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.

Page 9 of 174 · 20 per page

• From Sister Outsider (1984)

  Grenada is their country. I am only a relative. I must listen long and hard and ponder the implications of what I have heard, or be guilty of the same quick arrogance of the U.S. government in believing there are external solutions to Grenada’s future. I also came for reassurance, to see if Grenada had survived the onslaught of the most powerful nation on earth. She has. Grenada is bruised but very much alive. Grenadians are a warm and resilient people (I hear my mother’s voice: “Island women make good wives. Whatever happens, they’ve seen worse”), and they have survived colonizations before. I am proud to be of stock from the country that mounted the first Black english-speaking People’s Revolution in this hemisphere. Much has been terribly lost in Grenada, but not all — not the spirit of the people. Forward Ever, Backward Never 22 is more than a mere whistle in the present dark. Notes 1. P. Tyler, Washington Post, October 10, 1983, p. A14. 2. A. Cockburn, Village Voice, November 8, 1983, p.11. 3. B.D. Ayers, New York Times, October 22, 1983, p. A5 and J. McQuiston, New York Times, October 26, 1983, p. A20. 4. Text of Treaty, New York Times, October 26, 1983, p. A19. 5. S. Taylor, New York Times, October 26, 1983, p. A19. 6. A. Lewis, New York Times, November 3, 1983 and A. Cockburn, Village Voice, November 8, 1983, p. 10. 7. S. Mydans, New York Times, January 15, 1984, p. 9. 8. Christian Science Monitor, November 7, 1983. 9. A. Schlesinger, Jr., Wall Street Journal, October 26, 1983. 10. C. Sunshine, ed., Grenada — The Peaceful Revolution (E.P.I.C.A., Washington, D.C., 1982). 11. C. Sunshine, The Guardian, December 28, 1983. 12. E. Ray and B. Schaap, “U.S. Crushes Caribbean Jewel,” Covert Action Bulletin # 20, Winter 1984, p. 11. 13. Ibid., p. 13. 14. Ibid., p. 5. 15. S. Taylor, New York Times, November 6, 1983, p. 20. 16. Ibid. 17. Washington Post, November 21, 1983. 18. CBS Evening News, December 18, 1983. 19. The London Guardian, November 4, 1983. 20. Grenada — The Peaceful Revolution, p. 87. 21. Carriacou — In the Mainstream of the Revolution (Fedon Publishers, St. Georges, Grenada, 1982), pp. 54–57. 22. Slogan of the Grenadian Revolution * I spent a week in Grenada in late December, 1983, barely two months after the U.S. invasion of the Black Caribbean island my parents left some sixty years earlier. It was my second visit in five years. This is an interim essay, a report written as the rest of Sister Outsider was already being typeset. For a current catalog of books from Crossing Press visit our Web site: www.tenspeed.com What’s next on your reading list? Discover your next great read! Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author. Sign up now.

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

  In the year 600 he succeeded his brother in the archiepiscopate of Seville. In this position he became the great leader of the Spanish Church, and is known to have presided at two, councils, the second council of Seville, opened November 13, 619, and the fourth council of Toledo, opened December 5, 633.1009 The first of these was of local interest, but the other was much more important. It was the largest ever held in Spain, being attended by all the six metropolitans, fifty-six bishops and seven bishops’ deputies. It has political significance because it was called by King Sisenand, who had just deposed Suintila, the former king. Sisenand was received by the council with great respect. He threw himself before the bishops and with tears asked their prayers. He then exhorted them to do their duty in correcting abuses. Of the seventy-five canons passed by the council several are of curious interest. Thus it was forbidden to plunge the recipient of baptism more than once under the water, because the Arians did it three times to indicate that the Trinity was divided (c. 6). It was not right to reject all the hymns written by Hilary and Ambrose and employ only Scriptural language in public worship (c. 13). If a clergyman is ever made a judge by the king he must exact an oath from the king that no blood is to be shed in his court (c. 31). By order of King Sisenand the clergy were freed from all state taxes and services (c. 47). Once a monk always a monk, although one was made so by his parents (c. 49) 1010 While compulsory conversion of the Jews was forbidden, yet no Jew converted by force was allowed to return to Judaism (c. 57). Very strenuous laws were passed relative to both the baptized and the unbaptized Jews (c. 58–66). The king was upheld in his government and the deposed king and his family perpetually excluded from power. When Isidore’s position is considered it is a probable conjecture that these canons express his opinions and convictions upon the different matters. Warned by disease of death’s approach, Isidore began the distribution of his property. For the last six months of his life he dispensed alms from morn till night. His end was highly edifying. Accompanied by his assembled bishops he had himself carried to the church of St. Vincent the Martyr, and there, having publicly confessed his sins, prayed God for forgiveness. He then asked the pardon and prayers of those present, gave away the last thing he owned, received the Holy Communion, and was carried to his cell, in which he died four days later, Thursday, April 4, 636.1011 He was immediately enrolled among the popular saints and in the 15th council of Toledo (688) is styled "excellent doctor," and by Benedict XIV. (April 25, 1722) made a Doctor of the Church. Isidore of Seville was the greatest scholar of his day.

• From How to Be a Great Lover (1999)

  In the next chapter, you will see how lubrication and its application can only increase the pleasure that is related to having fabulous sex without compromising your safety. Safety is essential, but it doesn’t have to ruin the mood or lessen the charge between you and your lover. You should think of the information here as an expression of your respect for yourself, as well as your partner. [image file=image_rsrc1YH.jpg] “Who knew you could accomplish so much with so little?” MALE SEMINAR ATTENDEE, AGE 32 The whole thing happened quite innocently. Early on in her marriage, a woman found she felt drier than she used to because of the birth control she was now using, a method known to cause dryness. After taking a quick shower, she decided to apply some lubricant to herself after her shower and before getting into bed with her husband. They began to kiss and, as will often happen, he slid his hand down to her genital area. Well, he was so proud and turned on by the obvious effect his kisses had on her she couldn’t bear to tell him her wetness wasn’t entirely his doing. Furthermore, he went on to make such mad passionate love to her that night that ten years into their marriage, she’s still secretly applying lubricant to herself before many of their romantic encounters. He still thinks his kisses bring on Niagara Falls and she’s still reaping the benefits. While I’m not, as a rule, a proponent of one lover misleading another, in this particular case it does seem rather harmless, especially since she also keeps a bottle of personal lubricant by the bed at all times, which they use openly whenever they desire. For this reason and many others, I feel personal lubricant is quite simply a treasure. I can’t think of a single store-bought item that does more to enhance the overall pleasure and ease of sexual technique than lubricant. That being so, I am constantly amazed at how many women have yet to discover the amount of joy that can be created from one little bottle. Those of you who have not tried it are in for a treat. As a thirty-nine-year-old male entrepreneur from Sacramento said, “I never knew her hand could feel so good.” Many women in my seminars have said they believe the use of personal lubricant is in some way a poor reflection on them. They tell me they are afraid that if they bring out a bottle of lubricant during lovemaking that their lovers may think they’re incapable of getting excited “naturally.” One woman put it succinctly: “I don’t use it every time, just sometimes to give me a physical jump start when I’m already there mentally.” I’ve also had men tell me that they, too, are afraid to introduce lubricant during sex; from their point of view, they’re afraid we women will think they aren’t exciting enough to get us lubricated. Secret from Lou’s Archives

• From Between Us

  Not surprisingly, then, the middle-class U.S. mothers in Miller’s study noted it was important to actively “build, cultivate or protect their children’s self-esteem.” And in their minds, a good way of doing this was to “love, respect and affirm” their children in the here and now; all psychological benefits would follow. So this was the project that Oliver’s father and I embarked on: we loved, respected, and affirmed our ten-month-old son. We were not alone in praising our child’s special accomplishment. Parents’ praising is not limited to events in the here and now. Many moms in Miller’s study reminisced with their children, or with the researcher, about events in which their children were the star. Referring to her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Molly, one Chicago mom relates to the researcher: You’ll get a kick out of this one. Friday night, we were just sitting around. . . . Jim and I were sitting on the ground. . . . she puts her hand on me and says “Me happy.” And I am like, “That is good, Mollie. You happy.” [researcher: I love it, it sounds so cute.] I said: “I don’t think I ever heard anyone say that,” and Jim says, “I know I never heard anyone come up with [me happy].” In this narrative, Miller and her colleagues tell us, Mollie’s mom draws attention to her daughter’s funny pronoun use (in Mollie’s presence). In doing so, she conveys to both Mollie and the researcher, how endearing and surprising Mollie’s expression is, further underlining the novelty (and uniqueness) of Mollie’s word choice by citing her own and her husband’s response in the moment. She also uses the situation to solicit an audience: the researcher, being a well-socialized audience, affirms Mollie’s mother’s take on the behavior: “I love it, it sounds so cute.” The story sets Molly apart as a special child, and creates an opportunity for pride both for the mom and the child. The Chicago homes of these middle-class European American toddlers were full of this kind of narrative. Praising is not restricted to homes. Both Oliver and his two-year-younger sister Zoë often came home from their North Carolina elementary school with “best student” awards. As a “new” American mom, I would have liked to believe my kids were “the best,” but the awards did not reflect as much. One month they were the best at having mastered the first list of French vocabulary (twenty words), another month they had been the most eager participant of a sports day: the person who, despite having had no chance at winning, had been a good sport. None of these certificates marked major achievements, but the school practiced public praising as a way of giving kids—many kids, I believe—a sense of being valued and seen, or even of being unique at something or other. We may call the associated feeling “pride.”

• From Between Us

  My [extended] family did not want me to compete . . . , as this would lower the chances of their own children to get into good programs. There was resentment [about me participating], and so my honor was challenged . . . I was forced to be competitive with the children of my relatives . . . My relatives asked me questions to humiliate me: “Are you going to finish this time?” They kissed me, and wished me well, but I knew that they privately thought: “Damn it, you won again” . . . After I won [the competition], many families were prepared to offer me their daughters to marry. Of course, my self-esteem increased. Clearly, the primary force of Levent’s emotional experience lies in the social world, in the changing of relationships between people, not in the subjective, inner feeling. This was the picture emerging from many of the Turkish and Surinamese interviews: Emotions were described as shifts in relative status, honor, or power, or as status, honor, or power negotiations. They were not, or not in the first place, private individual feelings, but ways of relating between people. Contrast this with Martin’s account of a time when he received admiration or compliments. Martin is a Dutch-majority young man, who had given his final presentation for his master’s in civil engineering, and this is where his emotion started: You feel like you have really done it. Yes [you wonder] how you have managed to do it . . . I felt like enormously relieved . . . Not really excited, but more like “It is finally over!” . . . I had set myself this deadline and it made me feel good that I made it this time . . . Afterwards I went out with some friends and relatives, seven people. We did not talk about my presentation. Yes, sure, they are friends of mine, so they know that this is important to me . . . They had come to listen to my presentation, of course, and so they did tell me that I did a good job. They also said “You are done now, it is over,” that kind of things . . . Other than that, we just talked about other stuff . . . For a few months, when I would run into people, I would tell them. It gave me a good feeling. Each time it dawns on you a little more that you are really done with it. The seat of Martin’s emotion is primarily INside: the feeling of relief, and the feeling of joy (by whatever name) define his experience. Of course, he shares and celebrates his accomplishments with others. But the focus of the emotion is on his inner feelings.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Through a complementary process called “importing,” we zero in on characteristics of the other that fill in our own missing or underdeveloped aspects. Whereas the goal of exporting is personal validation, the purpose of importing is the pursuit of wholeness. When we feel attracted, few of us are consciously thinking, “This person is desirable because he or she exudes the qualities I lack.” But to understand as much as possible about our attractions, we must look at how we feel deficient or out of balance—not always a pleasant task, but an extremely important one. Claude: Awakening the lioness It’s easy to see why Claude, an economist in his mid-thirties, feels so good about this peak encounter: I attended a party where I knew only the host. While sitting in a corner I sported a new arrival, a smartly dressed, petite woman with jet black hair and delicate features. I decided to venture out and introduce myself. She was soft-spoken but friendly and highly intelligent about many topics. We talked until the party was breaking up. Finally, I mustered the courage to invite her home for coffee and she accepted. After more conversation we began kissing. Her lips were soft and sensuous. Soon we were fondling each other quite freely, still fully clothed. I laid out a comforter in front of the fireplace where we stripped each other as our kissing and groping grew more urgent. Much to my surprise and delight this soft-spoken lady became a lioness in heat. When I sucked her nipples she groaned and writhed. And when I buried my face in her bush she sighed and whimpered and screamed. Obviously, she was losing control which turned me on immensely. This little doll became overwhelmed with passion. I couldn’t believe I lasted so long because her screams excited me so. It was unbelievable when she came. Her spasms went on and on, rippling through her body like earthquakes. She was the most passionate, loudest, and uninhibited comer I’d ever been with. We repeated an equally noisy romp the next morning. Since then we’ve talked a couple of times on the phone but we never met again. I know I won’t forget her, though. Judging from this story, Claude’s CET involves being the catalyst for escalating passion in his partner. Millions of men—and more than a few women—can empathize with Claude’s delight at releasing a wild, sex-crazed animal from a reserved, soft-spoken lady. He is exporting masculine erotic vigor. And the fact that his partner responds so enthusiastically confirms his virility: She might have reacted the same to every guy, but to me her wildness was my personal cheering section. Her screams and moans made me feel like a terrific lover. In fact, all of my best sex has been with women like this—hidden lionesses. My super hard-on and staying power showed how confident she made me.

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

  In 781 at Easter Charles revisited Rome with his son Pepin, who on that occasion was anointed by the pope "King for Italy" ("Rex in Italiam"). On a third visit., in 787, he spent a few days with his friend, Hadrian, in the interest of the patrimony of St. Peter. When Leo III. followed Hadrian (796) he immediately dispatched to Charles, as tokens of submission the keys and standards of the city, and the keys of the sepulchre of Peter. A few years afterwards a terrible riot broke out in Rome in which the pope was assaulted and almost killed (799). He fled for help to Charles, then at Paderborn in Westphalia, and was promised assistance. The next year Charles again crossed the Alps and declared his intention to investigate the charges of certain unknown crimes against Leo, but no witness appeared to prove them. Leo publicly read a declaration of his own innocence, probably at the request of Charles, but with a protest that this declaration should not be taken for a precedent. Soon afterwards occurred the great event which marks an era in the ecclesiastical and political history of Europe. The Coronation of Charles as Emperor. While Charles was celebrating Christmas in St. Peter’s, in the year of our Lord 800, and kneeling in prayer before the altar, the pope, as under a sudden inspiration (but no doubt in consequence of a premeditated scheme), placed a golden crown upon his head, and the Roman people shouted three times: "To Charles Augustus, crowned by God, the great and pacific emperor of the Romans, life and victory!" Forthwith, after ancient custom, he was adored by the pope, and was styled henceforth (instead of Patrician) Emperor and Augustus.250 The new emperor presented to the pope a round table of silver with the picture of Constantinople, and many gifts of gold, and remained in Rome till Easter. The moment or manner of the coronation may have been unexpected by Charles (if we are to believe his word), but it is hardly conceivable that it was not the result of a previous arrangement between him and Leo. Alcuin seems to have aided the scheme. In his view the pope occupied the first, the emperor the second, the king the third degree in the scale of earthly dignities. He sent to Charles from Tours before his coronation a splendid Bible with the inscription: Ad splendorem imperialis potentiae.251 On his return to France Charles compelled all his subjects to take a new oath to him as "Caesar." He assumed the full title "Serenssimus Augustus a Deo coronatus, magnus et pacificus imperator, Romanum gubernans imperium, qui et per misericordiam Dei rex Francorum et Longobardorum." Significance of the Act.

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

  In the meantime the popular desire for national union, awakened by the war of liberation and a great national literature, made steady progress, and found at last its embodiment in a new German empire with a liberal constitution and a national parliament. But this great result was brought about by great events and achievements under the leadership of Prussia against foreign aggression. The first step was the brilliant victory of Prussia over Austria at Königgrätz, which resulted in the formation of the North German Confederation (1866). The second step was the still more remarkable triumph of united Germany in a war of self-defence against the empire of Napoleon III., which ended in the proclamation of William I. as German emperor by the united wishes of the German princes and peoples in the palace of Louis XIV. at Versailles (1870). Thus the long dream of the German nation was fulfilled through a series of the most brilliant military and diplomatic victories recorded in modern history, by the combined genius of Bismarck, Moltke, and William, and the valor, discipline, and intelligence of the German army. Simultaneously with this German movement, Italy under the lead of Cavour and Victor Emmanuel, achieved her national unity, with Rome as the political capital. But the new German empire is not a continuation or revival of the old. It differs from it in several essential particulars. It is the result of popular national aspiration and of a war of self-defence, not of conquest; it is based on the predominance of Prussia and North Germany, not of Austria and South Germany; it is hereditary, not elective; it is controlled by modern ideas of liberty and progress, not by mediaeval notions and institutions; it is essentially Protestant, and not Roman Catholic; it is a German, not a Roman empire. Its rise is indirectly connected with the simultaneous downfall of the temporal power of the pope, who is the hereditary and unchangeable enemy both of German and Italian unity and freedom. The new empire is independent of the church, and has officially no connection with religion, resembling in this respect the government of the United States; but its Protestant animus appears not only in the hereditary religion of the first emperor, but also in the expulsion of the Jesuits (1872), and the "Culturkampf" against the politico-hierarchical aspirations of the ultramontane papacy. When Pius IX., in a letter to William I. (1873), claimed a sort of jurisdiction over all baptized Christians, the emperor courteously informed the infallible pope that he, with all Protestants, recognized no other mediator between God and man but our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The new German empire will and ought to do full justice to the Catholic church, but "will never go to Canossa." We pause at the close of a long and weighty chapter in history; we wonder what the next chapter will be.

• From Between Us

  Praising is embedded in a child-focused culture, where a child’s perspective is taken quite seriously from very early on. Mothers of white U.S. and European babies have face-to-face interactions with infants, and talk to them, as opposed to mothers from many other cultures who keep their babies on their bodies, instead of facing them. How much middle-class American families invite even their babies to be full conversation partners is well illustrated by a story of my own family. One of my undergraduate students at Wake Forest—let us call him John—was exceedingly smart, but less than exceedingly organized. Once in graduate school, he asked me for a last-minute favor: he needed a recording of a family dinner conversation, a family with small children. I agreed to help him, but right before the start of our dinner, I realized that the data would be worthless to him. I spoke Dutch to the children, their dad spoke English, so John (not being bilingual) would not be able to make any sense of our conversation. John’s deadline was imminent, so I had no choice but to tape our dinner conversation anyway. To my surprise the recording turned out to be very useful to John: he was interested in speaking turns. My daughter Zoë, who was less than one year old, and not speaking yet, was still allowed speaking time. We asked her questions (in either language), and we allowed her time to answer, even if she was not yet able. We prepared her for the role of an individual who was valued in her own right. There are many practices to let middle-class American children know that they are valued individuals, but praising is a practice that is particularly emotionally arousing. With praise for children’s small early successes—such as holding a book right side up and early talking (“me happy”)—American middle-class parents not only teach their children the importance of those particular achievements, “but also hope to instill in them a generalized self-reliance that, it is thought, will stand them in good stead in their future pursuit of success and happiness.” As one of the moms in Miller’s research said: “[It is important to give] them enough love and praise so that they feel good about themselves, and then they can go and master the world.” The marking of small achievements by parents and other socializing agents paves the road for the child to feel good about themselves generally; it predisposes children to feel happy, proud, or full of self-esteem.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  As we discussed her dream I suggested that not only was she married to one of these men, but the monster who slapped her down was also within her. She wouldn’t allow herself to take the wheel. She terrorized herself. At first she resisted this idea vigorously, with a hint of exhilaration in her voice. She felt that I was blaming her for her troubles and was defending herself for a change. She was genuinely shocked when I told her how good it felt to see the strong Brenda. Immediately, she slipped back into familiar territory and began berating herself. And then, in one of those moments that remind me why I became a therapist, I watched as she interrupted herself midstream. “I’ve got to stop doing that, don’t I?” We nodded and smiled in unison, both knowing she had reached a point of no return. Brenda’s loss of desire was a subconsciously directed act of self-respect. Her body was expressing what she could not say in words: I refuse to lie turned on by someone who treats me as if I’m worthless. Loss of desire is among the most common of all sexual problems. Sometimes this is an inevitable side effect of today’s stress-filled lives. Sometimes it springs from unresolved resentments and conflicts in long-term relationships. Sometimes the culprits are the predictable routines that squeeze out the last vestiges of surprise. More often than you might think, however, diminishing sexual desire is a sign of growth, as it was for Brenda. In such cases lost desire is not a problem to be fixed but a message to be heeded. If a person’s CET consistently places him or her in a demeaning position, increasing self-esteem will usually have an unmistakable antiaphrodisiac effect. It is a signal that “business as usual” is no longer possible and a call for fundamental change. Almost one year after Brenda and I began our work she confronted Ernie with her dissatisfaction and insisted that he accompany her to a marriage counselor. True to form he refused, ranting at her about how sick and tired he was of having a frigid, complaining, good-for-nothing wife. Within two weeks Brenda moved in with a friend and filed for divorce. Although for some time to come she grieved about all she had lost and all she had endured, even during her worst days she never doubted the rightness of her decision. Away from Ernie, Brenda began to get promising clues about how her eroticism might be different without self-deprecation and fear as its guiding principles. About one thing she was absolutely certain: she would never again allow anyone to mistreat her. It was her turn to take the wheel.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Hubbard is wearing his glasses and holding a pipe in his hands, with the collar of his pea jacket turned up and a determined look on his face. “These little sweethearts are tough,” he says of the ship. “They could lick the pants off anything Nelson or Farragut ever sailed. They put up a sizzling fight and are the only answer to the submarine menace. I state emphatically that the future of America rests with just such escort vessels.” It is worth lingering a moment over this overblown statement. The scripted language might as well have been lifted from one of Hubbard’s pulp-fiction heroes. Hubbard must have longed to be such a figure in reality, only to be thwarted by his repeated quarrels with higher authority. Each detail Hubbard offers—comparing himself advantageously with history’s greatest naval heroes, asserting that he holds the future of his nation in his hands—testifies to his need for grandeur and heroism, or at least to be seen as grand and heroic. He would soon be given an opportunity. The PC-815 was equipped with depth charges and sonar to detect enemy submarines. Sonar sends out pinging sounds, which, in clear water, go unanswered, but obstacles, such as enemy submarines—or fish, or debris, or even schools of shrimp—generate echoes. The art of reading such responses is a tricky one, and although Hubbard had trained on the device in sub-chaser school, he had been near the bottom of his class. He cast off from Astoria, Oregon, for his shakedown cruise on May 18, bound for San Diego to pick up radar equipment. At 3:40 a.m., only five hours out of port, the sonar picked up an echo ten miles off Cape Lookout in a heavily traveled shipping lane. Hubbard and Moulton immediately put on headsets, trying to determine what the object was. In particular, they were listening for the giveaway sound of a propeller. The craft made no recognition signals that would have indicated it was an American vessel. “It made noises like a submarine and it was behaving like a submarine,” Moulton later testified. “So we proceeded to attack.” “The target was moving left and away,” Hubbard wrote in his subsequent Action Report. “The night was moonlit and the sea was flat calm.” The professional writer in him warmed to the narrative: “The ship, sleepy and sceptical, had come to their guns swiftly and without error. No one, including the Commanding Officer, could readily credit the existence of an enemy submarine here on the steamer track.” It wasn’t crazy to think that enemy ships might be in the area. A Japanese submarine had bombarded an oil facility near Santa Barbara the year before.

• From In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  You walk up on the altar’s covered west side along the tree-shaded sidewalks of the Lungotevere di Augusto. You watch the muddy brown Tiber flow sluggishly and deeply below its present embankments, a reminder that this Campus Martius (“Field of Mars”), where the Republic’s legions drilled just north of Rome’s ancient center, was once that river’s floodplain. It was on that field of the war god Mars that the Senate decreed in 13 B.C.E. an Altar of Augustan Peace, which was, according to most art historians, the pinnacle of monumental sculpture in Rome, and which copied and adapted, by the way, a host of foreign elements from Hellenistic and Greek sculpture. And on that altar’s magnificent sculptures is clearly imaged the imperial order of Victory and Peace, or, in the two male and two female panels enclosing the Altar’s front and back, the fuller Augustan sequence of Piety (Aeneas), War (Mars), Victory (Roma), and Peace (Fertility). The design of the original museum was by the Fascist architect Vittorio Morpurgo, who encased the Ara Pacis Augustae within glass and travertine marble when it was first restored, relocated, and realigned to its present position in 1938. Morpurgo had been commissioned by Benito Mussolini, who wanted a prominent location for the altar to indicate the present return of Rome’s ancient greatness. The full Latin text of Augustus’s political autobiography, the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (res gestae means “things done,” accomplishments, achievements—hence Acts of the Divine Augustus), was incised low on the encasement’s outer east side and that, by the way, is all that is now left of Morpurgo’s structure. The altar’s theme and Augustus himself were central to Il Duce’s nationalistic and imperialistic rhetoric. There is an extant photograph of Mussolini and his military entourage inside the enclosure beside the altar itself. They are striding past what is now the right side at the place where Augustus himself appears in the frieze above them. All save one officer are looking away from it in another direction. How appropriate. Augustus was no Mussolini, and Mussolini would never be Augustus.

• From In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  Another set of documents records how Venidius first testified before the local official that he merited the “right to honor,” and he provided the court with a list of ten men, apparently either decurions (councillors) or Augustales, to adjudicate his case. Since a freed slave, even one who became a citizen, could not hold public office, the honor to which he aspired was very likely as priest of Augustus and member of the Augustales, one of the few ways that well-to-do freedmen could gain honor and a measure of civic status. The next document records how Venidius, in turn, would be adjudicator for another. The Augustales in a way circumvented the rigid patronal system by allowing freedmen to form a group in the city that was linked more directly to the emperor’s patronage, a move that in turn made them patrons to freedmen aspiring to join the Augustales. Groups like the Augustales functioned as a sort of social pressure valve and antidote to social unrest by permitting a measure of patronage among the most successful freedmen through honoring and pledging loyalty to the emperor. Venidius became a member of the Augustales and his name is recorded on a marble list in the Hall of the Augustales on the Insula VI’s opposite corner. He is listed on that inscription for helping to elect two brothers as new members and celebrating their election with a feast. They, of course, were now his clients. The patronal system had a circular and spiraling effect. The freed Venidius had accumulated wealth and citizenship, but, more important, enough connections to list ten members of the Augustales, any one of whom picked by the duumvir, or head councillors, would support his candidacy. He was then elected to that group and put on a banquet for them at enormous expense. Thereafter, in turn, he made it on other applicants’ ten-man lists, had his name inscribed on marble, and feasted at subsequent banquets. The House of the Dark Salon, just down the street from the Hall of the Augustales and both facing the forum, was quite a reward for the hardworking and now well-connected Venidius, but his status in the eyes of others and especially the number of his clients were certainly his greatest honors. The taverna, or bar, next door to his house had a painted advertisement for drink prices, but the real advertisement was for Venidius’s success and new status. With the words “AD SANC(tum)” he named his little taverna “At the Sign of the Holy Man” and depicted a laureled priest with scepter and patera in hand above its entrance. Venidius could now revel in his emergence as a patron and social personality. House of the Faun

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Generous, charming, and charismatic, Peisistratos was good for the city. He gave generous loans to the impoverished farmers, initiated important construction projects, and repaired the water-supply system and the roads around the city. Trade expanded, poets frequented his court, and the people enjoyed a spiritual renewal. Peisistratos wanted to create a distinctive religious center in Athens. He and his sons transformed the Acropolis, making it a spectacular cult site with a stone temple and a convenient approach up the rocky hillside. Wealthy patrons commissioned statues of the gods, which stood around the sanctuary like an enchanted stone forest. 68 Peisistratos also gave new life to the grand festival of Panathenaea, which celebrated the birth of the city, was held every four years, and had its own athletic games. 69 It was the climax of the new year’s celebrations, and followed some dark, perplexing rites that reenacted the early history of Athens. In one of these rites, an ox was sacrificed on the Acropolis in a way that induced a profound guilt. The priest who had inflicted the fatal blow had to flee; a court was convened; and the knife, convicted of murder, was thrown into the sea. Behind the burlesque of this “ox murder” (bouphonia) lurked a horror of the violence that lay at the heart of every civic sacrifice and of civilization itself—a horror that was all too often blunted by routine—for which somebody or something would always have to pay. The triumph of the Panathenaea dispelled the uncanny aura of these unsettling rituals. 70 The centerpiece of the festival was a procession through the city, which finished on the Acropolis at the eastern end of Athena’s new temple. There the city presented the goddess with a fresh saffron robe for her cult statue, embroidered with scenes of her battle with the Cyclops, which symbolized the triumph of civilization over chaos. All citizens were represented in the procession: the young ephebes (the adolescent boys who were becoming full citizens), hoplites, girls in yellow chitons, old men, craftsmen, resident aliens, delegates from other poleis, and the sacrificial victims. Athens was on display, to itself and to the rest of the Greek world, in a dazzlingly proud assertion of identity. But Greeks were beginning to long for a more personal religious experience. One of the new buildings constructed by Peisistratos was a cult hall at the city of Eleusis, some twenty miles west of Athens, where, it was said, the goddess Demeter had stayed while searching for Persephone. The Eleusinian mystery cult now became an integral part of the religious life of Athenians. 71 It was an initiation, in which participants experienced a transformed state of mind.

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

  Their members learned to plan, organize, and pursue a clearly defined objective in a rational way that empowered them against the establishment. We in the West tend to evaluate other cultural traditions by measuring them against the Enlightenment: the Great Awakenings in America show that people can reach these ideals by another, specifically religious route. In fact, American evangelicals had appropriated some Enlightenment ideals so thoroughly that they created a curious hybrid that some historians have called “Enlightenment Protestantism.” 51 This paradox had been noted by Alexis de Tocqueville when he visited the United States during the 1830s, remarking that the character of the country combined “two perfectly distinct elements that elsewhere have often made war with each other, but which, in America,... they have succeeded in incorporating somehow one into another and combining marvellously: I mean to speak of the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom.” 52 The Founding Fathers had been inspired by the so-called moderate Enlightenment of Isaac Newton and John Locke. The evangelicals, however, repudiated the “skeptical” Enlightenment of Voltaire and David Hume as well as the “revolutionary” Enlightenment of Rousseau but embraced the “common sense” philosophy of the Scottish thinkers Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), Thomas Reid (1710–96), Adam Smith (1723–90), and Dugald Stewart (1753–1828). 53 This taught them that human beings had an innate and infallible ability to see clear connections between moral causes and their effects in public life. Understanding things was simple, a matter of common sense. Even a child could grasp the essence of the gospel and figure out for herself what was right. Enlightenment philosophers had told people to cast aside the habit of tutelage and work out the truth for themselves, without relying on authoritarian institutions and learned experts. American evangelicals, therefore, were confident that if they put their minds to it, they could create a society in the New World that fully implemented Christian values. 54 The Constitution had established a secular state but had done nothing to encourage the development of a national culture; the Founders had assumed that this would evolve naturally in response to government action. 55 Yet thanks to the evangelical welfare and reform associations, “Enlightenment Protestantism,” somewhat ironically, became the national ethos of the secular state. 56 You can take religion out of the state, but you can’t take religion out of the nation. By dint of their energetic missionary work, reform organizations, and publications, the evangelicals created a Bible-based culture that pulled the new nation together. The Americans had shown that it was possible to organize society on a more just and rational basis.

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

  "God Loveth Adv e rbs" · 2.3 1 A n d as Christopher Hill has argued, 51 there were social reasons why the n e w science appealed to those attracted by the new theology. These were ge n erally men of the middling sort. We saw above their sense that the order t h ey sought was under threat both from the undisciplined among the landed classes a nd from the rootless underclass of beggars and vagabonds. The ne w faith was stronge r among artisans, tradesmen, and small landholders. These c lasses were developin g a new confidence and self-r e liance, which both encouraged and was entrenched by their new religion of personal commit ment. This was one of the factors which underlay the civil war of the 164o's. B ut these s ocial developments also created an audience for the new science. The Baconian revolution shifted the central goal of science from contemplation to p roductive efficacy. And this was at the same time and inseparably a shift against the hierarchy of social valuation, in favour of the pro ductive artisan classes against those classes which prided themselves in leisure. The new science gave a new cachet to getting on e 's hands dirty in the mechanic arts. Late r in the ce ntury Boyle and Locke took pri d e in describing the mselves (perh aps somewhat disingenuously) as "underbuilders" and "under-labourers". The combined philosophical-cum-social shift in evalua t ion had deep appeal for artisan and merchant classes which were becoming conscious of their new achievements and aspiring to a new dignity and influence in society. The appeal was all the greater in that their religious faith also stressed the value of work and the equal dignity of all callings. It is not surprising that there was some convergence between the new science, the new r eligion, and the new revolutionary spirit which convulsed England in the 164o's. But this convergence is of course a phenomenon of the time only. The scien tific revolution easily survived the Restoration. Indeed, it properly took off under Charles, with his patronage of the new Royal Society. The Society found its supporters well outside the ranks of former roundheads, while some of those who had been sympathetic to the Commonwealth, like Boyle, prudently ke pt their distance. The connection between Pu ri tanism and mo dern science which is of more las ti ng interest is on a deeper level. It comes through in the religious outlook whic h suf fuses Bacon's works.

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

  But it is also defined positively by the reflexive powers which are central to the modern sub j ect, those whi ch confer the different kinds of inwardness on him or her, the pow ers of disengaged reason, and the creative imagination. The various conceptions of freedom, "negative" and "positive", ar e grounded on different stanc es towards, and definitions of , these powers , "positive" theories being gener ally based on some notion of an inner source, and "negative " theories be i ng generally highl y critical of all such notions. 3 But beyond these disagreements, what is universal in the modern world is the centrality of freedom as a good. This, together with the ideal of unive r sal benevolence, has generated another deeply entrenched moral imperative, to universal justice, which has fou nd expression in our century in the various universal declarations of rights. The language of subjective rights offers a way o f formulating certain important immunities and benefits which also builds in some idea of the dignity of a free subject, for it expresses these immunities and benefits as a kind of property of the subject, which can be invoked by the subject in his or her own cause. And of course these ideas of freedom and dignity, in associ ation with the pr omotion of ordinary life, have steadily eroded hierarchy and promoted e quality-and that in all sorts of dimensions, between social classes, races, ethnic and cultural groups, and the sexes. Most notably , it has helped t o bring a bout the steady ri se in democracy as a legitimate form of political rule, to the p oi nt where it has bec ome in the late twentieth century the inescapable source o f legitimacy: everyone, even its most flagrant enemie s, from Enver Hoxha to Agusto Pinochet, has been forced to claim some kind of democratic endorse ment in "elections" or "plebiscites". Everyone would now agree, whatever t heir real feelings, with Jefferson's final judgement on his Declaration of I nde pend ence, delivered near the end of his life , that it "will be (to some parts s oo n er, to others l ater, but finally to a ll) the signal of arousin g men to burst t h e c hain s under which m onk ish ig no rance and superstition had persuaded t h em to bind the mse lves, and to assume the blessings and security of s e lf-g ove rnment".

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The jury was split, but Athena, who had the casting vote, acquitted Orestes, placating the Erinyes by offering them a shrine on the Acropolis. Henceforth they would be called the Eumenides, “the well- disposed ones.” The virtues of the polis—moderation and the balance of opposing forces—had prevailed, but the dark deeds of the past were still alive. Men and women, gods and Furies must learn from suffering, assimilating and absorbing the memory of the dark deeds of the past. At the very end of the play, the Eumenides were escorted in solemn procession to their new shrine. 98 This ritual pompe symbolized the inclusion of tragedy within the polis. The bloodshed, hatred, and polluting nightmare of violence—symbolized by the Erinyes—could not be denied. The city must incorporate this weight of sorrow, take it into itself, accept it, honor it in the sacred heart of the polis, and make it a force for good. But Athens was not learning the lessons of history. For all its fine talk of freedom, the city was resented throughout the Greek world as an oppressive power. The Delian League of free city-states had become in fact the Athenian empire; any polis that tried to break away was brutally subjugated and forced to pay tribute. In 438, the Parthenon, the magnificent temple of Athena on the Acropolis, had been completed, but it had been built by humiliating and exploiting fellow Greeks. The new shrine, which dominated the city landscape, was an assertion of communal pride and supremacy, yet Pericles warned the citizens that they had embarked on a dangerous course. It would be impossible for Athens to quash a widespread revolt. Its empire had become a trap. It had probably been wrong to establish it, but it would be dangerous to let it go, because Athens was now hated by the people whose lives it controlled. Athens was beginning to realize that it had limits. Sophocles’ Antigone, presented in the mid-440s, depicted an irreconcilable clash between family loyalty and the law of the polis, which neither of the chief protagonists—Creon, king of Thebes, and Antigone, daughter of Oedipus—was able to resolve. In fact, no resolution was possible. The play showed that firm beliefs and clear principles would not infallibly lead to a good outcome. All the characters had good intentions, none of them wanted the tragedy to occur, but despite their sincere and best efforts, the result was catastrophic and devastating loss. 99 Despite its proud claim to honor freedom and independence, the polis could not accommodate an Antigone, who disobeyed its laws for the most pious of motives, stood up for her convictions, and was able to argue for them with passionate, convincing logos. In their hymn to progress, the chorus of old men claimed that there was nothing beyond man’s power. He had created the technology to overcome every obstacle, and had developed his reasoning powers to establish a stable society.

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

  47 And moreover, the social order formed by such individuals is more and more seen as based properly on contract. For it is an order of those who have taken on a disciplin e by personal commitment and who have chosen their walk of life in the same way. It is an order of those who rule themselves in their own personal lives. More and more, freely agreed contract is seen as the only proper bond between such people. Here is another, well-documented place where Puritanism plays a foun d ation al role in modern c u lture. But the initial thrust was not at all towards d emocracy, but rather to a kind of elite rule. The godly, the disciplined, ought to rule over themselves through agreement, but over the unregenerate th rou gh f orce if n ecessary. The proper order of the church was "an order left b y God unto his church, whereby men learn to frame their wills and doings according to the law of God, by instructing and admonishing one another, y ea, and by correcting and punishing all willful persons and contemners of t he same ". 48 Th e sai nt s contro l themselves, they admoni s h each other, but th ey rule the u ngodly coercively. This throws into relief another extraordin ary thing about Calvinism, and a b ou t Puritanism in particular : its strong a ffinity for ancient Israel (which h a d the f ortunate consequence of greatly red ucing anti-Semitis m in societies dominated b y this brand of theology). This seems paradoxical in a faith which starts from a central focus o n the Epistle to the Romans, with its r e v olu ti onar y th esis that sa lvati on by the law is to be put asi de in fav our of s a l v atio n by f ai th . What co uld be further fro m Jewish pr ac tice, in ancient Is r a el or in modern times a l i ke ? But again the parado x di sa ppears, once one sees that the law, for Puritans, 230 • THE AFFIRMATION O F ORDINARY LIFE was not at all for salvation. They could as a pe ople feel constituted by God' s law, exactly like the people port ra yed in the Old Testament, just because they fe lt so strongly the imperative to rectify the dis order in the world. Their theology of predestination told them that the elect were a few rescued from the mass of the ungodly. Thus they could feel like a people beleaguered and embattled, j ust as ancient Israel had be en.