Pride

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 Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  ORIGEN. But why was she lowly and cast down, who carried in her womb the Son of God? Consider that lowliness, which in the Scriptures is particularly praised as one of the virtues, is called by the philosophers “modestia.” And we also may paraphrase it, that state of mind in which a man instead of being puffed up, casts himself down. BEDE. But she, whose humility is regarded, is rightly called blessed by all; as it follows, For, behold, from henceforth all shall call me blessed. ATHANASIUS. For if as the Prophet says, Blessed are they who have seed in Sion, and kinsfolk in Jerusalem, (Isa. 31:9. apud LXX.) how great should be the celebration of the divine and ever holy Virgin Mary, who was made according to the flesh, the Mother of the Word? GREEK EXPOSITOR. (Metaphrastes.) She does not call herself blessed from vain glory, for what room is there for pride in her who named herself the handmaid of the Lord? But, touched by the Holy Spirit, she foretold those things which were to come. BEDE. For it was fitting, that as by the pride of our first parent death came into the world, so by the lowliness of Mary should be opened the entrance into life. THEOPHYLACT. And therefore she says, all generations, not only Elisabeth, but also every nation that believed. 1:4949. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name. THEOPHYLACT. The Virgin shews that not for her own virtue is she to be pronounced blessed, but she assigns the cause, saying, For he that is mighty hath magnified me. AUGUSTINE. (sup.) What great things hath He done unto thee? I believe that a creature thou gavest birth to the Creator, a servant thou broughtest forth the Lord, that through thee God redeemed the world, through thee He restored it to life. TITUS BOSTRENSIS. But where are the great things, if they be not that I still a virgin conceive (by the will of God) overcoming nature? I have been accounted worthy, without being joined to a husband, to be made a mother, not a mother of any one, but of the only-begotten Saviour. BEDE. But this has reference to the beginning of the hymn, where it is said, My soul doth magnify the Lord. For that soul can alone magnify the Lord with due praise, for whom he deigus to do mighty things. TITUS BOSTRENSIS. But she says, that is mighty, that if men should disbelieve the work of her conception, namely, that while yet a virgin, she conceived, she might throw back the miracles upon the power of the Worker. Nor because the only-begotten Son has come to a woman is He thereby defiled, for holy is his name.

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

  There are two ways of behaving towards St Thomas’s writings, analogous to two several treatments of a church still standing, in which the saint might have worshipped. One way is to hand the edifice over to some Society for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments: they will keep it locked to the vulgar, while admitting some occasional connoisseur: they will do their utmost to preserve every stone identically the same that the mediaeval builder laid. And the Opera Omnia of St Thomas, handsomely bound, may fill a library shelf, whence a volume is occasionally taken down for the sole purpose of knowing what St Thomas said and no more. Another thirteenth-century church may stand, a parish church still, in daily use; an ancient monument, and something besides; a present-day house of prayer, meeting the needs of a twentieth-century congregation; and for that purpose refitted, repainted, restored, repaired and modernised; having had that done to it which its mediaeval architects would have done, had they lived in our time. Nothing is more remarkable in our old English churches than the sturdy self-confidence, and the good taste also lasting for some centuries, with which each successive age has superimposed its own style upon the architecture of its predecessors. If St Thomas’s works are to serve modern uses, they must pass from their old Latinity into modern speech: their conclusions must be tested by all the subtlety of present-day science, physical, psychological, historical; maintained, wherever maintainable, but altered, where tenable no longer. Thus only can St Thomas keep his place as a living teacher of mankind. For the history of the Contra Gentiles I refer the reader to the folio edition printed at the Propaganda Press in 1878 cura et studio Petri Antonii Uccellii, pp. xiii-xxxlx. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) came to the University of Paris in 1245, and there for three years heard the lectures of Albertus Magnus, taking his Bachelor’s degree in 1248. He returned to the University in 1253, took his Master’s degree in 1257, and thereupon lectured in theology for two or three years, leaving the University in 1259 or 1260. He wrote the Summa contra Gentiles in Italy, under the pontificate of Urban IV (1261-1264), at the request of St Raymund of Pennafort. He went for the third time to the University of Paris in 1269, finally returning to Italy in 1271. Though the Summa contra Gentiles was written in Italy, there is reason to believe that the substance of it was got together during the Saint’s second residence at Paris, and formed the staple of his lectures in the University. The more celebrated Summa Theologica was a later work.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  becoming scarce. Kings and great magnates who had once made over to the Church huge chunks of marginal and underdeveloped land were no longer able to do so. If generous, they endowed new foundations with bits and pieces rather than unitary estates. Wealth was increasing fast and there were, for example, more foundations in the period 1060–1120 than ever before. But new monastic resources were made up of small parcels, often widely dispersed, and items of money income. The lord who founded the priory of St Mont in Gascony, for instance, endowed it with the profits of forty-seven churches, one hamlet, seven manors, four small parcels of land, one vineyard, six arable lots, one wood, one stretch of fishing rights and various small rents and tolls. This produced an income, but gave the monks no real economic role. The Cistercians would have nothing to do with such arrangements. They would take only agricultural property, and they demanded full possession. Moreover, they would not make up their income by saying masses and performing other sacramental functions for the laity; on the contrary, their rules stipulated that they were to place their houses far away from towns, castles and other sources of temptation. Thus perhaps by accident, perhaps by conscious design, they took on a frontier role, pushing the areas of cultivation and pasturage well beyond anything hitherto attempted in Europe. In an expanding society it was the marginal lands which alone offered opportunities for development; and the Cistercians became the agricultural apostles of Europe’s internal colonization. Other individuals were engaged on this task; but the Cistercians worked on a vast scale, and with terrific organization and panache. Most of them were aristocrats, the younger sons of magnates. They saw themselves as a small, pure élite. Their discipline was ferocious. They developed a great driving-force, became outstanding managers, and so prospered enormously. Their twelfth-century expansion is an economic phenomenon almost without parallel in history. The first house was founded in 1108; twenty years later there were seven. By 1152 there were 328, and by the end of the century 525. By this means, in just a century, a huge addition was made to the available resources of Europe, chiefly in Spain and Portugal (which included the world’s biggest monastery, Alcobaca), Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Austria, Wales, northern England and the Scottish border. One monastery, Goldenkron in Bohemia, covered nearly 1,000 square miles, and its agricultural exploitation involved the creation of seventy villages. But the Cistercians might also destroy villages if their spiritual and economic purposes required it. They uprooted three villages, for instance, to create the Abbey of Revesby

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  discusses the vocation of the scribe in contrast to other professions. This kind of contrast is modeled on a famous Egyptian composition from the second millennium, the Instruction of Duauf, also known as “The Satire on the Trades” ( ANET, 432–34). Ben Sira is not as derisive of other professions as the Egyptian sage was, but he leaves no doubt about the superiority of the life of the scribe. After all, “how can one become wise who handles the plough . . . and whose talk is about bulls?” (38:25). As the sage realizes, one has to have leisure in order to acquire wisdom. Since he is not independently wealthy, he aspires to serve great men (39:4). He belongs, in short, to the class of retainers, who depend on the rich and powerful for their livelihood. It is not surprising, then, that he takes a conservative position on social ethics and seldom strikes a prophetic note, although he sometimes claims to be inspired (see, for example, 24:33: “I will pour out teaching like prophecy and leave it to all future generations”). Ben Sira depicts the scribe as one who is devoted to the study of the Torah but also seeks out wisdom in all its forms and even travels to foreign lands to seek it out. He is pious and prays to the Most High (prayer is seldom mentioned in the earlier wisdom books). In the concluding poem of the book he describes how he prayed for wisdom “while I was still young, before I went on my travels” (51:13). The analogy with Solomon is obvious (1 Kings 3). His goal is to serve the great, win honor in his lifetime, and leave a glorious name after his death. It seems likely that Ben Sira earned his living, at least in part, by teaching. Also in the final poem of the book he calls on the uneducated to come to him “and lodge in my house of instruction” (51:23; the Hebrew phrase is be¯t midrash ). This is the earliest reference to a school in Jewish tradition. (According to the Talmud, schools were established either in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus [103–76 B.C.E., Jerusalem Talmud Kethuboth 8.32c] or in the first century C.E., by Joshua ben Gamala [Babylonian Talmud Baba Bathra 21a].) Ben Sira’s school was probably more like a tutorial system. Sirach 6:34- 36 advises the aspiring student to find a wise teacher, attach oneself to him, and wear out his doorstep. Formal education in Judaism was still in its infancy. Ben Sira represents a milestone in the development, not only by the fact that he mentions a house of instruction but also by the fact that he combines the teaching of Torah with traditional wisdom. The Ancient Near East c. 60 B.C.E.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  The mileu in which this analysis is placed is socially and politically quite distinct. It is the small society of landholders who must maintain and increase the family wealth and bequeath it to those who bear their name. Xenophon explicitly contrasts this world with that of craftsmen, whose life is not beneficial either to their own health (because of their way of living), or to their friends, or to the city (seeing that they do not have the leisure to attend to its affairs).1 The activity of landowners, on the other hand, is practiced in the marketplace, in the agora, where they can fulfill their duties as friends and as citizens, as well as in the oikos. But the oikos comprises more than just the house proper; it also includes the fields and possessions, wherever they may be located (even outside the boundaries of the city): “whatever someone possesses is part of his household”; it defines a whole sphere of activities.2 And this activity is connected to a lifestyle and an ethical order. The landowner’s existence, if he takes proper care of his estate, is good for him first of all; in any case it is an endurance exercise, physical training that is good for the body, for its health and vigor; it also encourages piety by making it possible to offer rich sacrifices to the gods; it favors friendship relations by providing the occasion to show generosity, to satisfy fully one’s hospitality obligations, and to manifest one’s beneficence toward other citizens. Further, this activity is useful to the entire city in that it adds to its wealth and especially because it supplies it with good defenders: the landowner, being used to strenuous work, is a strong soldier and the wealth he possesses motivates him to courageously defend the homeland.3

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  An iconic moment from Cooper’s Voice from the South is instructive. In her oft-cited critical exchange with Martin Delany, she exposes the problem with masculinist conceptions of Black possibility: “Only the BLACK WOMAN can say ‘when and where I enter in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole race enters with me.’”3 A paragon of the emerging Great Race Man model of leadership that relied on a charismatic male leader as its centerpiece,4 Delany, whom Cooper admired, represented both the potency and the danger of a masculinist approach to race progress. Delany, a staunch Black nationalist, reveled in being what Cooper called “an unadulterated black man” with no identifiable European ancestry. For him, this “pure” African bloodline meant that when he, an accomplished medical doctor, intellectual, and racial leader, “entered the council of kings the black race entered with him.”5 Delany was a quintessential race man who, by turns, attempted a race colonization scheme in Africa, and when that failed, served in the Union Army. While he was a champion of the education of women, he also thought their primary role in “the regeneration of the race” was as good mothers. But his race rhetoric was tied to his belief that his bloodline had remained unsullied by whiteness.6 As the child of an enslaved mother and a white slave master, Cooper could make no such pronouncements about Black racial purity or an unadulterated bloodline. Histories of sexual violence and bodily trauma in Black women’s lives made such accounts of racial identity untenable. Unimpressed by Delany’s definition of power, which metonymically centered formal recognition by the “council of kings,” Cooper also made clear that “whatever the attainments of the individual may be … he can never be regarded as identical with or representative of the whole.”7 By challenging Delany’s conception of power, Cooper rejected his implicit romanticization of political elitism and white male standards of power as the goal to which Black people should aspire.8 Cooper pointed instead to the “horny handed toiling men and women of the South” as the proper measure of race progress. Focusing on the gnarled, calloused hands of working-class Black people demanded that racial accounts of progress remain connected to the material and embodied conditions of everyday Black people. Moreover, Cooper made clear that her primary social goal was not the achievement of racial respectability, but rather the achievement of “undisputed dignity.” The call for dignity and the call for respectability are not the same, though they are frequently conflated. Demands for dignity are demands for a fundamental recognition of one’s inherent humanity. Demands for respectability assume that unassailable social propriety will prove one’s dignity. Dignity, unlike respectability, is not socially contingent. It is intrinsic and, therefore, not up for debate. And Cooper was willing to step into the ring to contest anyone who thought otherwise.

• From Chasing Beauty

  “A leader of society!”: This and all subsequent quotations in next two paragraphs are from “Mrs. John L. Gardner—The Home Life and Treasures of Boston’s Famous Social Leader,” Boston Journal, April 14, 1893. “As Mrs. Gardner”: Carter, 144. “neuralgia and rheumatism”: Theodore Dwight to ISG, August 27, 1894, ISG Papers, ISGM. “I am distressed”: FMC to ISG, July 28, 1894, ISG Papers, ISGM. By June 30: All the details of this trip come from JLG Jr. 1894 Diary, JLGJr-P. “never came off”: JSS to ISG, August 27, 1894, ISG Papers, ISGM. Isabella would later place the carpet at the center of the Titian Room in Fenway Court. Paderewski had recommended: Tharp, 159. “having tea together”: Carter, 146. “most imbecile life”: Minnie Bourget to ISG, May 30, 1894, ISG Papers, ISGM. “the deluge of people”: The Complete Notebooks of Henry James, ed. Leon Edel and Lyall H. Powers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 126. See also Leon Edel, Henry James: The Treacherous Years, 1895–1901 (New York: Avon Books, 1969), 139–40. noise and commerce: Some of James’s venom may be attributed to his woeful state of mind in the months after his close friend Constance Fenimore Woolson died by suicide in Venice at the start of 1894. See Anne Boyd Rioux, Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist (New York: W. W. Norton, 2016), 309–17. “the age of Mrs. Jack”: The Complete Notebooks of Henry James, 126. social and cultural gravity: I am indebted to Alexandra Bush for this insight. to the Palazzo Barbaro: JLG Jr. 1894 Diary, JLGJr-P. For the fascination with gondoliers, see Gondola, 109–16. “Mrs. G. held”: Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, 1831–1920 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1923; first printed by Merrymount Press, 1903), 182. “ten days of healing”: ISG Guest Book, vol. 1, 1893–94. “by far the most”: Francis Hopkinson Smith, Gondola Days (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1897), 157. He conveyed her hauteur: For more on this etching, see Alan Chong, “Artistic Life in Venice,” Gondola, 104. guests to “come out”: Tharp, 181. “stay just as you are!”: Carter, 147. he had “finished”: JLG Jr., October 22, 1894, Diary, JLGJr-P. an “airy diaphanous”: Sunday Boston Herald, July 9, 1893. likeness was “excellent”: New York Times, February 10, 1894. “The other is a portrait”: ISG to Joseph Lindon Smith, November 4, 1894, as quoted in Gondola, 105. as “grandly majestic”: As quoted in Anne-Marie Eze in “Zorn in Boston,” 60. Eze correctly points out that Zorn’s Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice would become the “iconic, official” portrait of Gardner in part because Sargent’s painting had been banished from public view. Eze, 61. “How much do you”: BB to ISG, August 1, 1894, ISG/BB Letters, 39. support and “kindness”: BB to ISG, August 1, 1894, ISG/BB Letters, 39. Patricia Lee Rubin documents the complicated purchasing process for this painting in “‘Pictures with a Past’: Botticelli in Boston,” in Botticelli: Heroines and Heroes, ed. Nathaniel Silver (Boston: ISGM; London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2019), 21–23.

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  What does it mean and what has it meant to be a Black female intellectual? What does it mean to be a race woman? When and where are the sites of race women’s becoming? In Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women, I argue that to arrive at an answer to the first question, we must diligently interrogate and examine the latter questions. Race women were the first Black women intellectuals. As they entered into public racial leadership roles beyond the church in the decades after Reconstruction, they explicitly fashioned for themselves a public duty to serve their people through diligent and careful intellectual work and attention to “proving the intellectual character” of the race. Pauline Hopkins declared two key tasks attached to the work of the “true race-woman.”1 They were “to study” and “to discuss” “all phases of the race question.” Not only were these women institution builders and activists; they declared themselves public thinkers on race questions. Though Hopkins and her colleagues were part of a critical mass of public Black women thinkers in the 1890s, they joined a longer list of Black women who had been at the forefront of debates over “the woman question” and the role of Black women in public life throughout the 1800s.2 In this book, I construct both an intellectual genealogy and an intellectual geography of race women, whose work as public thinkers remains undertheorized, despite more than three decades of critical work in Black feminist theory and literary criticism and Black women’s history. Thus, this book seeks to construct both an intellectual genealogy of the ideas that race women produce about racial identity, gender, and leadership between the 1890s and the 1970s, and an intellectual geography that maps the deliberate ways that Black women chose to take up and transform intellectual and physical spaces in service of their racial uplift projects.

• From Jesus and the Disinherited (1949)

  All kinds of supports for implementing one’s affirmed position are seized upon. A strange, new cunning possesses the mind, and every opportunity for taking advantage, for defeating the enemy, is revealed in clear perspective. One of the salient ways by which this expresses itself is the quality of endurance that appears. It is the sort of thing that causes a little boy, when he is being overpowered by a big boy, to refrain from tears or from giving any expression that will reveal the depths of his pain and hurt. He says to himself grimly, “I’ll die before I cry.” I have already pointed out that the relationship between the strong and the weak is characterized often by its amoral aspect. When hatred serves as a dimension of self-realization, the illusion of righteousness is easy to create. Often there are but thin lines between bitterness, hatred, self-realization, defiance, and righteous indignation. The logic of the strong-weak relationship is to place all moral judgment of behavior out of bounds. A type of behavior that, under normal circumstances, would call for self-condemnation can very easily, under these special circumstances, be regarded as necessary and therefore defensible. To take advantage of the strong is regarded merely as settling an account. It is open season all the time, without the operation of normal moral inhibitions. It is a form of the old lex talionis —eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Thus hatred becomes a device by which an individual seeks to protect himself against moral disintegration. He does to other human beings what he could not ordinarily do to them without losing his self-respect. This is an aspect of hatred that has almost universal application during a time of war and national crisis. Doubtless you will recall that during the last war a very interesting defense of hatred appeared in America. The reasoning ran something like this: American boys have grown up in a culture and a civilization in which they have absorbed certain broad attitudes of respect for human personality, and other traits characteristic of gentlemen of refinement and dignity. Therefore they are not prepared psychologically or emotionally to become human war machines, to make themselves conscious instruments of death. Something radical has to happen to their personality and their over-all outlook to render them more effective tools of destruction.

• From The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (2004)

  If you want a dildo you can wear as a cock, check out these models: • Want a realistic feel? Cyberskin now comes in several models—the basic realistic dildo, a vibrating version, and a stretchy sleeve you can pull over any dildo or cylindrical vibe. • Want a realistic look? Realistic dildos feature detailed glans, veins, and balls. You can emulate Jeff Stryker with a dildo modeled after the porn star himself. Or try the Johnny—7½ inches long and almost 2 inches in diameter. Why would a lesbian buy a dildo with balls? Aside from the realistic look and feel, the balls provide extra stimulation for the receptive partner—when thrusting in a rear-entry position, they slap against her vulva. • Do you pack? You’ll find packing dildos to create a realistic bulge in your pants in silicone and Cyberskin. Some are intended for penetration as well. Many Cyberskin dildos bend easily enough to tuck into your briefs. You’ll find a variety of dildos made from soft “fleshy” material—comfortable enough to wear under clothing, plus you won’t look like you’ve got a baseball bat in your pants. Aslan Leather sells what might be the most realistic soft cock you’ll ever find. Mr. Right is made from silicone with detailed balls and lifelike shaft and head. They also sell a packing strap (fits up to 50-inch hip size) to go with it. Packing somehow completes me. It makes me feel real. Do You Want to Explore BDSM?You’ll find discussion of a number of BDSM toys and devices in chapter 15, Play Nice! (…or Else). Make sure your toys are well made and come from reputable sources. Many makers of whips and other S/M toys are truly artisans; their passion for the erotic exchange of power translates into their products. Some of the mail-order and retail outlets listed in the resources section have fabulous websites with photos of toys (and gorgeous models). Others offer print catalogs. Blowfish, JT’s Stockroom, Extreme Restraints, and Purple Passion, among others, carry a full line of bondage and S/M toys. Some websites offer helpful information on toy care and safety as well. Sex and Disability: Toy Accessibility “Toys are imperfect,” write the authors of The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability, “and the best approach to take is that you can make them your own, sometimes by the things you do with them, sometimes by the things you do to them.” Here’s their advice: Make your sex toys your own—be inventive in adapting and playing with your toys. If you want help adapting your toys, consult an occupational therapist. Although some occupational therapists may not share your sexual politics (and may even blush at your request to build up the handle on your vibrator), they do have the training and materials to help you make your sex toys more functional.

• From Between Us

  There is not much research on how we learn the emotions of another culture, but late-life socialization may not be fundamentally different from early-life socialization of emotions; it comes outside-in. One of my socializing experiences occurred when I first arrived at the University of Michigan. I attended a seminar on emotions where most of the other participants were graduate students; I was a postdoctoral student. In a general round of self-introductions, I stated I was interested in “culture and emotion.” The senior professor supplemented my understated (Dutch) introduction, saying that I was one of the world experts on the topic of culture and emotions. In doing so, he created an opportunity for “pride.” It was not much different from the way in which, many years later, Oliver’s father and I created opportunity for his feeling pride, or Didi’s mother and sister created opportunity for shame. If not literally create, others may also categorize emotional episodes in the new culture’s way. As an immigrant you learn new emotions, because others in the new culture categorize emotional events according to shared emotion concepts. Again, this is not so different from the way children learn to do “emotions.” Other people also show and tell you how to do emotions. I remember that same first time with the senior professor, I looked down in embarrassment, and mumbled that “expert” was a big word. I did not know how to take my place in this emotional interaction that was creating an occasion for “pride.” Rather than joining my host in his effort by being pleased and thanking him—the American scenario, I later learned—I reciprocated with a Dutch scenario, showing myself “no better than anybody else.” I danced the tango, when my interaction partner invited me to the waltz that was common in the my new (North American) environment. Gradually, by observing others gracefully taking their place to shine, I learned to take opportunities to feel pride when they were offered. Taking part in majority contexts also teaches you when interactions are smooth. I learned because, clearly, interactions were less awkward if I did American-style “pride.” Similarly, noticing that my indignation was not shared, and my anger ignored in the American South, made me express (and ultimately feel) less of these emotions. If others consistently make waltz steps, the music that is playing is waltz music, and your tango steps are not reciprocated, you learn to waltz; your “emotions” get calibrated, though not all at once, and not flawlessly.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  I should have made them before, but I couldn’t. Only now did the hawk seem real enough to make them necessary. Jesses are the soft leather straps that fit through the leather anklets on a trained hawk’s legs. Singular, jess. It’s a French word from the fourteenth century, back when falconry was the favourite game of the ruling elite. A little scrap of social history in the name for a strip of leather. As a child I’d cleaved to falconry’s disconcertingly complex vocabulary. In my old books every part of a hawk was named: wings were sails, claws pounces, tail a train. Male hawks are a third smaller than the female so they are called tiercels, from the Latin tertius, for third. Young birds are eyasses, older birds passagers, adult-trapped birds haggards. Half-trained hawks fly on a long line called a creance. Hawks don’t wipe their beaks, they feak. When they defecate they mute. When they shake themselves they rouse. On and on it goes in a dizzying panoply of terms of precision. The terms were precise for a reason. Knowing your falconry terminology attested to your place in society. Just as in the 1930s T. H. White worried about whether a hunting crop should be properly called a hunting whip, or a riding crop, or a riding whip, or just a crop, or a whip, so in the sixteenth century the Jesuit spy Robert Southwell was terrified he’d be found out because he kept forgetting his falconry terms. But the words weren’t about social fear when I was small. They were magic words, arcane and lost. I wanted to master this world that no one knew, to be an expert in its perfect, secret language. You can buy it all on the internet now: jesses, hoods, bells, gloves, everything. But when I began falconry, most of us made our own equipment. We’d buy swivels from deep-sea-fishing shops, leashes from ships’ chandlers, beg offcuts from leather tanneries and shoe factories to make our own jesses and hoods. We adapted, we adopted, we usually didn’t improve. Certainly I didn’t. I spent countless hours waxing cotton thread, punching holes in my hands instead of leather in error, frowning, wiping blood away, trying again and again to cut and make and sew things that looked like the photographs in books, waiting for the glorious day when I might have a hawk of my own.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Magdeburg, Aetatis 13In the fall of 1496—or possibly in the spring of 1497—Martin’s parents sent him to a school in Magdeburg, forty miles north. He was then thirteen years old and went there with Hans Reinecke,* the son of a notably successful colleague of his father’s. There can be little doubt that Hans Luther’s plans for his son were ambitious, and being able to send him to schools where he could learn Latin and mix with the sons of distinguished figures must have been gratifying. Still, Hans Luther seems to have fought mightily hard his whole life long to pull himself up the social ladder, or at least to cling to the rung where he was fortunate enough to find himself. Having a genius son who could further the family’s fortunes through education was clearly a part of the larger goal. Mixing with the “right” people was naturally part of this, and the opportunity to join Reinecke’s son in faraway Magdeburg must have seemed an attractive opportunity and an important piece of the larger, long-term plan for his son. One of the officials in the Magdeburg archdiocese was Dr. Paul Mosshauer, who originally hailed from Mansfeld and who had relatives in the mining and smelting world of Mansfeld, which accounts for Luther and Reinecke’s connection to the school. Martin’s time in Magdeburg had a profound effect on what would ultimately be an important turn in his life when he entered the monastery in 1505. While at Magdeburg, he was placed with the Nullbrüder (Brethren of the Common Life), who were not an official monastic order but who nonetheless had gathered together in a monastic-type community and took in student boarders. They lived in relative poverty but, unlike most actual monks, did not resort to begging, choosing instead to make a living by copying books, because printing presses had not yet become commonplace. Luther would here have for the first time been exposed to lives of serious piety, and it follows that any penchant he might have had for taking God more seriously than the average student would first have been encouraged during this time. Of course, had his father ever dreamed that his son might end up moving in this direction, we cannot doubt that he wouldn’t have sent him to live with the Nullbrüder. But there seems to have been no reason at all to believe that Martin was anything other than a dutiful son who would fulfill his father’s good wishes for him, which at that time were for him to be a strong student who one day would bring honor to his family by becoming a lawyer.

• From Between Us

  57 ​one Chicago mom relates to the researcher: P. J. Miller, H. Fung, and J. Mintz, “Self-Construction through Narrative Practices: A Chinese and American Comparison of Early Socialization,” Ethos 24, no. 2 (1996): 258. 58 ​face-to-face interactions: E.g., Heidi Keller et al., “Cultural Models, Socialization Goals, and Parenting Ethnotheories: A Multicultural Analysis,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 37, no. 2 (March 2006): 155–72. 59 ​“a generalized self-reliance”: Naomi Quinn and Holly F. Mathews, “Emotional Arousal in the Making of Cultural Selves,” Anthropological Theory 16, no. 4 (December 1, 2016): 359–89, 376. 59 ​predisposes children to feel happy, proud, or full of self-esteem: Miller et al., “Self-Esteem as Folk Theory”; Quinn, “Universals of Child Rearing”; Quinn and Mathews, “Emotional Arousal in the Making of Cultural Selves.” 59 ​As one website puts it: Pamela Li, “Top 10 Good Parenting Tips—Best Advice,” Parenting for Brain, February 3, 2021, https://www.parentingforbrain.com/how-to-be-a-good-parent-10-parenting-tips/. 59 ​“shaming children . . . damage self-esteem . . . ”: Miller et al., “Self-Esteem as Folk Theory.” Reprinted by permission of the publisher (Taylor & Francis Ltd, http://www.tandfonline.com). 59 ​low self-esteem and proneness to depression . . . aggressive and antisocial tendencies: E.g., Tamara J. Ferguson et al., “Guilt, Shame, and Symptoms in Children,” Developmental Psychology 35, no. 2 (1999): 347–57; So Young Choe, Jungeun Olivia Lee, and Stephen J. Read, “Self-concept as a Mechanism through Which Parental Psychological Control Impairs Empathy Development from Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood,” Social Development 29, no. 3 (2020): 713–31. 60 ​“Do not spank, no matter what”: Arash Emamzadeh, “Do Not Spank Your Children,” Psychology Today, 2018, https://www.psychologytoday.com/sg/blog/finding-new-home/201809/do-not-spank-your-children. 60 ​right from wrong: Mark R. Lepper, “Social Control Processes and the Internalization of Social Values: An Attributional Perspective,” Social Cognition and Social Development, 1983; Judith G. Smetana, “Parenting and the Development of Social Knowledge Reconceptualized: A Social Domain Analysis,” in Parenting and the Internalization of Values, ed. J. E. Grusec and L. Kuczynski (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997), 162–92. 60 ​puts children’s psychological health at risk: E.g., Diana Baumrind, “Current Patterns of Parental Authority,” Developmental Psychology 4, no. 1, Pt. 2 (1971): 1–103; Judith G. Smetana, “Parenting Styles and Conceptions of Parental Authority during Adolescence,” Child Development, 1995, 299–316. 60 ​the central role of malu: Röttger-Rössler et al., “Socializing Emotions in Childhood.” 61 ​teach her little boy propriety: Fung, “Becoming a Moral Child: The Socialization of Shame among Young Chinese Children.” 62 ​no good translation for self-esteem in Chinese: Miller et al., “Self-Esteem as Folk Theory,” 2002. It is not uncommon to have no word for self-esteem (for Japanese, see Steven J. Heine et al., “Is There a Universal Need for Positive Self-Regard?,” Psychological Review 106, no. 4 [1999]: 766–94), and self-esteem has a negative connotation in some cultures. As Quinn notes: one Inuit woman tells Briggs that it is dangerous to think you are perfectly good (Quinn, “Universals of Child Rearing,” 496).

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Ritualists argued that once the inner fire—the atman—had been created within the sacrificer, it became his permanent and inalienable possession. They developed a fresh ritual to make this explicit. When he ignited new fire during a rite by blowing on the sparks, the priest or patron should inhale and draw the sacred fire into his being.86 This was what the devas had done, when they had acquired their eternal atman and achieved immortality. From that moment, therefore, the sacrificer was equal to the gods and did not need to worship them anymore. He who knows thus was no longer a devayajnin (a “sacrificer to devas”) but an atmayajnin, a “self-sacrificer.”87 He no longer had to service his atman by continually participating in the external ceremonies of the liturgy, because his inner fire did not need fuel. He had achieved his atman once and for all. All that was necessary for the self-sacrificer was to speak the truth at all times, the special virtue of devas and warriors alike. By acting and speaking in accordance with truth and reality, he would be imbued with the power and energy of the brahman.88 The Axial Age of India had begun. In our modern world, ritual is often thought to encourage a slavish conformity, but the Brahmin ritualists had used their science to liberate themselves from the external rites and the gods, and had created a wholly novel sense of the independent, autonomous self. By meditating on the inner dynamic of the ritual, the priestly reformers had learned to look within. They would now begin to pioneer the exploration of the inner world as assiduously as the Aryan warriors had pressed forward into the unknown jungles of India. The stress on saving knowledge would also be important during the Axial Age; the ritualists were demanding that everybody reflect upon the rites and become aware of the implications of what they were doing: a new self-consciousness had been born. Henceforth, the spiritual quest of India would not focus on an external god, but on the eternal self. It would be a difficult quest, because this inner fire was difficult to isolate, but the ritual science of the Brahmanas had taught the Aryans that it was possible to build an immortal self. The reform, which had begun with the elimination of violence from the sacrificial rites, had led the Brahmins and their lay patrons in a wholly unexpected direction. Still lacking in India was a strong ethical commitment, which would save this proud self-sufficiency from becoming a monstrous egotism. 3 KENOSIS (c. 800 to 700 BCE)

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  Western observers were particularly dismayed by the spectacle of women returning to the veil, which they had seen as a symbol of Islamic backwardness and patriarchy since the days of Lord Cromer. But it was not experienced in this way by those Muslim women who voluntarily assumed Islamic dress for practical reasons and also as a way of casting off an alien Western identity. Donning a veil, a scarf, and a long dress could be a symbol of that “return to the self” which Islamists were attempting with such difficulty in the postcolonial period. There is, after all, nothing sacred about Western dress per se. The desire to see all women wearing it has been construed by Islamists as a sign of that tendency to regard “the West” as the norm to which “the rest” are obliged to conform. The veiled woman has, over the years, become a symbol of Islamic self-assertion and a rejection of Western cultural hegemony. Opting for concealment, she defies the sexual mores of the West, with its strange compulsion to “reveal all.” Where Western men and women attempt to bring the body under the control of the human will in their gyms and workouts, and cling to this life by making their bodies impervious to the process of time and ageing, the veiled Islamic body tacitly declares that it is under divine orders and oriented not toward this world but to transcendence. In the West, men and women often display and even flaunt their expensively acquired tans and finely honed bodies as a mark of privilege; Muslim bodies, concealed under layers of very similar clothing, emphasize the equality of the Islamic vision. By the same token, they assert the Koranic ideal of community over the individualism of Western modernity. In rather the same way as Shukri Mustafa’s communes, the veiled Islamic woman is a tacit critique of the darker side of the modern spirit.41

• From Between Us

  If you’re reading this book in the United States, you probably value happiness. Happy people are healthier, more successful, and better liked. Linguist Anna Wierzbicka, describing middle-class white American social life, points to “important norms of interaction, with great emphasis being placed on being liked and approved of, on being perceived as friendly and cheerful. . . .” Happiness American-style is omnipresent and “right.” The reason may be that it helps to uphold three pillars of contemporary American life: success, being in control, and choice. In one study, my colleagues Yukiko Uchida and Shinobu Kitayama asked white American and Japanese college students to list “features” of happiness. Nearly all features generated by the American college students were positive. Importantly, American college students associated the good features of feeling happiness (e.g., joy, smiling) with personal achievement (e.g., feeling good about myself, getting what I want). This is what Kitayama, Mayumi Karasawa, and I found too: American college students—predominantly white—rated themselves as happy, when they were “proud,” felt “on top of the world” and “superior,” and had “self-esteem.” In yet another study by psychologist Phil Shaver and his colleagues, American college students who described experiences of happiness from the past—either their own or someone else’s—also noted feeling both good and successful. In the U.S., then, an essential aspect of happiness is feeling good about yourself and your own achievements. White American college students describing instances of happiness characterize the emotion as outgoing, energetic, and approach-oriented. They describe happy people as being courteous and friendly, hugging other people, doing nice things for other people, and seeking to communicate and share their good feelings. Moreover, happiness is portrayed as energetic, active, and bouncy—to the point of being “hyper” and jumping up and down. Happy people laugh, smile, talk enthusiastically. The most commonly used psychological measures capture “happiness” as an active and approach-oriented emotion. Happiness is paraphrased as “enthusiastic,” “interested,” “determined,” “excited,” and “inspired.” Energetic, active, and bouncy happiness serves you particularly well when you want to make things go your way. In one experimental study, psychologist Jeanne Tsai found that individuals who were told they would be “influencers” in an interactive task chose to be excited. This was true for “influencers” from very different cultures. Tsai argues that the white American preference for a happiness with energetic overtones stems from a culture in which individuals encounter many opportunities to influence and exert control over their environment. This kind of happiness is ingrained in Americans from an early age. American mothers stimulate their babies by repositioning, playing, and chatting with them, thus planting the seeds for bouncy happiness. American parents are strongly encouraged to ensure a level of entertainment for their children, in this way eliciting activated happiness as well. Children should have fun (high arousal), rather than being bored (low arousal). They are kept busy and excited with innumerable toys, a variety of extracurricular activities, trips to amusement parks, and other forms of entertainment.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  In court life too, each junzi must keep to the role assigned to him and thus contribute to the beauty and elegance of the palace.79 A gentleman should always be perfectly dressed; his manner must be “grave, majestic, imposing, and distinguished,”80 and his expression “sweet and calm, the forms and dispositions conformable to the rules.”81 Instead of expressing his individuality, the vassal surrendered his entire being to the chivalric archetype. This “yielding” must be wholehearted. The first duty of a junzi was cheng: “sincerity.” He could not conform to the li in a shallow, grudging, or hypocritical manner; his goal was to give himself up so thoroughly to the rules of etiquette that they became integral to his personality. By wholly identifying with the paradigmatic junzi, he would become a fully humane person. His personality would be perfected by this artifice, in the same way as a block of untreated jade was transformed by an artist into a beautiful ritual vessel. Court life was thus an education in true humanity. “The li teach us,” the ritualists of Lu explained, “to give free rein to one’s feelings, to let them follow their bent is the Way of barbarians. The Way of li is quite different. The ceremonial fixes degrees and limits.”82 If the rites became an authentic part of his being, the gentleman learned moderation, self-control, and generosity, because the li were designed to hold violence and hubris in check: “Rites obviate disorders, as dykes obviate floods.”83 The archery contest revealed a junzi’s quality. This was not simply a test of skill and military efficiency, but a musical ceremony designed to promote peace and concord. Any barbarian could hit the target, but the junzi was aiming for nobility. He did not really want to win, because it was more honorable to lose. He had to pretend that he wanted to win, but that in itself was an act of humility, since naked ambition was vulgar, the sign of an inferior person. The presentation of the cup to the losing contestant was, therefore, really an act of homage. Before he picked up his bow, each competitor must have a sincere (cheng) attitude of mind, as well as an upright (che) bodily posture, or he would besmirch the power of his prince.84 They both had to shoot their arrows at exactly the same moment, in time with the music. As it flew, whirring, from the bow, each arrow must sing out the correct note. Instead of hitting the target, the arrows were supposed to meet in midair: violence and confrontation had been deflected into concord and harmony. At the end of the contest, both archers wept: the winner out of pity for the defeated competitor, and the vanquished out of compassion for the victor, who, of course, was the real loser. The two warriors would kneel and promise to live henceforth as father and son.

• From The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones (2006)

  And to the casual observer, the torrent of profanity likely to come the way of an inadequately prepared poissonier can seem terrifying and offensive. And there is a line not to be crossed. Bullying for its own sake, for the sheer pleasure of exerting power over other, weaker cooks or employees, is shameful. If I verbally disembowel a waiter during a busy shift for some transgression, real or imagined, I sincerely hope and expect that at the shift's end, we will be friendly and laughing about it at the bar. If a cook goes home feeling like an idiot for trusting me, working hard for me, and investing time and toil in pleasing me, then I have failed in my job. Good kitchens, however hard the work, and good chefs, should breed intense loyalty, camaraderie, and relationships that last lifetimes. Most reasonably coordinated people with hearts, souls, and any kind of emotional connection to food can be taught to cook, at some level or another. It takes a special breed to love the business. When you pursue excellence for yourself —not for dreams of TV stardom or endorsement deals, not for the customer, not for your chef, but for yourself—then you are well on your way to becoming the kind of lifetime adrenaline junkie professional culinarian recognizable in any country or culture. I can't tell you how many times I've talked about this with chefs and cooks around the world. Whether it's Singapore, Sydney, Saint Louis, Paris, Barcelona, or Duluth, you are not alone. When you finally arrive, when you take your place behind a professional range, start slinging serious food, know what the hell you're doing, you are joining an international subculture in "this thing of ours." You will recognize and be recognized by others of your kind. You will be proud and happy to be part of something old and honorable and difficult to do. You will be different, a thing apart—and you will cherish your apartness. FOOD AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS "Maybe you should drive," I said. I yanked the blood-red Cadillac Eldorado onto the shoulder and stomped on the brakes. Ruhlman, sunning himself in the passenger seat, was thrown forward, mashing his folding sun-reflector into the dash and spilling beer all over his lap. "You filthy pig, Bourdain," he screeched, "that was the last beer!" Ruhlman is a big man, six-foot-four like me, but wider, with big corn-fed Midwestern shoulders—and when he gets those thick forearms and meat-hook paws around your neck, it's already too late. I had good reason to be afraid. He was in an ugly mood. I'd dragged him away from his wife and children, from the relative calm and civility of his beloved Cleveland, all the way across the country to this godforsaken desert, to Las Vegas no less—the Ugly Shorts Heart of Darkness—to assist me in the production of a television show (and the writing of this article) on the burgeoning celebrity chef scene.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  When they pitched camp, facing the enemy, the layout of the encampment exactly replicated that of the city. Warfare was a religious rite; it began with a spiritual retreat, and prayers and sacrifices were offered to the ancestors. At this time, the war minister had to gauge the enemy’s intentions: Did they really intend to fight?72 If the enemy was a barbarian tribe or a prince who had lost the Way, it would be a battle to the death: in these very exceptional circumstances, the war minister marched toward the enemy lines at the head of the pardoned criminals, a suicide squad, who, with a bloodcurdling cry, cut their own throats in unison at the first encounter, and battle was joined. Usually, however, warriors were required to fight politely, and the battle became a courtesy contest. On both sides, the junzi vied with one another to perform ever more outrageous acts of generosity and noblesse oblige. The li demanded an external attitude of “yielding” (rang) to the enemy, but they were generally performed in a spirit of pride and bravado. In this chivalric game, the sport was to bully the enemy with acts of kindness. Before battle was joined, warriors boasted loudly of their prowess, and sent pots of wine over to the enemy, removing their helmets whenever they caught sight of their prince. If its driver paid a ransom on the spot, a true junzi would always let an enemy chariot escape. During a battle between Chu and Jin, a Chu archer used his last arrow to shoot a stag that was blocking the path of his chariot, and his lancer immediately presented it to the team in the Jin chariot bearing down upon them. The Jin at once conceded defeat, crying in admiration: “Here is a worthy archer and well-spoken warrior! These are gentlemen!”73 A nobleman lost status if he killed too many people. A prince once rebuked a warrior who was boasting that he had slain six enemy soldiers: “You will bring great dishonour on your country. Tomorrow you will die—victim of your proficiency!”74 After a victory, it was essential that a junzi not get carried away. A truly noble warrior was never supposed to kill more than three fugitives and, ideally, was supposed to shoot with his eyes shut. Courtesy should always take precedence over efficiency. On one occasion, when two chariots were locked in combat, one of them turned aside and seemed about to retreat. The archer in the winning chariot shot, missed, and was about to take aim again, when the enemy archer cried: “You must let me exchange my arrow for yours, or it will be an evil deed!” So without more ado, the first archer took the arrow from his bow and calmly waited for death.75 The battle was a clash of competing honors, and the clash of arms was secondary.