerous all the time." Then he smiled broadly. "This'll be my last pack," he said, 245 "swear to God." He dropped the change through the mail slot. "Par- liaments." Milton looked down at the coins for a moment and then went and got the cigarettes. "Got any matches?" Morrison said. Milton slipped these through, too. As he did, the riots, his frayed nerves, the smell of fire in the air, and the audacity of this man Mor- rison dodging sniper fire for a pack of cigarettes all became too much for Milton. Suddenly he was waving his arms, indicating everything, and shouting through the door, "What's the matter with you peo- ple?" Morrison took only a moment. "The matter with us," he said, "is you." And then he was gone. "The matter with us is you." How many times did I hear that grow- ing up? Delivered by Milton in his so-called black accent, delivered

• From The Greatest Controversies of Early Christian History (2013)

  136 Lecture 21: Is the Old Testament a Christian Book? Paul’s Letter to the Galatians  Not everyone agreed with Paul on the subject of Gentiles and the Law. He had heated debates on this issue with other Christian leaders and missionaries. Nowhere is Paul’s anger on this subject more evident than in his Letter to the Galatians, written to Christians in a community who had become convinced that in order to be followers of Jesus, they had to keep the Jewish Law.  In following the Law, Paul notes that the Galatians are “turning to a different gospel.” The idea that a Gentile must follow the Jewish Law to be a follower of Jesus is not simply an alternative way of understanding Christianity but a completely different—and unacceptable—gospel.  Paul goes on to give a brief account of his life, explaining that he was once a zealous Jew keeping the Law, but he came to realize that Christ was God’s solution to the human dilemma and that it was Christ’s death, not the Jewish Law, that mattered.  Toward the end of the letter, Paul takes on the problem of circumcision. Men in the Galatian community have gotten circumcised because they thought that’s what the Law demanded of the people of God. Paul tells these men that if all they had to do to be right with God was to get circumcised, then there would be no reason for Christ to have come. o Paul says, “You who want to be justi fi ed by the Law have cut yourselves off from Christ. You have fallen away from grace.” o This statement is kind of a play on words; instead of cutting off the foreskin, these men have cut themselves off from Christ. o This wordplay becomes more sarcastic when Paul speaks about the Jewish Christian missionaries who were trying to get the Galatians to convert to follow Judaism while being Christian (5:12): “I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves.”

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  “I broke my fast this morning.” The audience and the preachers applauded.Brother Terrell did not smile. “Some of you may not be clapping when I finish here tonight. Some of you may be running for cover.“I broke my fast because Jesus appeared in my trailer last night. He touched me here, in the palms of my hands.”He held up both hands. “Jesus said, ‘If I be lifted up, I’ll draw all men to me.’ He said he was bringing a great revival to the earth, a revival that would not be corrupted . . .”He dropped his hands, picked up the microphone around his neck, and turned back to the preachers. “. . . A revival that would not be corrupted by the churches. The Pentecostal revival that began on Azusa Street back in the twenties has lost its fire. People ain’t getting healed like they use to. They ain’t getting delivered like they use to.”He kept an even, rhythmic pace, the delivery of his words timed to his steps, his right hand striking the air for emphasis. “Why? Because you preachers are more interested in buildings and comfort and glory than you are in preaching the truth.”He stood in front of them. “Don’t you wag your heads at me. Don’t you cross your arms like it ain’t true.” He walked up to one of the ministers and threw open the man’s crossed arms. “You know it’s true!” He gestured back at the audience. “They know it’s true! And I’m telling you God knows it, too, and he’s tired of it!” The audience rose in sections as he spoke until every person was standing and clapping.The preachers sat slack-jawed, arms at their side, legs open at the knees. Some of these men were from the local churches, some from farther afield. They clearly didn’t like what they were hearing. Evangelists often employed a shake-’em-up, wake-’em-up strategy in dealing with organized religion. It was part of their role and everyone expected it. But this unrestrained animosity was something else. Brother Terrell had no mercy and showed no signs of relenting.“Jesus told me he’s sending a revival the likes of which the earth has never seen. He showed me a vision of a revival where people speak the Word and missing arms and legs grow back.”He stepped off the platform, walked down the prayer ramp, and stood level with the audience. He raised both hands and looked up. Light bathed his face and hands.“I saw men of God healing waterhead babies. Bless God, I saw a dead-raisin’ revival! That’s right. I saw the people of God walking into funeral homes and raising those who had died in the faith.”He began to run in front of the crowd and scream. “The Bible says death shall have no dominion over them!