COMPANIES THAT SHOULD BE IN THE NINTH CIRCLE OF DANTE'S INFERNO

One newsworthy item from the New York Times this morning:

Our pandemic has what looks like only a second wave.  You would have thought that cases peaked sometime during last summer, but no, that first one was in January of this year.  The current rise in cases is coming from India and South America.

Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri was born in 1265, and was an Italian poet and philosopher.  He wrote Divine Comedy, describing his journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.  He is more popularly known today as Dante, and that is a posthumous painting of him by Botticelli.

Today I will focus on his Inferno portion, or hell, because I was inspired by Nobel Laureate William Nordhaus, who penned a piece for the latest issue on global warming for Time magazine.  He was writing about corporate irresponsibility regarding the environment, and selected several companies deserving placement in the Ninth Circle of the Inferno:

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  Ever wondered what happened 800 years ago at the time Dante was on his mental adventure with Poet Virgil (to the right a Delacroix painting of the two in the Ninth Circle)?  Virgil was chosen because he was a Pagan.

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  Genhis Khan founded the Mongol empire.
• The Cahokia tribe in what is now St. Louis numbered as many as people who lived in London...around 15,000.
• The Mayan civilization was active.
• The Fourth Crusade began.
• Francis of Assisi founded Franciscan Order.
• King John signed the Magna Carta.

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  Later in that century the Mongols were twice repelled from Japan by the Samurai and Divine Kamikaze (painting by Hokusai).  If not for those typhoons, who knows what Japan would be today.
• Also in this later period, eyeglasses were invented in Venice, Marco Polo made his journey to China and China invented printing, used rockets/handguns for warfare and adopted the windmill from the Islamic world.

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  More so, envisioning 800 years into the future, can you imagine what the world will be like in the year 2921?  It's difficult enough contemplating the Year 2100.
• Yikes, I did some re-calculating, and found that I should be talking about the Year 1300, 7 centuries ago, when Dante returned from Hell.  In that 14th Century:

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  45 million lives were lost, mostly from the Black Death, which killed 25 million, wiping out one-third the population of Europe.
• The latest Ice Age began.

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  There was the Mali Empire in Africa, where the richest person ever, Mansa Musa I, held half the world's gold.
• Buddha made an impression.
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  Again, imagine what the world will be like in the year 2821?  You can't.
• So about those concentric circles of the Inferno:

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  Each one (and if you think about it, these are not sections of a circle, but of a sphere) getting deeper into our planet increases in wickedness.
• The higher the circle, the more serous the punishment for eternity.  Sort of like poetic justice.

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  It is said that people like Adam, Noah, Moses and David started in the First Circle, but then, Jesus came and transported them to Heaven.  So much for anyone not ever leaving Hell.  If you are in Limbo, sort of like a kind of Purgatory, you are allowed out.  Dante also sees Aristotle, Socrates and Plato, plus Julius Caesar and Hippocrates (remember him and his oath for doctors--I thought he was sacred...maybe Hell might not be as bad as I imagined)
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  The Second Circle are for those convicted of Lust, or carnal malefactors.  People like Cleopatra, Helen of Troy and Paris were found here.
• I got to watch about this Third Circle, or Gluttony.  I'll address this matter tomorrow.
• The Fourth Circle for Greed, where can be found many clergymen and Popes.

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  The Fifth Circle is Wrath, of the river Styx and City of Dis, another name for Pluto, king of the underworld.  Fallen angels live here.
• The Sixth Circle is Heresy, where resides Epicurus, Emperor Frederick II and at least one Pope.

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  The Seventh Circle represents Violence, with three rings, where Dante somehow avoids the Minotaur, and witnesses Alexander the Great and Attila the Hun in Ring 1, those who committed suicide in Ring 2, and Sodomites in Ring 3.
• The Eight Circle is for Fraud, and not sure why fraud is so terrible, but here can be found seducers and panderers, like Jason of the Golden Fleece, and flatterers and frauds like Ulysses or sowers of discord, like Muhammad, founder of Islam.

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  Finally, the Ninth Circle of Treachery is at the center, where sits the frozen lake Cocytus.  This deepest level of the Inferno is reserved for traitors, betrayors and oathbreakers, where of course an inmate is Judas Iscariot, and so is Cain, who are all being eternally tortured. Certainly found here is the Devil, also known as Dis, Lucifer and Pluto.  But He is in charge of dishing out the punishment.
• Dante and Virgil find their way back to the surface on Easter morning, 10 April 1300.

Now that you can appreciate the terribleness of the Ninth Circle, here are Nordhaus' list of companies deserving to be sent there:

• Volkswagen:  purposefully falsified diesel engine records, no doubt killing millions.
• Philip Morris:  destroyed research showing the lethal nature of smoking, which also increases addictiveness.

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  ExxonMobil:  while fully aware of the dangers of climate change, suppressed the science and funded climate deniers.
• Johns Manville:  knowledgeably denying the dangers of asbestos.
• Purdue Pharma:  conspiring to foster the use of OxyContin while aware of the addictive properties.
• Facebook:  selling personal information without consent, thus sowing political discord.

William Nordhaus is a Yale University professor who will publish his new book, The Spirit of Green, in a couple of weeks.

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