Guilt

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 History of World Literature (2007)

  163 Kafka riddles his story with details that repeatedly pull his readers from the metaphoric back to the literal level.Nevertheless, since the publication of “The Metamorphosis,” there had been thousands of articles and books written about its author, many of which deal with this story, suggesting that even if the narrator discourages readers to do so, over time they have felt impelled to try to read the story in some metaphoric or symbolic way. Some of the ways the story has been interpreted may help us in ¿ nding our own way of reading it. The story has been read as part of the movement called Expressionism, which tries to describe the way we experience the world, not what it looks like in a representational way. Proust was creating new ways to do that in his work about the same time Kafka was writing this story; Joyce’s Finnegans Wake—in one of its aspects—does the same. In the visual arts, Edvard Munch’s The Scream pictures alienation and terror in a nonrepresentational way. In an Expressionist way, perhaps Kafka is showing what it feels like to be human in the 20 th century. Marxist critics have read the story as a metaphor for human beings who are alienated and deformed by mechanical work processes. Gregor’s metamorphosis—whether deliberate or not—allows him to escape from an inhuman way of life. These critics see signi ¿ cance in the amount of time spent early in the story showing how terrible Gregor’s job is. Gregor’s awful work situation has already, in this reading, turned him into an insect; the metamorphosis merely makes outward what was already true on the inside. Freudian and psychoanalytic critics see the story as primarily about the relationship between father and son. A few months before he wrote this, Kafka had written “The Judgment,” in which a man sentences his son to death, and the son À ings himself off the ¿ rst bridge he comes to; this seems a transparently Oedipal fantasy. Kafka had read Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), written 12 years before this story, with interest if not always with full endorsement. In “The Metamorphosis,” Gregor, the son in the family for which he serves as breadwinner, has taken over the father’s role and may very well feel guilty about the usurpation. In one graphic scene, Gregor’s father tries to kill his son, who has come between him and his wife, who, with her clothes half falling off, begs her husband not to kill their son; this is as explicitly Oedipal as it is possible for a story to be. In this reading,

• From The History of World Literature (2007)

  129 The Underground Man shows us that his impulses are in con À ict with each other. He is sick and refuses to go to a doctor; when he was a civil servant he would tyrannize petitioners, even though he is not a vindictive man. In both cases what would be his natural or normal desire (to see a doctor, to be nice to the petitioners) is blocked by what he calls “spite.” These conÀ icts prevent him from being anything—a hero or an insect; instead, he is a perfectly characterless man, which he suggests that any self-conscious Russian in the 19 th century would have to be. The Underground Man insists that once one has accepted “the laws of nature”—the ones forming the core of the “-isms” that came to Russia from the West—one cannot be a free agent. If everyone acted entirely on the basis of enlightened self-interest, everyone would be incapable of performing an irrational act; the result would be a utopia. The Underground Man insists that there is no evidence in history to suggest that humankind is even capable of such enlightened self-interest. What is always left out of such equations is free will: the right to choose, even if it means choosing against one’s own happiness. The symbol for the future utopia is the Crystal Palace, built in London in 1851 and used as a symbol of future happiness by Chernyshevsky in What Shall We Do? (1863)—to which Dostoevsky’s novel is a response. The Underground Man’s point is that if everyone behaved purely according to the laws of enlightened self-interest, everyone would be exactly alike and would cease to be fully human. To be human is to choose, and history is full of stories about people who had everything and still did repulsive things because they were bored (e.g., Cleopatra). The Underground Man is not defending suffering for its own sake or as an end in itself; sometimes it is the only way that we can know that we are alive, fully conscious, and fully human. In the tenth section of the ¿ rst part of the novel, the Underground Man says that if he could ¿ nd another way to assure himself of his freedom, he would gladly choose it. This section of the book was badly mangled by the censors, but it hints at what was to become Dostoevsky’s way of salvation in future novels: the teachings of and submission to Christ. The second section of the novel satirizes Romanticism. It tells the story of the Underground Man’s relations with Liza, a prostitute whom he—in an effort to establish his absolute superiority over her—hypocritically convinces

• From Cleanness (2020)

  He turned away from me again and took a deep breath. The point isn’t to make you feel sorry, he said more calmly, looking at the night and the wind that filled it, the point is that I’m not just scared, that’s not the only reason I don’t want to tell people what I am. If I was open, he said, looking at me, it would be like saying what he did to me was okay, it would be like accepting it. I don’t know if I was like this before, probably I was, probably he saw I was and thought I wanted it; and maybe I did want it, maybe that’s why I never said anything, maybe I let it happen because I wanted it. I don’t know, he said, that’s the problem, how can I know what I wanted then, before he did it, how can I know what’s me and what’s what he did to me? I know it’s stupid, but what if he made me this way, how can I be proud of it then, he said, how can I march in some fucking parade, maybe that’s fucked up but it’s what I feel. He stopped suddenly, as if he had just realized how loudly he was speaking; he looked around but no one was paying us any mind. Can we go now, he said, please, I don’t want to eat anymore. Yes, I said, of course, and I scanned the room for our server, catching her eye and making a little motion in the air to signal for our check. Was everything all right, she said when she brought it, gesturing to our half-eaten meals, and I said it was, thank you, we were just ready to go, and I gave her a too-large tip, not wanting to wait for my change. R. was already pulling on his coat, wrapping his scarf around his neck, bundling himself up as I rose. He was eager to get away from what he had said, I thought, and I worried it wasn’t only the place he was fleeing but me, too, that now I would show him an image of himself he hated. There was so much I wanted to say to him but he didn’t give me the chance, he had gotten up too quickly, and now he was moving away with his back to me; I would have had to call out to him as I rose from my seat, which of course I couldn’t do in the crowded restaurant, though I wanted to call or reach out to him, to catch him and draw him near. I followed as he made his way between the tables, and then he paused for me to join him before he shoved open the door.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  He picked up a stick and prodded the ground with it, then asked me if I wanted to make my mother unhappy. I said no. “You don’t?” I shook my head. “Well, that’s what you’re doing.” I said nothing. “All right, then. Do you want to make her happy?” “Sure.” “Good. That’s something. That’s one thing you want. Right?” When I agreed, he said, “But you’re making her unhappy, aren’t you?” “I guess.” “No guessing to it, Jack. You are.” He looked over at me. “So why don’t you stop? Why don’t you just stop?” I didn’t answer right away, for fear of seeming merely agreeable. I wanted to appear to give his question some serious thought. “All right,” I said. “I’ll try.” He threw down the stick. He was still watching me, and I knew that he understood what had happened here; that he had not “reached me” at all, because I was not available to be reached. I was in hiding. I had left a dummy in my place to look sorry and make promises, but I was nowhere in the neighborhood and Father Karl knew it. Still, we didn’t leave right away. We sat gazing out across the water. The river was swollen with runoff. More brown than green, it chuckled and hissed along the bank. Farther from shore it seethed among mossy boulders and the snarled roots of trees caught between them. From under the changing surface sounds of the river came a deep steady sigh that never changed, and grew louder as you listened to it until it was the only sound you heard. Birds skimmed the water. New leaves glinted on the aspens along the bank. It was spring. We were both caught in it for a moment, forgetful of our separate designs. We were with each other the way kindred animals are with each other. Then we stirred, and remembered ourselves. Father Karl delivered some final admonition, and I said I would do better, and we walked back to the store. That weekend Mr. Bolger told me that he had spoken to the Welches and that they had refused my help. “They wouldn’t have you,” he said, and let me know by the gravity of his expression that this was the ultimate punishment, a punishment far worse than doing hard time on their farm. He actually succeeded in making me feel disappointed. But I got over it. The sheriff came to the house one night and told the Bolgers that Chuck was about to be charged with statutory rape. Huff and Psycho were also named in the complaint. The girl was in my class at Concrete High—one of a pack of hysterically miserable girls who ran around in tight clothes, plastered their faces with makeup, chainsmoked and talked in class and did their best to catch the attention of boys who would be sure to use them badly. Somebody had knocked her up.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  The time, while pruning a basket of green beans over the sink, you said, out of nowhere, “I’m not a monster. I’m a mother.” What do we mean when we say survivor? Maybe a survivor is the last one to come home, the final monarch that lands on a branch already weighted with ghosts. The morning closed in around us. I put down the book. The heads of the green beans went on snapping. They thunked in the steel sink like fingers. “You’re not a monster,” I said. But I lied. What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once. I read that parents suffering from PTSD are more likely to hit their children. Perhaps there is a monstrous origin to it, after all. Perhaps to lay hands on your child is to prepare him for war. To say possessing a heartbeat is never as simple as the heart’s task of saying yes yes yes to the body. I don’t know. What I do know is that back at Goodwill you handed me the white dress, your eyes glazed and wide. “Can you read this,” you said, “and tell me if it’s fireproof?” I searched the hem, studied the print on the tag, and, not yet able to read myself, said, “Yeah.” Said it anyway. “Yeah,” I lied, holding the dress up to your chin. “It’s fireproof.” Days later, a neighborhood boy, riding by on his bike, would see me wearing that very dress—I had put it on thinking I would look more like you—in the front yard while you were at work. At recess the next day, the kids would call me freak, fairy, fag. I would learn, much later, that those words were also iterations of monster. Sometimes, I imagine the monarchs fleeing not winter but the napalm clouds of your childhood in Vietnam. I imagine them flying from the blazed blasts unscathed, their tiny black-and-red wings jittering like debris that kept blowing, for thousands of miles across the sky, so that, looking up, you can no longer fathom the explosion they came from, only a family of butterflies floating in clean, cool air, their wings finally, after so many conflagrations, fireproof. “That’s so good to know, baby.” You stared off, stone-faced, over my shoulder, the dress held to your chest. “That’s so good.” You’re a mother, Ma. You’re also a monster. But so am I—which is why I can’t turn away from you. Which is why I have taken god’s loneliest creation and put you inside it. Look.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  know God.” In 1980, one night not long after this bit of advice, she was weeping and semicomatose from her medications when her father came into her bedroom and began to comfort her. Soon, however, she became dimly aware through the narcotic fog that his ministrations had become something more: he was engaging in sexual intercourse with her. She remained passive and made no effort to stop him. Later, she wondered guiltily if she had somehow encouraged his incestuous attentions. In the months that followed, Debbie tried to drown herself in the Goat River, a fast mountain stream that flows past Bountiful, but she failed at that, as well. After she attempted suicide once more, this time with an overdose of sedatives, she was committed to the psychiatric ward of a nearby hospital. While she was recovering, an acquaintance named Michael Palmer * came to visit her in the hospital. Palmer—a thirty-eight-year-old long-haul trucker married to two of Winston Blackmore’s sisters—was part of the religion but worked outside of Bountiful. Debbie recalls that during his visit, Palmer “touched me and kissed me. He made me feel beautiful.” When she was released from the hospital, though, the community still thought of her as a difficult, uncontrollable woman, and nobody was sure what should be done with her. Uncle Roy—who was by then ninety-three years old, very ill, and fast fading into senility—came to Canada and asked Debbie if there were any men that she liked. Michael Palmer, she replied. “So the prophet told Michael to marry me,” she explains. “I became Michael’s third wife. At first life with Michael was wonderful. He held me and helped me throw away my pills. When I had my first baby girl by Michael he was happy and actually played with the baby. He encouraged me to have ideas. I loved him.” The marriage was not without difficulties, however. The two women already married to Michael, Marlene and Michelle Blackmore (who happened to be Debbie’s stepdaughters), were intensely jealous of each other, and Debbie’s installation in their home as a new “sister wife” only added to their misery. Sharing Michael proved especially difficult for Michelle, his first wife. On the nights when it was Michael’s turn to sleep with Debbie, Michelle would listen from the room directly below, alternately crying hysterically and straining to hear sounds of passion that would prove to her that Michael preferred Debbie. “I found Michelle this way one night when Michael and I had just finished making

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  This time he didn’t hit anything, and the mergansers flew away. The bird he’d brought down was floating in the water about twenty feet from shore. Its bill was under the surface, its wings outstretched. It wasn’t moving. Dwight broke the shotgun and pulled out the shells. “Get ’er, Champ,” he said. But Champion did not get the duck. He wasn’t even on the shore now, or anywhere else in sight. Dwight called to him in tones of friendliness, command, and threat, but he did not return. I offered to bring the duck in by throwing rocks behind it. Dwight said not to bother, it was just a garbage bird. We found Champion under the car. Dwight had to sweet-talk him for several minutes before he bellied out, yelping softly and cowering. “He’s a little gun-shy is all,” Dwight said. “We can fix that.” Dwight decided to fix that by taking Champion goose hunting in eastern Washington. He talked my mother into going along. They were supposed to be away for about a week, but came back on unfriendly terms after three days. My mother told me that Champion had run off across the fields after the first shot, and that it took Dwight most of the afternoon to find him. They kept him in the car the next day but he pissed and crapped all over the seats. That was when they decided to come home. “He cleaned it up,” she added, “Every bit of it. I wouldn’t go near it.” I hadn’t asked. I guess she just thought I’d like to know. CHAMPION DIDN’T ALWAYS growl when I came in. Usually he ignored me, and in time I would let down my guard, and then he would do it again and scare the hell out of me. One night he gave me such a fright that I grabbed a sponge mop and hit him over the head. Champion snarled and I hit him again and kept hitting him, screaming myself hysterical while he tried to get away, his paws scrabbling on the wooden floor. Finally he stuck his head behind the water heater and kept it there as I worked the rest of him over. At some point I got tired, and saw what I was doing, and stopped. I was alone in the house. I tried to pace off the jangling I felt, and the guilt. I could forgive myself for most things, but not cruelty. I went back to the utility room. Champion was lying on his blanket again. I prodded his bones and examined him for cuts. He seemed okay. The sponge had taken the force of the blows. While I checked him over, Champion whined and licked my hands. I spoke gently to him. This was a mistake. It gave him the idea that I liked him, that we were pals. From that night on he wanted to be with me all the time.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I pulled my fingers from him (slowly now, gently), and he grabbed my hand and brought it to his mouth, cleaning it though it wasn’t dirty, he was immaculate, he had cleaned himself out before I arrived. As he lay on his side gasping he said again So fucking good, not smiling now, and I thought I had satisfied him. But when he stood I saw he wasn’t satisfied, his cock was still hard as he stepped across the room and bent over to pick up the coil of my belt. I sat up as he held it out, and when I didn’t take it he said I want you to beat me, his voice neutral, matter-of-fact, I want you to whip me with it. I swung my legs off the bed but didn’t get up, I hesitated before finally taking the belt from him and standing. This hadn’t been part of the scene we had planned, he hadn’t said he wanted it, I wasn’t sure it was a scene I liked. He knelt on the bed again, on his hands and knees, presenting his ass. I stepped to the foot of the bed, letting the belt unroll from my hand, then taking the tip again to fold it, I would strike him with half its length. I had never whipped anyone before but that was how my father had done it, taking the strap to us, as he said, that was how he punished us. I took the folded belt in both hands and brought my hands together, making the halves bend out like wings, and then snapped it quickly twice, the noise loud in the small room, making me flinch. That too was what my father had always done, frightening us to double our punishment, I guess, to make us fear the belt before we felt it. At the sound of it he shifted his position, he lowered his torso, dropping to his elbows and resting his head on his clasped hands. I delayed a little more, I rubbed his ass with my free hand, gripping the flesh. Then I struck him, not gently but I knew he could feel my reluctance, and after a second and a third time he said Harder, his voice muffled against his hands, and then again, harder, and I obeyed, striking him each time with greater force, warming into it. But still he said Harder after each stroke, almost like a taunt, and I didn’t know whether it was in response to his voice or to my movement that I became cruel again, became all acquiescence, I would punish him if it was punishment he wanted. I would tan his hide, I thought, which was another thing my father said when he beat us, I’ll tan your hide; he said it with the voice he used only when he was very angry, the voice of his childhood, his country voice.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  This time he didn’t hit anything, and the mergansers flew away. The bird he’d brought down was floating in the water about twenty feet from shore. Its bill was under the surface, its wings outstretched. It wasn’t moving. Dwight broke the shotgun and pulled out the shells. “Get ’er, Champ,” he said. But Champion did not get the duck. He wasn’t even on the shore now, or anywhere else in sight. Dwight called to him in tones of friendliness, command, and threat, but he did not return. I offered to bring the duck in by throwing rocks behind it. Dwight said not to bother, it was just a garbage bird. We found Champion under the car. Dwight had to sweet-talk him for several minutes before he bellied out, yelping softly and cowering. “He’s a little gun-shy is all,” Dwight said. “We can fix that.” Dwight decided to fix that by taking Champion goose hunting in eastern Washington. He talked my mother into going along. They were supposed to be away for about a week, but came back on unfriendly terms after three days. My mother told me that Champion had run off across the fields after the first shot, and that it took Dwight most of the afternoon to find him. They kept him in the car the next day but he pissed and crapped all over the seats. That was when they decided to come home. “He cleaned it up,” she added, “Every bit of it. I wouldn’t go near it.” I hadn’t asked. I guess she just thought I’d like to know. CHAMPION DIDN’T ALWAYS growl when I came in. Usually he ignored me, and in time I would let down my guard, and then he would do it again and scare the hell out of me. One night he gave me such a fright that I grabbed a sponge mop and hit him over the head. Champion snarled and I hit him again and kept hitting him, screaming myself hysterical while he tried to get away, his paws scrabbling on the wooden floor. Finally he stuck his head behind the water heater and kept it there as I worked the rest of him over. At some point I got tired, and saw what I was doing, and stopped. I was alone in the house. I tried to pace off the jangling I felt, and the guilt. I could forgive myself for most things, but not cruelty. I went back to the utility room. Champion was lying on his blanket again. I prodded his bones and examined him for cuts. He seemed okay. The sponge had taken the force of the blows. While I checked him over, Champion whined and licked my hands. I spoke gently to him. This was a mistake. It gave him the idea that I liked him, that we were pals. From that night on he wanted to be with me all the time.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  She is rarely swept away. With Naomi, Doug may have found the single missing piece, but with Zoë he has the rest of the puzzle. Doug and I discuss how his ideal of marriage holds up to the reality of his own particular union. He wants heat and warmth in the same place. He wants the kitchen table to be an altar of carnal merging at night, and a sunny breakfast nook for pancakes with the kids the next morning. But Doug will probably never experience with Zoë the same intensity he has had with Naomi. Affairs have their own brand of passion. Secrecy, torment, guilt, transgression, danger, risk, and jealousy are highly combustible, a Molotov cocktail, an erotic explosion far too threatening in a home with children. As Doug becomes clearer about what he can reasonably expect from his marriage, a new set of questions arises. What are his options now that he has chosen to stay? Can he recognize his desires without having to act on them? Will he continue to negotiate monogamy privately, without Zoë’s knowledge, as is typical in affairs; or might he opt for a more open discussion of the sexual boundaries around their marriage? Must he disclose the affair in order to reconnect with his wife? What can he do with his guilt? The answers change every day. Last week, it seemed as if he would never be able to look her in the eye unless he came clean. Today, it seems that the most loving thing he can do is to keep his mess to himself. “Do I break her heart just to ease my conscience? Sometimes I think she’s known all along, and the only reason she hasn’t left me is because I’ve kept my mouth shut. At least this way she gets to hold on to her dignity.” Most American couples therapists believe that affairs must be disclosed if intimacy is to be rebuilt. This idea goes hand in hand with our model of intimate love, which celebrates transparency—having no secrets, telling no lies, sharing everything. In fact, some people condemn the deception even more than the transgression: “It’s not that you cheated, it’s that you lied to me!” To the American way of thinking, respect is bound up with honesty, and honesty is essential to personal responsibility. Hiding, dissimulation, and other forms of deception amount to disrespect. You lie only to those beneath you— children, constituents, employees. In other cultures, respect is more likely to be expressed with gentle untruths that aim at preserving the partner’s honor. A protective opacity is preferable to telling truths that might result in humiliation. Hence concealment not only maintains marital harmony but also is a mark of respect.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  There are the demands for routine without which family life cannot function, but which undermine sexual spontaneity. There is the undeniable stress on the couple’s resources: less time, money, and energy to spend on each other. There is the sexual invisibility of the American mother, which is so deeply rooted in our psyche that men and women alike conspire to deny maternal sexuality. There are the many ways we shut ourselves down sexually in the family, acting under the assumption that we need to keep sex hidden from children in order to protect them. For many parents, the idea of a secret garden inspires everything from acute guilt and anxiety to the more benign gradations of embarrassment. We are afraid that our adult sexuality will somehow damage our kids, that it’s inappropriate or dangerous. But whom are we protecting? Children who see their primary caregivers at ease expressing their affection (discreetly, within appropriate boundaries) are more likely to embrace sexuality with the healthy combination of respect, responsibility, and curiosity it deserves. By censoring our sexuality, curbing our desires, or renouncing them altogether, we hand our inhibitions intact to the next generation. There are so many reasons to give up on sex that those who don’t are champions in their own right. The brave and determined couples who maintain an erotic connection are, above all, the couples who value it. When they sense that desire is in crisis, they become industrious, and make intentional, diligent attempts to resuscitate it. They know that it is not children who extinguish the flame of desire; it is adults who fail to keep the spark alive .

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  The women who populate his fantasy life are lascivious, sexually alluring, and in no way vulnerable. He need not fear that his selfishness might hurt them, and he can delight in his excitement guilt-free. This is a freedom he never reaches with his wife, and that realization leads us to the cause of his erotic block. James doesn’t know how to enjoy himself sexually in the presence of the woman he loves. Unable to reconcile pleasing himself and pleasing Stella at the same time, he ends up pleasing neither. Even though emotionally and intellectually he is able to maintain a strong sense of himself with his wife—he hates her taste in music, refuses to wear Italian suits, and defied her by voting Republican one year—this self-possession breaks down in the sexual encounter. He fears that if he surrenders to his own concupiscence and forgets Stella, even for a moment, she will be unforgivably hurt. Though James is not aware of this, his erotic blueprint is riddled with marks left by his relationship with his unhappy mother. When it comes to sex with Stella, he is right back to the setup he had in his childhood: he has to make an impossible choice between attending to himself and securing closeness. The guilt he felt as a child about being selfish has been transformed into sexual inhibition. Perhaps this is why James experiences his wife’s desire as a demand rather than an invitation, it is an obligation, not a seduction. Eroticism has shifted into the realm of duty, and is weighted down with pressure, guilt, and worry—all proven antiaphrodisiacs. Rekindling Desire James and Stella are stumped. Their sex problem has been chalked up to lousy chemistry, and they think it is as permanent and irreversible as an amputated leg. For years James has been stuck in a narrative of helplessness that goes something like this: “Our problem has to be coming from somewhere; it has to be somebody’s fault, and if it’s not my fault, then whose fault is it? Must be Stella’s. Let’s blame her.” Reinterpreting James’s lack of desire, I locate it firmly in the reverberations of his childhood. He begins to have some compassion for himself. At the same time, I challenge him to take responsibility for it in the present. Together, we disentangle self-blame and responsibility, and map out courses of action. This brings him big relief. For Stella, this new line of attribution is a small step toward restoring her sense of self-esteem. I work with James to establish a comfortable sense of sexual separateness, making sure to clarify that separateness does not mean indifference. Instead of fixating constantly on Stella, I ask him to do the unthinkable and hold on to himself. With this in mind, I suggest a few things. “First, leave the bedroom. Too many bad associations. Curse the bed—it has failure written all over it.

• From Branded: Brainwashed Inside NXIVM (2020)

  1553 01:17:52,234 --> 01:17:55,671 Raniere's attorney asks for a $10 million bond for his release 1554 01:17:55,771 --> 01:17:58,273 pending trial. 1555 01:17:58,373 --> 01:18:00,776 But the judge, knowing Raneire has deep pockets 1556 01:18:00,876 --> 01:18:02,678 in the Bronfman sisters, 1557 01:18:02,778 --> 01:18:04,980 orders him held without bail. 1558 01:18:07,115 --> 01:18:09,184 While Raniere awaits his day in court, 1559 01:18:09,284 --> 01:18:13,689 his most loyal confidantes begin to fall. 1560 01:18:13,789 --> 01:18:18,326 On March 12, 2019, NXIVM cofounder Nancy Salzman 1561 01:18:18,427 --> 01:18:21,363 pleads guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy 1562 01:18:21,463 --> 01:18:23,765 for harassing and surveilling critics 1563 01:18:23,865 --> 01:18:26,234 and former members of NXIVM. 1564 01:18:26,334 --> 01:18:27,969 [Robert] The sentencing of Nancy Salzman, 1565 01:18:28,070 --> 01:18:30,105 they brought up, this is the number two, unquestionable, 1566 01:18:30,205 --> 01:18:33,075 the mother of all things NXIVM. 1567 01:18:33,175 --> 01:18:34,576 And she was under tremendous pressure 1568 01:18:34,676 --> 01:18:37,713 to continue to satisfy Keith Raniere. 1569 01:18:37,813 --> 01:18:39,181 [Narrator] Salzman is sentenced to 1570 01:18:39,281 --> 01:18:43,385 three and a half years in prison, fined $150,000, 1571 01:18:43,485 --> 01:18:45,854 and made to forfeit several properties, 1572 01:18:45,954 --> 01:18:48,757 as well as more than half a million dollars. 1573 01:18:50,392 --> 01:18:54,196 One month later, actress Allison Mack also pleads guilty 1574 01:18:54,296 --> 01:18:57,933 to charges of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy 1575 01:18:58,033 --> 01:19:01,036 relating to her actions in the DOS sex cult. 1576 01:19:03,772 --> 01:19:06,041 [Rick] Allison Mack was herself a victim. 1577 01:19:06,141 --> 01:19:08,410 You talk about drinking the Kool-Aid. 1578 01:19:08,510 --> 01:19:11,980 I think Allison Mack was swimming in the Kool-Aid. 1579 01:19:12,080 --> 01:19:14,983 She was probably his most devoted follower. 1580 01:19:15,083 --> 01:19:16,651 Even though I've been your student for years 1581 01:19:16,752 --> 01:19:18,220 and I get to spend all this time with you, 1582 01:19:18,320 --> 01:19:20,689 I feel like there's always such a wealth that I can... 1583 01:19:20,789 --> 01:19:22,090 But when you have the opportunity 1584 01:19:22,190 --> 01:19:24,159 to put a bright light on me and just question me... 1585 01:19:24,259 --> 01:19:26,061 -Yeah, exactly, right? -What the hey? 1586 01:19:26,161 --> 01:19:29,664 [Narrator] But others say the line isn't so clear. 1587 01:19:29,765 --> 01:19:31,333 You start to become a perpetrator 1588 01:19:31,433 --> 01:19:35,737 and not a victim when you're capable of understanding 1589 01:19:35,837 --> 01:19:37,172 right from wrong. 1590 01:19:37,272 --> 01:19:38,607 And you know what the repercussions are, 1591 01:19:38,707 --> 01:19:40,709 but you're gonna do it anyway. 1592 01:19:40,809 --> 01:19:45,046 And when you start to enjoy the amount of pain 1593 01:19:45,147 --> 01:19:47,082 that you're inflicting on others, 1594 01:19:47,182 --> 01:19:49,584 then you're no longer a victim. You're a perpetrator. 1595 01:19:50,886 --> 01:19:52,487 [group humming] 1596 01:19:52,587 --> 01:19:55,090 ♪ If I ever hurt you, baby 1597 01:19:55,190 --> 01:19:58,994 ♪ Do, do, do, do, do

• From Reading the Bible from the Margins (2002)

  Pitfalls in Raising Consciousness Learning to read the Bible from the margins liberates the center from using the Bible to justify its privilege and power. Yet the raising of consciousness for the center does not automatically insure that these Christians will participate in actions that liberate the disenfranchised. In fact, several pitfalls exist when the center's consciousness is raised yet people do nothing to change oppressive structures. For example, when those at the center realize that their reading of the Bible does not justify their privileged space, they may experience anguish and dismay, but these feelings are insufficient to establish a more just social order. At times, the center, motivated by guilt, may begin to make those who are marginalized the object of their humanitarianism. Through charities or false generosity, those of the center may attempt to mentor those they consider less fortunate, still refusing to connect their own “having” with the “not having” of the disenfranchised. But the marginalized neither need nor require pity from the center or its models for emulation. What is required for the salvation of the center and for the creation of a just society is the radical commitment to be in solidarity with those who exist on the margins of society and to accompany them in their daily struggle. This does not mean approaching the margins to lead them out of their oppression but to be in solidarity and to serve them as they formulate their own actions for liberation. Solidarity is no easy task because those at the center are often unable to free themselves from their former prejudices. These prejudices can include suspicion about the ability of the disenfranchised to think for themselves, to understand how oppressive power structures work, or to figure out how best to overcome these structures. WORDS OF CONCERN Traditionally, disenfranchised groups have constructed well-defined categories as to who are the perpetrators and the victims of injustices. All too often, people on the margins tend to identify the oppressive structures of the dominant Eurocentric culture while overlooking those within their own marginalized community. Yet within the space of disenfranchised groups, intrastructures of oppression also exist. Additionally, there is a real and present danger of romanticizing the social location of the marginalized. Their hermeneutical privilege can absolutize radical actions inconsistent with the biblical text but nonetheless perceived as a necessary process toward liberation. In effect, the Bible may simply baptize whatever actions originate or are initiated within the margins of society. Such a reading falls into the peril of confusing subjectivity for objectivity, where the Scriptures are interpreted to justify positions and strategies that may promise immediate liberation from oppressive social structures but, in the long run, may simply replace those in power with a new group, never dealing with the oppressive structures themselves. For example, what happens when historically oppressed groups obtain financial success? In reading the Bible from the margins, readers must guard against becoming themselves suboppressors by surmounting the structures of oppression rather than dismantling them.

• From Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)

  Paul and Matthew among Jews and Gentiles148 148 exercised some form of agency in moving the process along, at least in some ways, in some places, and at some points in time. The assumption of mutuality is a welcome antidote to supersessionism and anti- Judaism. I wonder, however, whether scholars’ desire to atone for past sins has also caused them to misconstrue the historical processes that the “parting of the ways” discourse intends to clarify. 2 To begin to probe this issue, I will in these pages consider a few of the sources that are used to construct the Jewish side of the “parting of the ways,” from the New Testament (NT), Josephus, Justin Martyr, and rabbinic literature, and the ways in which they are used in the “parting” discourse. I will argue two interconnected points. First, the available evidence for Jewish response to and concern with Christ-confessors can be read in at least two mutually exclusive ways: as evidence for and against Jews’ engagement with Christ-confessors. Second, scholars’ judgments about the historical value of this evidence, while often presented as objective and even self-evident, are based on an unstated criterion—the criterion of plausibility—that is intuitive and therefore not objective at all. The Criterion of Plausibility The criterion of plausibility is discussed explicitly in the fields of epidemiology and biomedicine when proposing a causal association—a relationship between putative cause and an outcome—that is consistent with existing biological and medical knowledge. It has received little direct attention in the historical study of early Christianity despite the fact that it is employed by virtually all scholars. Among the few to discuss this criterion directly are Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter. In their book The Quest for the Plausible Jesus, Theissen and Winter point out what we all know but prefer not to acknowledge: we cannot know with any certainty what actually happened in the life of Jesus. 3 The same is true, I suggest, with the development of the movement that came to be called Christianity. We can only construct plausible scenarios that are consistent with existing knowledge. The problem is one of circularity, however. The existing knowledge that we need as a foundation for our plausible scenarios is often itself subject to question, as are the methods that we use for constructing our scenarios in the first place. As scholars, therefore, we are always in a position of assessing the plausibility of the scenarios that others propose, and, in turn, we are subject to the criticism of our peers, to whom our own scenarios may seem less than plausible. The sources that are often used to construct the Jewish role in the “parting” process illustrate this conundrum perfectly. 2 Others too have tried it. See, e.g., Tobias Nicklas, Jews and Christians? Second-Century “Christian” Perspectives on the “Parting of the Ways” (Annual Deichmann Lectures 2013) (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 221–3.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  My brother went down to the police station and confirmed that my father had indeed suffered some kind of breakdown. He committed him to Buena Vista Sanitarium, where, for the rest of the summer, my father played genial host to us on Sundays and became engaged to a series of women with even bigger problems than he had. My mother saw which way the wind was blowing and declined to join us. Geoffrey supported us all by working at Convair Astronautics. He had no time to write his novel, or even to prepare the classes he would be teaching in Istanbul that fall. While he worked I ran wild. He tried to keep me busy and get me ready for school by having me write essays on assigned reading. “Disease as Metaphor in The Plague .” “Modes of Blindness in Oedipus Rex .” “Conscience and Law in Huckleberry Finn .” But he had better luck teaching me to love Django Reinhardt and Joe Venuti, and to sing, while he took tenor, the bass line in the glee-club songs he’d learned at Choate. We still sing them. After I went East to school my mother took a job in Washington, D.C. During the Christmas holidays Dwight trailed her there and tried to strangle her in the lobby of our apartment building. Just before she blacked out she kneed him in the balls. He hollered and let her go; then he grabbed her purse and ran. While all this went on I was sitting in our room, reading Hawaii and languidly pretending to believe that the strange noises I heard came from cats. The neighborhood was rough, and I had formed the habit of assigning all such sounds to inhuman origin. When my mother stumbled upstairs and told me what had happened, I tore off blindly down the street and was immediately collared by a plainclothesman who suspected me of another crime. By the time I got home Dwight had been arrested. He was standing outside with my mother and two cops, staring at the ground, the lights of the cruiser flashing across his face. “Bastard,” I said, but I said it almost gently, conscious of the falseness of my position. I had known someone was in trouble and had done nothing. Dwight raised his head. He seemed confused, as if he didn’t recognize me. He lowered his head again. His curly hair glistened with melting snowflakes. This was my last sight of him. My mother got a cease-and-desist order, and the police put him on a bus for Seattle the next morning. I DID NOT do well at Hill. How could I? I knew nothing.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  Some people are goaded throughout life by a vision of vindictive triumph; some, swaddied in despair, dream only of peace, detachment, and freedom from pain; some dedicate their lives to success, opulence, power, truth; others search for self-transcendence and immerse themselves in a cause or another being—a loved one or a divine essence; still others find their meaning in a life of service, in self-actualization, or in creative expression. We need art, Nietzsche said, lest we perish from the truth. Hence I consider creativity as the golden path and have turned my entire life, all my experiences, all my imaginings, into some smoldering inner compost heap out of which I try to fashion, from time to time, something new and beautiful. But my dream says otherwise. It contends that I have devoted my life to quite another goal—winning the approval of my dead momma. This dream indictment has power: too much power to ignore, too disturbing to forget. But dreams are, I have learned, neither inscrutable nor immutable. For most of my life I have been a dream tinkerer. I have learned how to tame dreams, to take them apart, to put them together. I know how to squeeze out dream secrets. And so, letting my head fall back upon my pillow, I drift off, rewinding the dream reel back to the cart in the House of Horrors. The cart stops with a jerk, slamming me against the guard rail. A moment later, it’s reversing direction and slowly backing up through the swinging doors and out again into the Glen Echo sunlight. “Momma, Momma!” I call, both arms waving. “How’d I do?” She hears me. I see her plowing her way through the crowd, flinging people right and left. “Oyvin, what a question,” she says, unlocking the guard rail and pulling me out of the cart. I look at her. She seems about fifty or sixty, is strong and stocky, and is effortlessly carrying a bulging, embroidered, wooden-handled shopping bag. She is homely but does not know it and walks with her chin raised as though she were beautiful. I notice the familiar folds of flesh hanging from her upper arm and the stockings bunched and tied just above her knees. She gives me a big wet kiss. I feign affection. “You did good. Who could ask for more? All those books. You made me proud. If only your father were here to see.” “What do you mean I did good, Momma? How do you know? You can’t read what I’ve written—your vision, I mean.” “I know what I know. Look at these books.” She opens the shopping bag, removes two of my books, and begins to fondle them tenderly. “Big books. Beautiful books.” I feel unnerved by her handling my books. “It’s what’s in the books that’s important.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I wondered if they were the same people I had seen before, whether their entire protest consisted of cleaning up, that gesture M. had been so proud of, leaving the city better than they had found it, leaving it pristine. My phone buzzed again, but I didn’t want to meet D. now, I would write him soon to say I wasn’t coming, or not for a while. It was pointless for me to stick around, I couldn’t do anything to help, I wasn’t any help at all, but I let my bag drop to the grass anyway, I sat down with them to wait.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  After my mother finished her bath she lay down and read, then fixed us dinner and read some more. She turned in early. Answers kept coming to me in the dark, proofs of my blamelessness that I knew to be false but could not stop myself from devising. Dwight drove down that weekend. They spent a lot of time together, and finally my mother told me that Dwight was urging a proposal which she felt bound to consider. He proposed that after Christmas I move up to Chinook and live with him and go to school there. If things worked out, if I made a real effort and got along with him and his kids, she would quit her job and accept his offer of marriage. She did not try to make any of this sound like great news. Instead she spoke as if she saw in this plan a duty which she would be selfish not to acknowledge. But first she wanted my approval. I thought I had no choice, so I gave it. A Whole New Deal____ Dwight drove in a sullen reverie. When I spoke he answered curtly or not at all. Now and then his expression changed, and he grunted as if to claim some point of argument. He kept a Camel burning on his lower lip. Just the other side of Concrete he pulled the car hard to the left and hit a beaver that was crossing the road. Dwight said he had swerved to miss the beaver, but that wasn’t true. He had gone out of his way to run over it. He stopped the car on the shoulder of the road and backed up to where the beaver lay. We got out and looked at it. I saw no blood. The beaver was on its back with its eyes open and its curved yellow teeth bared. Dwight prodded it with his foot. “Dead,” he said. It was dead all right. “Pick it up,” Dwight told me. He opened the trunk of the car and said, “Pick it up. We’ll skin the sucker out when we get home.” I wanted to do what Dwight expected me to do, but I couldn’t. I stood where I was and stared at the beaver. Dwight came up beside me. “That pelt’s worth fifty dollars, bare minimum.” He added, “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the damned thing.” “No sir.” “Then pick it up.” He watched me. “It’s dead, for Christ’s sake. It’s just meat. Are you afraid of hamburger? Look.” He bent down and gripped the tail in one hand and lifted the beaver off the ground. He tried to make this appear effortless but I could see he was surprised and strained by the beaver’s weight. A stream of blood ran out of its nose, then stopped. A few drops fell on Dwight’s shoes before he jerked the body away.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Objection 4: Further, “Sin is not forgiven unless restitution be made,” as Augustine says (Ep. cliii ad Macedon.). Now a man cannot reinstate a woman whom he has violated under the pretense of marriage unless he marry her. Therefore it would seem that even if, after his carnal intercourse, he happen to contract with another by words of the present tense, he is bound to return to the first; and this would not be the case unless he were married to her. Therefore carnal intercourse after consent referring to the future makes a marriage. On the contrary, Pope Nicholas I says (Resp. ad Consult. Bulg. iii; Cap. Tuas dudum, De clandest. despons.), “Without the consent to marriage, other things, including coition, are of no effect.” Further, that which follows a thing does not make it. But carnal intercourse follows the actual marriage, as effect follows cause. Therefore it cannot make a marriage. I answer that, We may speak of marriage in two ways. First, in reference to the tribunal of conscience, and thus in very truth carnal intercourse cannot complete a marriage the promise of which has previously been made in words expressive of the future, if inward consent is lacking, since words, even though expressive of the present, would not make a marriage in the absence of mental consent, as stated above ([4943]Q[45], A[4]). Secondly, in reference to the judgment of the Church; and since in the external tribunal judgment is given in accordance with external evidence, and since nothing is more expressly significant of consent than carnal intercourse, it follows that in the judgment of the Church carnal intercourse following on betrothal is declared to make a marriage, unless there appear clear signs of deceit or fraud [*According to the pre-Tridentine legislation] (De sponsal. et matrim., cap. Is qui fidem). Reply to Objection 1: In reality he who has carnal intercourse consents by deed to the act of sexual union, and does not merely for this reason consent to marriage except according to the interpretation of the law. Reply to Objection 2: This interpretation does not alter the truth of the matter, but changes the judgment which is about external things. Reply to Objection 3: If the woman admit her betrothed, thinking that he wishes to consummate the marriage, she is excused from the sin, unless there be clear signs of fraud; for instance if they differ considerably in birth or fortune, or some other evident sign appear. Nevertheless the affianced husband is guilty of fornication, and should be punished for this fraud he has committed.