“Dante Would Loathe Corporation Capitalists.” This Easter, Let’S Visit Silicon Valley’S House Inwards Hell

An oldie from PandoDaily, Apr v 2015 

A twosome of weeks back, I wrote about the similarities betwixt the Ellen Pao vs Kleiner trial, in addition to a much older legal battle — that involving Ellen Colton in addition to her 1883 accommodate filed against the so-called “Big Four” businessmen who built Central Pacific Railroad.

Today is Easter Lord's Day in addition to maybe it’s the church building bells ringing exterior this java shop, mixed with my unsatisfied comprehension of the moral issues raised yesteryear Pao, that prompt me to hold off fifty-fifty farther back. All the way, inwards fact, to 14th century Florence, which was experiencing its really ain innovation-led boomtime, today remembered equally the crucible of our modern civilization, the birthplace of the low-cal that dispelled Europe’s medieval darkness.

But whereas today Silicon Valley has to brand produce alongside humble tech reporters similar me, the people of Florence had a far to a greater extent than adroit, in addition to celebrated, commentator on the demeanour in addition to morality of their city’s wealthiest citizens. His name: Dante Alighieri.

During the lifetime of Alighieri (1265 -1321), incredible novel wealth was amassed inwards the key Italian city-state, on the success of innovations inwards the banking in addition to cloth industries. Alighieri wrote his epic trilogy The Divine Comedy inwards utilisation to poke holes inwards the narratives propagated yesteryear Florence’s novel tex billionaires. 

“The elite inwards Florence at that fourth dimension wanted everyone to believe that their wealth was based on virtue, that it was the upshot of smart, virtuous people running things inwards a agency that took attention of everyone. That the rich would hold off after the miserable in addition to non simply enrich themselves,” said Steven Botterill, an Associate Professor of Italian Studies at UC Berkeley, in addition to an skillful on Dante.

Why, I asked Botterill, did Dante condemn Florence’s usurers deep inwards the pit of hell (tortured yesteryear flames spell wearing sacks of net turn a profit emblazoned alongside their coat of arms close their necks), spell the prideful, avaricious in addition to prodigal enjoyed lighter pains at his pen? The avaricious, those insatiables who’s treasure was never quite enough, are forced to prevarication on their bellies inwards the dirt. The overly or unduly proud shuffle around the escarpments of Mount Purgatory alongside cracking stones on their backs. Still, their humiliations accept an expiration date.

“Dante did non think that coin in addition to news were bad things. He believed inwards the dignity of hard move in addition to that it should last rewarded. Those who maliciously defrauded others, who gear upwards out to bilk them of money, were patently meant for hell. But he also believed that the overwhelming arrogance of those who produce goodness off the move of others deserved attentention. It was pride – the belief that yous are ameliorate or to a greater extent than worthy than others, or a full general feel of entitlement – that Dante saw equally the source motility disrupting the social harmony of Florence,” Boterrill said. 

“Dante would loathe enterprise capitalists,” he added later, equally nosotros discussed the many parallels betwixt Dante’s Florence in addition to our ain historical moment. The reason? “He wouldn’t recognize what they produce equally actual work, in addition to Dante’s principal nemesis was Pride.”

In the Divine Comedy, the first-person pilgrim passes through the Inferno, Purgatory in addition to Paradise inwards turn, encountering contemporary in addition to classical characters all along the agency in addition to learning of their handling after death. Dante’s pilgrim was led yesteryear Virgil, because Virgil had made writing inwards Latin cool, but didn’t become inwards amount Angel simply because he was born also early on to avail himself of the One in addition to True God who subsequently revealed himself through the Roman Empire. Perhaps today a similar tour of the Silicon Valley afterlife would last guided yesteryear Gene Rodenberry, because he created Star Trek but died inwards 1991, also presently to witness the triumphant ascent of the futurist technologists, who revealed themselves through enterprise funding.

With Gene equally our guide, where might we notice William Shockley, Eugene Kleiner or Steve Jobs? What would they tell us?

Back inwards 1300 CE Florence, Dante could telephone phone upon the widely-shared Christian concepts of Virtue to impugn the powerful. Today things are to a greater extent than hard for writers of similar aspirations. The really persuasion of a unified morality organisation has been dashed stinking to the rubbish bin of communal abstraction – alongside the possible exception of economics, Adam Smith having been a severe Protestant in addition to believer that Christian morals agree greed in addition to excess inwards check. But fifty-fifty Smith’s moral theories are less good remembered than The Wealth of Nations, in addition to today when isolated ethical conundra burble upwards on the front end pages, our newly-minted titans of manufacture accept learned precisely to smile in addition to suffer them, peradventure enlisting the assist of top-notch PR talent to speed along the forgetting....MORE

“Dante would loathe enterprise capitalists.” This Easter, let’s reckon Silicon Valley’s house inwards hell