And Yet, Anger Moves: The Galileo Structure of Organizational Defense and the Denied Circulation of Workplace Anger

This paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding workplace anger not as an isolated individual emotion or a single episode of emotional expression, but as a social motion that circulates, is imitated, becomes morally justified, transforms into silence, and is institutionally denied. Previous studies have examined anger through emotion regulation, abusive supervision, workplace bullying, emotional contagion, social learning, organizational silence, and whistleblower retaliation. However, less attention has been paid to the structure in which anger visibly circulates within an organization while the organization refuses to recognize that circulation and instead problematizes the person who observes it. To address this gap, this paper proposes the concept of the Galileo Structure. The Galileo Structure refers to a defensive pattern in which, when an inconvenient movement, circulation, or transmission is observed, an authority system avoids substantive examination of that movement and instead frames the observer as deviant, disruptive, disloyal, or procedurally problematic. The phrase “Eppur si muove,” commonly attributed to Galileo, is used here not as a confirmed historical statement but as a cultural metaphor for denied motion. The central claim of this paper is that anger moved, but the organization could not acknowledge its movement. Recognizing the circulation of anger would connect a seemingly individual emotional problem to broader issues of managerial responsibility, evaluation systems, psychological safety, recurrence prevention, whistleblower treatment, and institutional defense. As a result, organizations may fragment the movement of anger into isolated incidents and shift attention from the observed structure to the observer’s attitude, procedure, loyalty, or alleged disruption of order. The paper further argues that anger does not necessarily disappear once it becomes visible as a problem. Instead, it may transform into silence, avoidance, information withholding, and relational exclusion. In this sense, silence is not always the opposite of anger; it can be anger’s second form. By connecting anger, silence, organizational defense, and the marginalization of the observer, this paper offers a conceptual framework for analyzing workplace harassment and institutional denial. Anger may lose its voice, but it continues to move.