Chapter 1 introduces our idea that group-based inequality is in large part the result of anger constraints placed on disadvantaged groups. We use research in social psychology to understand how public expressions of anger are reserved for the powerful. We develop a theory of how group-based social hierarchies in society are maintained by instituting rules of who can express anger and who cannot. We provide several examples of how United States race relations between Black Americans and whites exemplify this “anger rule.”

Chapter 2 develops our theoretical argument of how an “anger rule” has been applied to Black Americans. Throughout American history, we make clear that Black political anger has been depicted as menacing. Special rules, laws, and devices have been instituted to keep what American society considers a dangerous form of emotional expression from being unleashed. Society has neutralized this anger by applying an angry feeling rule to Black Americans. If they break this rule by voicing anger, they will be penalized. This punishment takes different forms throughout American history, such as the brutality inflicted upon enslaved Black Americans, the lynching of Black Americans, the mass incarceration of Black men and women, and denying federal assistance to Black families. In this chapter, we focus on another penalty – electoral defeat. We theorize that whites invested in this anger rule will punish Black politicians for expressing anger. We also contend that Black Americans navigate this anger rule by strategically rallying behind Black politicians who constrain their anger in political spaces dominated by whites. However, in Black spaces, we argue that this anger has a home among Black Americans.

Chapter 5 determines whether the Black public shares Black politicians’ awareness of the anger rule. We accomplish this task by examining if Black Americans express less political and racial anger in the presence of whites relative to Black Americans. Analyzing data from 2004 to 2012 American National Election Studies (ANES) along with the ANES cumulative file, we find that Black survey respondents report significantly less political anger than white respondents. This difference magnifies when Black Americans are in the presence of a white interviewer. These findings indicate that Black Americans recognize that their group must limit their anger in the presence of whites. It is this knowledge that, we believe, motivates Black Americans to be more willing to give Black politicians an emotional pass when they fail to express anger about politics.

Chapter 3 explores the emotional rhetoric of elected public officials. We examine the presidential speeches of two Democratic presidents – Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. We find that Obama’s speeches are more positive than Clinton’s and less negative as well. The use of anger depends on the target (i.e., issue). Consistent with our theoretical argument, Obama expressed significantly less anger about race relations compared to Bill Clinton. We look even further at the differences between Black and white politicians by examining floor speeches of members of the United States House of Representatives. Most Black Members of Congress are elected in majority (or plurality) minority districts. Therefore, we would not expect for them to be as constrained by anger, particularly about race, as Obama. We find that to be the case. Black Democratic members of Congress convey more anger about race relations than white Democratic members of Congress. These findings suggest that Black politicians limit their anger when whites are a substantial number of the voting population, but Black elected officials and candidates abandon this rule when the electorate has a substantial number of Black voters.

Chapter 4 investigates if whites apply an “anger penalty” to a Black politician relative to a white politician. We examine if an angry Black Democrat politician is racially handicapped among racially prejudiced whites. We test our predictions using several survey experiments on adult national samples of whites. We uncover evidence of an anger penalty in that racially prejudiced whites evaluate an angry Black Democrat politician more unfavorably than a non-angry Black Democrat politician and an angry white Democrat politician. Additionally, we find a similar effect among whites oriented to supporting group-based social hierarchies (i.e., having a social dominance orientation). In another study, we examine if this anger penalty depends on the issue. We expect an anger penalty is greater when the issue implicates Black Americans than if it is unrelated to the group. The findings show that racially prejudiced whites penalize a Black politician only when the anger is related to a racialized issue and not when the issue is unrelated to race. In our final experimental study, we examine whether a Black female politician’s anger is treated differently than a Black male’s; the anger penalty does not appear to be conditioned on gender.

This chapter discusses two Middle English Charlemagne romances, The Siege of Milan and The Sultan of Babylon, to illuminate post-1291 anxieties about royal politics, Christian infighting, and God’s will and support. It brings these romances into conversation with two main bodies of literary and historical material. The first consists of writings that polemically engage with the question of whether English and French kings should prioritize domestic affairs or crusading activity. The second consists of poems, letters, and chronicles that, written by Christians following crusading defeats, feature wrathful rebukes of God and threats of conversion to Islam. I draw on this latter corpus to offer a new interpretation of the literary motif of the “afflicted Muslim” who vents his military frustration on his “gods,” arguing that such depictions should be understood as projections of Latin Christian anxieties about God’s lack of support to the crusading enterprise.

This chapter proposes that early modern women essayists invoked anger to negotiate new modes of publicity in the nascent public sphere. By reading the writings of Jane Anger, Rachel Speght, and Margaret Cavendish alongside the history of humanist education, it shows that anger’s original object was not misogyny writ large, but the rhetorical training that limited women’s access to privileged protocols of speaking and writing. By the end of the early modern period, it argues, anger dissipates as the rise of salon conversation and letter writing expand the field in which literacy can be displayed, weakening rhetoric’s grip on the republic of letters.

Violence is common and is a public health issue. Forensic psychiatrists offer treatment for the small amount of violence that is due to mental disorder. It is essential to distinguish between meaningful explanations and causes. Violence is not a unitary concept. Evidence for the specific causal associations between mental illness and violence is reviewed. Anger, anxiety, moral and amoral actions are reviewed including intoxication and withdrawal, deception, antisocial personality and psychopathy, and a range of mental illnesses and developmental disorders. Social and developmental factors are also important. Memes, media and social contagion influence the forms of violence. Court reports and treatments are considered critically in relation to violence.

The chapter answers the question ‘Why has the rule of law become so fragile?’ as set up by the 2023 Nine Dots Prize competition. It shows how the liberal narrative of the rule of law is built on repressing the political elements of the legal system. Using Jungian psychoanalysis to analyse the crises of the rule of law, the author shows that the more we repress democratic politics from the legal system, the more the politics will strike back as ‘shadow’ in a distorted, anti-democratic form. The chapter also deepens the analysis of how DWE works politically with anger, preventing it from turning into ‘free-floating rage’ that can be exploited by authoritarian populism. It introduces the notion of ‘critical feeling’ to complement ‘critical thinking’ in contemporary academia.

Scholars agree that Buridan’s commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics gives far more attention to Seneca’s works than other commentaries of the period do. Buridan cites Seneca on one topic after another, always respectfully and often with praise. But did his study of Seneca lead him to a generally negative view about the role of emotions in morality? On this topic scholars clearly disagree. One claims that there are hardly any positive references to the emotions in Buridan’s entire Ethics commentary. Buridan emphasizes instead that emotions must be repressed by the will. Another scholar claims, to the contrary, that Buridan is in no sense a disciple of Seneca. For example, he follows Aristotle in arguing that anger can have genuine value and should not be completely eliminated. This essay examines Buridan’s account of anger and his discussions of some other emotions to clarify his views on how emotions contribute to a virtuous life.

Chapter 6 centres on Galen’s longest moral work, the Affections and Errors of the Soul, and explores the features of Galenic practical philosophy from a number of angles. The first section provides an analysis of the work’s programmatic preface and shows that Galen exploits the dynamics of polemic, self-promotion and self-effacement to cast himself as a prominent contributor in this intellectual area. The next section discusses Galen’s emphasis on self-knowledge, which is often blocked by self-love. It claims that in order to generate feelings of revulsion with regard to the latter, Galen works on ‘class fraction’ as a tactic with moralising intent. Another strand of special importance in the essay is the figure of the moral adviser, which Galen elaborates on so as to highlight the need for welcoming and indeed enduring moral criticism. Even though the moral adviser features in other authors of the Second Sophistic, in Galen it points to the applicability of ethics to a broad range of social contexts, thus credentialing his situational ethics. A separate section of Chapter 6 focuses on the concept of free speech (parrhēsia). While Galen debates the challenges of social and political interaction, he advises frankness at all costs. A genuine friend should never be reluctant to express the truth of someone’s moral situation and this makes him strikingly different from the flatterer, a disgusting stock figure in Imperial works on moralia, particularly in Plutarch, whom Galen seems to follow here. Another shrewd device that Galen uses to good effect to achieve the moral rectification of readers is the description of the pathology of anger (its origins and results), particularly in the episode featuring Galen’s Cretan friend, which is framed, I suggest, as an ‘ethical case history’, sharing characteristics with Galen’s medical case histories.

Now we are really in a rhythm. The only thing that changes from now to the end of the treatment are the characters, related body sensations, and lessons about the body. The Zoomies and Shakies are the first session in which we really focus on emotional experience. If you think of an over-simplified classification system for emotions in terms of valence and arousal, then Session 4 focuses on high-arousal negative emotions (e.g., fear, anger). Betty the Butterfly, Tommy the Thunderbolt, and Julie Jitters are sample characters in this session. A sample investigation would be to try several activities and compare them to see which brings out the most butterflies. In this way, we directly alter the way that children are experiencing their emotions – rather than running or being afraid of them, they are actively seeking these emotional experiences in a playful context.