From A Distant Mirror

 A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman

NY:  Ballantine Books, 1978

ISBN 0-345-28394-5

(page 54)  Potatoes, tea, coffee, and tobacco were unknown;  hot spiced wine was the favorite drink of those who could afford it;  the common people drank beer, ale, and cider...

Hours of the day were named for the hours of prayer:  matins around midnight;  lauds around three am;  prime, the first hour of daylight, at sunrise or about six am;  vespers at six in the evening;  and compline at bedtime.  The reckoning of time was based on the movements of sun and stars, were nature's timekeepers, which were familiar and carefully observed.

(115)  At Worms in March 1349 the Jewish community of 400, like that of York, turned to an old tradition and burned themselves to death inside their own houses rather than be killed by their enemies.  The larger community of Frankfurt-am-Main took the same way in July, setting fire to part of the city by their flames.  In Cologne the Town Council repeated the Pope's argument that Jews were dying of the plague like everyone else, but the flagellants collected a great proletarian crowd of "those who had nothing to lose," and paid no attention.  In Mainz, which had the largest Jewish community in Europe, its members turned at least to self-defense.  With arms collected in advance they killed 200 of the mob, an act which only served to bring down upon them a furious onslaught by the townspeople in revenge for the death of Christians.

NB:  Worms and Gandhi

(210) In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.

(225)  Italian White Company under Sir John Hawkwood, Tard-Venu and mercenary, at least "they did not roast and mutilate their victims like the Hungarians."

(235) In Picardy, for more general enjoyment, the swan festival was held in July and August, when all three estates joined to chase the young swans raised in local ponds and canals and not yet able to fly.  Led by the clergy, followed by nobles, bourgeois, and commoners in order, everyone went out in boats accompanied by music and illuminations.  Participants were forbidden to kill what they caught.  For sport only, the chase lasted several days interspersed with festivities.

(243)  Among those who shared the feast [wedding of Lionel of England and Violante Visconti in MIlan in 1368-69] were Petrarch, an honored guest at the high table, and both Froissart and Chaucer among the company, although it is doubtful if the two young unknowns were introduced to the famous Italian laureate.

(503)  "Hopfrog" and the Bal d'Ardents which nearly killed King Charles VI in January 1393

(584)  valor in combat is not the equivalent of competence in war

(602)  Peasant Life in Old German Epics by Clair Hayden Bell, Columbia University Press, 1968

(611)  The Brethren of the Common Life by Alvert Hyma, Michigan, 1930

(614)  The Merchant of Prato, 1335-1410 by Iris Origo, NY, 1957

(617)  Medieval Technology and Social Change by Lynn White, Oxford, 1962

Notes on Nazis, Fascism, and Tyranny

Once upon a time, my family lived next to a rabbi and his family.  When they moved out, my new neighbors told me that they found all the windows on the first floor had been nailed shut.  All my life, I’ve been reading about Nazis, Fascists, tyranny because I wanted to be forearmed and forewarned.  May these notes be useful to others as these ideas, these people — tyrants, Fascists, Nazis, authoritarians — never go away.

Unknown Auschwitz Satyagraha

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XAio8jsAoRE

Dorothy Thompson’s classic “Who Goes Nazi?”
https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/

Defying Hitler - the best book I’ve read on the rise of Nazism from the ground up
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2022/01/defying-hitler.html

The Voice of Memory: Primo Levi Interviews 1961-1987 - author of classic memoirs of the death camps
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-voice-of-memory-primo-levi.html

Into That Darkness: From Mercy Killing to Mass Murder - interviews with a concentration camp commandant
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2016/12/into-that-darkness-from-mercy-killing.html

The Healing Wound: Experiences and Reflections on Germany, 1938 - 2001 by Gitta Sereny - essays on the war, Nazism, and the aftermath
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-healing-wound-experiences-and.html

Notes on The Language of the Third Reich - a German-Jewish philologist who lived through the war in Germany examines the language used
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2018/08/notes-on-language-of-third-reich.html

Quotes from On Hitler’s Mein Kampf:  The Poetics of the Third Reich - an examination of the concepts and language of Hitler himself
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2024/06/quotes-from-on-hitlers-mein-kampf.html

The Mass Psychology of Fascism
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2024/07/from-mass-psychology-of-fascism.html

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements - Eric Hoffer’s classic on mass movements
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-true-believer-thoughts-on-nature-of.html

Every Man Dies Alone - a novel of a small acts of resistance under the Nazi regime
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2018/10/every-man-dies-alone.html

Friendly Fascism - a warning about the slow, soft, and steady approach of authoritarianism
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2023/01/friendly-fascism.html

Sawdust Caesar:  That Mussolini Lip - the first USAmerican biography of Mussolini by George Seldes who left Italy because Mussolini was trying to kill him
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2015/10/sawdust-caesar.html

First day of tyranny: Margaret Atwood - from The Handmaid’s Tale
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2006/6/23/221551/- 

First day of tyranny: Sebastian Haffner - the reality comes home, from Defying Hitler
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2006/6/24/221747/- 

First (and more) day(s) of tyranny: Sinclair Lewis - from It Can’t Happen Here
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2006/11/3/265848/-

from The Mass Psychology of Fascism

 _The Mass Psychology of Fascism_ by Wilhelm Reich

NY:  Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, 1970

(xiii)  Viewed with respect to man’s character, “fascism” is the basic emotional attitude of the suppressed man of our authoritarian machine civilization and its mechanistic-mystical conception of life.

It is the mechanistic-mystical character of modern man that produces fascist parties, and not vice versa.

(xiv)  In its pure form, fascism is the sum total of all the irrational reactions of the average human character. To the obtuse sociologists who lack the mettle to recognize the supreme role played by irrationality in the history of man, the fascist racial theory appears to be nothing more than an imperialistic interest, or, more broadly, speaking, a “prejudice.”

(xiv-xv)  The racial theory is not a product of fascism. On the contrary: it is fascism that is a product of racial hatred, and is its politically organized expression. It follows from this that there is a German, Italian, Spanish, Anglo-Saxon, Jewish, and Arabian fascism. _Race ideology is a pure biopathic expression of the character structure of the orgastically impotent man.

The statistically perverse character of race ideology is also betrayed in its attitude toward religion. Fascism is supposed to be a reversion to paganism and an archenemy of religion. Far from it – fascism is the supreme expression of religious mysticism. As such, it comes into being in a peculiar social form. Fascism countenances that religiosity that stems from sexual perversion, and it transforms the masochistic character of the old patriarchal religion of suffering into a sadistic religion. In short, it transposes religion from the “otherworldliness" of the philosophy of suffering to the "this worldliness" of sadistic murder.

Fascist mentality is the mentality of the "little man," who is enslaved and craves authority and is at the same time rebellious. It is no coincidence that all fascist dictators stem from the reactionary milieu of the little man.

(xxiv)  There are liberal capitalists and reactionary workers.  There are no class distinctions when it comes to character.

(18)  The basic traits of the character structures corresponding to a definite historical situation are formed in early childhood, and are far more conservative than the forces of technical production. It results from this that, as time goes on, _the psychic structures lag behind the rapid changes of the social conditions from which they derived, and later come into conflict with the new forms of life._ This is the basic trait of the nature of so-called tradition, i.e., of the contradiction between the old and the new social situation.

(19)  We begin to see, now, that the economic and ideologic situation of the masses need not necessarily coincide, and that, indeed, there can be a considerable cleavage between the two. The economic situation is not directly and immediately converted into political consciousness.  If this were the case, the social revolution would have been here long ago.

Social psychology sees the problem in an entirely different light: what has to be explained is not the fact that the man who is hungry steals, or the fact that the man who is exploited strikes, but why is the majority of those who are hungry _don't_ steal and why is the majority of those who are exploited _don't_ strike.

(20)  Narrow-minded economy has repeatedly failed to see that the most essential question does not relate to the workers' consciousness of social responsibility (this is self evident!) but to what it is that _inhibits the development of this consciousness of responsibility_.

(21)  A realistic appraisal would have had to point out that the average worker bears a contradiction in himself; that he, in other words, is neither a clear-cut, revolutionary nor a clear-cut conservative, but stands divided. His psychic structure derives on the one hand from the social situation (which prepares the ground for revolutionary attitudes) and on the other hand from the entire atmosphere of authoritarian society – the two being at odds with one another.

(25)  The Freudian conception comes considerably closer to the facts of the case [short-lived rebellions submitting to authority], for it recognizes such behavior as the effect of infantile guilt-feelings toward the father figure. 

NB:  short-lived rebellions are also without the structure to continue 

(26)  Freud's second great discovery was that even the small child develops a lively sexuality, which has nothing to do with procreation; that, in other words, _sexuality_ and _procreation_, and _sexual_ and _genital_, are not the same. The analytic dissection of psychic processes further proved that sexuality, or rather its energy, the libido, which is of the body, is the prime motor of psychic life.

(27)  The conflict that originally takes place between the child's desires, and the parent's suppression of these desires later, becomes the conflict between instinct and morality _within_ the person. In adults, the moral code, which itself is unconscious, operates against the comprehension of the laws of sexuality and of unconscious, psychic life; it supports sexual repression ("sexual resistance”) and accounts for the widespread resistance to the uncovering of childhood sexuality.

(28)  Sex-economic sociology goes further and asks: _For what sociological reasons is sexuality, suppressed by the society and repressed by the individual?_ The church says it is for the sake of salvation beyond the grave; mystical moral philosophy says that it is a direct result of man's eternal ethical and moral nature; the Freudian philosophy of civilization contends, that this takes place in the interest of “culture."

(29)  If one studies the history of sexual suppression and the etiology of sexual repression, one finds that it cannot be traced back to the beginnings of cultural development; suppression and repression, in other words, are not the presuppositions of cultural development. It was not until relatively late, with the establishment of an authoritarian patriarchy and the beginning of the division of the classes, that suppression of sexuality begins to make its appearance.

(30)  In short, morality's aim is to produce acquiescent subjects who, despite distress and humiliation, are adjusted to the authoritarian order. Thus, the family is the authoritarian state in miniature, to which the child must learn to adapt himself as a preparation for the general social adjustment required of him later. _Man's authoritarian structure_ – this must be clearly established – _is basically produced by the embedding of sexual inhibitions and fear in the living substance of sexual impulses._

(31)  Indeed, the inhibition of rebellion itself is unconscious. In the consciousness of the average non-political man, there is not even a trace of it.

(32)  … sexual inhibition changes the structure of economically suppressed man in such a way that he acts, feels, and thinks contrary to his own material interests.

(34)  In fact, National Socialist propaganda was built upon this “führer ideology.”

...In keeping with this peculiarity the rally speeches of the National Socialists were very conspicuous for their skillfulness in operating upon the _emotions_ of the individuals in the masses, and of _avoiding relevant arguments as much as possible._   In various passages in his book, Mein Kampf Hitler stresses the true mass psychological tactics dispense with argumentation and keep the masses' attention fixed on the "great final goal" at all times.

(37)  This ambivalent attitude toward authority - _rebellion against it, coupled with acceptance and submission_ – is a basic feature of every middle-class structure from the age of puberty to full adulthood and is especially pronounced in individuals stemming from materially restricted circumstances.

(40)  Hence, what is important about Hitler sociologically does not issue from his personality but from the importance attached to him _by the masses._ And what makes the problem all the more complex is the fact that Hitler held the masses, with whose help he wanted to carry out his imperialism, in complete contempt. Instead of giving many examples and substantiation of this, let _one_ candid confession suffice:  "… The mood of the people was always a mere discharge of what was funneled into public opinion from above.”

(62)  From the standpoint of the masses, the nationalistic führer is the personification of the nation. Only insofar as this führer actually personifies the nation in conformity with the national sentiments of the masses does a personal tie to him develop. Insofar as he knows how to arouse emotional family ties in the individuals of the masses, he is also an authoritarian father figure.

(63)  Even more essential, however, is the identification of the individuals of the masses with the “führer." The more helpless, the “mass-individual” has become, owing to his upbringing, the more pronounced is his identification with the führer, and the more of the childish need for protection is discussed in the form of a feeling at one with the führer. This inclination to identify is the psychological basis of the national narcissism, i.e., of the self-confidence that individual man derives from the "greatness of the nation.”  The reactionary, lower middle-class man perceives himself in the führer, in the authoritarian state. On the basis of this identification, he feels himself to be a defender of the "national heritage,"of this "nation,” which does not prevent him, likewise, on the basis of this identification, from simultaneously despising "the masses” and confronting them as an individual. The righteousness of his material and sexual situation is so overshadowed by the exulting idea of belonging to a master race, and having a brilliant führer that, as time goes on, he ceases to realize how completely he has sunk to a position of insignificant, blind allegiance.

(70)  Fascism promises the abolition of the classes, that is to say, the abolition of proletarian status, and in this way, it plays upon the social inferiority felt by the manual laborer.

(73)  _Disappointment in Social Democracy, accompanied by the contradiction between wretchedness and conservative thinking, must lead to fascism if there are no revolutionary organizations._

(80)  The structure of fascism it characterized by metaphysical thinking, unorthodox faith, obsession with abstract ethical ideals, and belief in the divine predestination of the führer.  These basic features are linked with a deeper layer, which is characterized by a strong authoritarian tie to the führer-ideal or the nation.

(106)  The notion that sexuality is moral only in the service of procreation, that what lies outside the pale of procreation is immoral, is the most important feature of reactionary sexual politics.  

(115)  As we have already pointed out, when political reaction is successful with a certain ideological propaganda, this cannot be ascribed solely to befogging. It is our contention that a problem of mass psychology must lie at the root of each instance of its success. Something that we still haven't grasped is going on in the masses, and it is that "something" that enables them to think, and to act against their own vital interests. The question is decisive, for without this attitude on the part of the masses, political reaction would be wholly powerless. It is the willingness of the masses to absorb the these ideas – that we call a dictator's _“soil of mass psychology”_ – that constitutes fascism's strength. Thus, it is imperative to seek a complete understanding of this.

(116)  Since mystical contagion is the most important psychological precondition for the assimilation of fascist ideology by the masses, an understanding of the psychological effect of mysticism in general is an indispensible part of an investigation of fascist ideology.

(137)  ...De Coster’s Till Eulenspiegel, a masterpiece, which, as far as I am concerned, has remained without peer in its liberal humanity.

(141)  All reactionary types condemn sexual pleasure (not without impunity, however) because it attracts and repulses them at one and the same time.  They cannot resolve the contradiction between sexual demands and moralistic inhibitions in themselves.

(185)  Insofar as the abortion law causes distress, death, and grief, it is a question of general social politics. Not until, and only when, it is clearly and explicitly understood that people violate the law because they have to _have intercourse even if they don't want to have children_ will the question of abortion become a sex-political question. This has passed unnoticed until now, despite the fact that it is emotionally the _most important_ point of the question. If a reactionary, social politician should take it upon himself to tell the people: “You complain that the abortion law demands so many sacrifices in health and human life! You don't have to _have_ sexual intercourse," then there would be an end to the approach that is concerned solely with population politics.  _The question is meaningful only if one clearly, and openly speaks up for the necessity of a satisfactory sex life._

(200-201)  Hitler not only established his power from the very beginning with masses of people who were until then, essentially non-political; he also accomplished his last step to victory in March of 1933 in a "legal" manner, by mobilizing, no less than five million non-voters, that is to say, non-political people.  The Left parties had made every effort to win over the indifferent masses, without posing the question as to what it means "to be indifferent or non-political."

(201)  To be non-political is not, as one might suppose, evidence of a passive psychic condition, but of a highly active attitude, a _defense_ against the awareness of social responsibility.

(205-206)  It would not be farfetched to say that it is in the nature of a politician that he does not learn anything from experience.

(210)  It is in the nature of a political party that it does not orient itself in terms of truth, but in terms of illusions, which usually correspond to the irrational structure of the masses.

(214)  The word fascism is not a word of abuse any more than the word capitalism is. It is a concept denoting a very definite kind of mass leadership and mass influence: authoritarian, one-party system, hence totalitarian, a system in which power takes priority over objective interests, and facts are distorted for political purposes.

(215)  _Sexual suppression serves, as we know, to mechanize and enslave the masses._ Thus, wherever we encounter authoritarian and moralistic suppression of childhood and adolescence sexuality, a suppression backed up by the law, we can infer with certainty that there are strong, authoritarian-dictatorial tendencies in the social development, regardless of which slogans the ruling politicians use.

(225)  The fear of social responsibility on the part of the masses of people brought the socialist movement into the _political_ sphere. However, in the scientific sociology of Karl Marx, who worked out the economic conditions of social independence, we find no mention of the _state_ as the goal of socialist freedom. The "socialist" _state_ is an invention of party bureaucrats. And now, _it,_"the state," was supposed to introduce freedom: _not the masses of the people,_ you see, _but the state._ It will be my object in what follows to show that the socialist idea of the state not only has nothing to do with the theory of the early socialist, but, on the contrary, represented a distortion of the socialist movement.  However unconsciously it may have been brought about, this distortion is to be imputed to the structural helplessness of the masses of people, who were nonetheless imbued with an intense desire for freedom. An intense desire for freedom on the one hand, coupled with a structural fear of the responsibility of self-government, on the other hand, produced in the Soviet Union a form of state that was less and less in accord with the original program of the Communists, and eventually assumed an authoritarian, totaliatory, and dictatorial form.

… According to the sociology of its founders, “socialism" was conceivable only on an international scale. A national, or even nationalistic socialism (National Socialism = fascism) is sociological nonsense. In the strictest sense of the word, it is mass deception.

(235)  Lenin’s communism is always conscious of its task:  The “dictatorship of the proletariat is that social form that leads from an authoritarian society to a nonauthoritarian, self-regulatory social order requiring neither police force nor compulsive morality.

(236)  According to Lenin’s conception the social revolution had the task not only of eliminating the surface formality and actual conditions of servitude, but also, and essentially, _of making men and women incapable of being exploited_.

(252)  … the fact that slave mentality is deeply rooted in the body itself, has become a second nature, as it were, so that _the masses of people pass on their suppression from generation to generation.

(258)  We must never lose sight of the fact that Hitler always built upon the justified hate of masses of people against sham democracy and the parliamentary system - and with great success!

(264)  Outbreaks of sentimental pathos always point to fear on the part of those who are responsible.  We want to have nothing to do with it.

(266)  The tendency to see everything in terms of economy is catastrophic.  Every effort must be made to correct this tendency.

(293)  When a man takes pleasure in his work, we call his relationship to it "libidinous.” [They love their work.] Since _work_ and _sexuality_ (in both the strict and broad senses of the word ) are intimately interwoven, man's relationship to work is also a question of the sex-economy of masses of people. The hygiene of the work process is dependent upon the way masses of people use and gratify their biologic, energy.  _Work and sexuality derive from the same biologic energy._

(295)  _Ungratified sexuality is readily transformed into rage._

… _The more gratifying one’s sexual life is, the more fulfilling and pleasurable is one’s work._

(300)  Illusions always prevent that which they pretend to be from _really_ materializing.

(312)  Natural love, vitally necessary work, and natural science are _rational_ functions of life. By their very nature, they cannot be anything but rational. Hence, they are arch enemies of any form of irrationalism. Political irrationalism, which plagues, disfigures, and destroys our life, is, in the true psychiatric sense of the word, a perversion of social life, a perversion brought about by the failure to recognize the natural functions of life, and by the exclusion of these functions from the regulation and determination of social life.

(317)  Peace can be hammered out only at a time of war, then and only then.

(354)  Though freedom is not capable of being organized, since any organization is contrary to freedom, the _conditions_ that are to clear the way to the free unfolding of the life forces can, indeed, must, be organized. 

(354-355)  It is ridiculous to argue with a murderer about his right to murder, but this ridiculous mistake is made again and again, in dealing with fascists.

(355)  Freedom does not have to be achieved – it is spontaneously present in every life function.  _It is the elimination of all obstacles to freedom that has to be achieved._

(368)  Those who are engaged in practical work, are not _against_ one thing or another. It is only the politician who, having no practical tasks, is always _against_ and never _for_ something. Politics in general is characterized by this "being against" one thing or another.  That which is productive in a practical way is not accomplished by politicians, but by working men and women, whether it is in accord with the politicians' ideologies or not. Years of experience have clearly demonstrated that the men and women who perform practical work always come into conflict with a politician. Thus, those who work for a living functioning are and operate against politics, whether they want to or not. The educator is _for_ the objective upbringing of small children; the farmer is _for_ the machines necessary in agriculture; the researcher is _for_ proofs for scientific findings. One can easily satisfy oneself that whenever a working man or woman is _against_ this or that achievement, he, or she is not speaking up as a worker, but under the pressure of political or other irrational influences.

(377)  If human society were rationally organized, the priority of love, work, and knowledge would be unquestioned;  they, and not unnecessary institutions, would have the right to determine social existence.

(391)  The nature of public opinion is essentially _political_, and it has a low estimation of the everyday life of love, work, and knowledge. And this is in keeping with the feeling of social insignificance experienced by those who love, work, and have knowledge.

However, a rational reassessment of the social conditions is out of the question as long as political rationalism contributes 99 per cent, and the basic functions of social life contribute only 1per cent, toward the formation of public opinion, and, therefore, toward the formation of the human structure.

----------

More Notes on Nazis, Fascism, and Tyranny

https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2024/07/notes-on-nazis-fascism-and-tyranny.html

Quotes from On Hitler's Mein Kampf: The Poetics of National Socialism

 On Hitler's Mein Kampf:  The Poetics of National Socialism by Albrecht Koschorke

Cambridge, MA:  MIT Press, 2017

ISBN 9780262533331

(page 12) … the success of nationalism, which is certainly the most powerful European ideology of the last two hundred years.

(16)  Ethnonationalist “intellectuals” according to Jacques Sémelin in Purify and Destroy:  The Political Use of Massacre and Genocide:  It would probably be more accurate to refer to them as “identity entrepreneurs…”

(20-21)  Sober assessment from a distance often discerns ridiculous features that were not evident at the time.

That said, a greater proximity exists between laughable events and dreadful ones than calmer ages would like to admit.

(26)  All of these dictatorial books [books written by dictators] play a central role in cleansing operations that break with the past and, at the same time, reinvent it to self-aggrandizing ends.  These works counter the confusion of the present, which seems to offer no stay, with a rigorous - and ultimately terroristic - will to order.  A combative aversion to the tumult detected everywhere is inscribed in them and constitutes their driving force.  To understand their authors’ motivations, it is important to recognize that terror and catharsis, fear and purification, do not occur only in ancient tragedies;  they also play a role in modern ideologies of power.  This fact holds in spite of the familiar irony that dictators usually increase the very chaos they pretend to oppose - only to fall victim, in the end, to the spiraling disorder they have whipped on to even greater fury.

(32)  All the while, Hitler - the son of a civil servant who had risen socially and joined the bourgeoisie - presents a picture of the lower classes that is deeply divided.  As an amorphous, blind “mass,”  they earn his hatred and scorn.  As the Volk, they are idealized.  This is precisely what sets Hitler’s view apart from the Social Democratic party platform.  In contrast to the Marxian concept of class, the key term for Hitler is Volk, which he conceived of as an ethnic and national unit from the very beginning.  Two fundamentally divergent assessments of political conflict follow from this difference.  Division along the lines of class sees social struggles occurring between the top and the bottom.  This entails an internationalist orientation:  the Workers’ International faces the International of Capital.  Whereas with this model, the line of social division is horizontal, the nationalist perspective - especially in the extremist, biologistic form that Hitler advocates - sees a vertical principle of separation at work.

(34)  The role of Führer, which combines the communitarian pathos of populism with authoritarian contempt for the crowd, is already in evidence [in Mein Kampf].

(35)  In keeping with his maxim that the public’s objections must be rebutted preemptively, Hitler presents his “transformation into an anti-Semite” as the result of an arduous inner struggle - practically a religious conversion.  Only with great effort, he lets it be known, did he overcome his original tolerance in matters of religion - which formerly had prompted him to take offense at anti-Jewish campaigns in the press.  Time and again, he admits, he suffered “relapses.”  But now that the battle against toleration, humanitarian considerations, and good taste is over, Jewish world conspiracy offers a phantasm that smooths over any and all gaps in his line of argument.  By identifying Marxism as the central element in this plot, Hitler can declare himself the savior of the German Volk and proceed to annex the people to his worldview:  “Only a knowledge of the Jews provides the key with which to comprehend the inner, and consequently real, aims of Social Democracy.”

(36)  This conspiracy theory [anti-Semitism] is as difficult to attack as any other.  To outsiders, it seems so thoroughly murky as not to warrant serious engagement.  What is more, it possesses a built-in mechanism that makes it resistant to disproof:  anyone seeking to refute it may be accused of having already fallen for the ruses of the Jewish press, thereby proving the theory’s accuracy.  In this manner, the theory seals itself off from the outside and achieves inner coherence.  For the movement’s followers, its attractiveness lies in precisely this closeness, which ensures a strong group identity internally and projects a figure of the enemy externally.  From the leader’s standpoint, the call to counter the conspiracy represents a conditional offer of love that weaves together promises and threats:  follow me, and let yourselves be molded into a people according to my vision so I won’t be forced to despise and destroy you

(37)  This [Mein Kampf’s denigration of the masses for being too lazy to read and between the lines praise for those who keep reading his book] fits with Hannah Arendt’s observation that totalitarian regimes are organized on the model of secret societies and operate according to a system distinguished by subtle gradations of participation.

(41)  Actual propaganda - Hitler leaves no room for doubt on this score - does not play out in the medium of writing but in declamatory agitation.  Only an orator can instantly gauge the public’s reaction and adjust what he says accordingly, “until at length even the last group of an opposition, by its very bearing and facial expression, enables him to recognize its capitulation to his arguments”;  only through speech, not written instruction, can the “resistance of emotions” be overcome.

(42)  When the “accuracy or inaccuracy of propaganda” is measured only in terms of “success,” it closes itself off into a tautological circle of self-verification:  it garners belief because it presents itself as the truth, and it counts as true because the masses believe in it.

(43)  Counter to what such enlightened optimists [those who view only error, blindness, or illusion at work in demagoguery] believe, the demagogue - along with those in his train - usually knows full well what he is doing.  He does not advance his claims _in spite of_ the fact that they will offend reasonable people but _because_ he can be sure to provoke them by doing so.  The reflexive outrage he triggers does not unsettle him;  rather it affords him a kind of contemptuous exhilaration.

(46)  Emptiness and resolve do not stand in contradiction;  they complement and complete each other.

(47)  The Vienna mayor Karl Lueger - Hitler’s foremost model in terms of populist animosity towards Jews - is said to have declared, “I decide who’s a Jew!”

… Goebbels:  Christ cannot have been a Jew.  I do not need to prove this with science or scholarship.  It is so!

(48)  Goebbels’ novel Michael:  As in Hitler’s account of his life, academic failure becomes part of a self-image that no longer pays heed to objections voiced by scholars and scientists.  Instead - and pithily, in his own fashion - Goebbels stresses empty readiness to believe as the character trait defining the war generation:  “Youth today is more alive than ever before.  Youth believes.  In what?  That is the gist of the struggle.”  This will to believe, without aim as yet, is the vessel into which Hitler - coded in the novel as a nameless, charismatic orator - would pour his ideological decisionism.

(49)  By Hitler’s account, the we group incorporates everyone who feels uplifted by seeing enemies beaten bloody in order to put a halt to disagreement once and for all.

(50)  A menacing vacuum emanates from Mein Kampf -  a license for adherents to react to opposition with a “Just you wait!” that bristles with lustful sadism.

… The cabaret artist Serdar Somuncu, who performed readings from Mein Kampf in the 1990s, put it this way:  “Hitler plus power is gruesome, but Hitler minus power is a comedy.”

NB:  Mel Brooks

(55)  All the while (on a harmonic register, as it were), Mein Kampf communicates another desire (and pleasure) too, one that savors the power of empty words that make an impact - the fascination of power deriving strictly from its own ascent which fashions itself out of nothing.

(63)  The primary objective of ideological pronouncements is _power of authority_.

(63-64)  The secret to its [language of authority] success lies, not least of all, in its own self-intoxication.  Anyone who adopts this language comes to share in its transports.  This is the “Dionysian” component of fanatical movements.

This autocatalytic effect is one of the reasons that the leader need not _believe_ all that he says.  Nor does his audience have to, either.  All that is necessary is for both sides to come to an understanding that they will base their community on ostentatious adherence to extreme pronouncements, embrace the transports of self-intoxication, and trouble outsiders with their triumphal displays.

(76)  Joseph Goebbels, Michael (NY:  Amok, 1987), a novel:  “Intellect is a danger to the development of the character.”

(77)  Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, 384-385:  “In distinction to the mass membership which, for instance, needs some demonstration of the inferiority of the Jewish race before it can safely be asked to kill Jews, the elite formations understand that the statement, all Jews are inferior, means, all Jews should be killed.”

… Götz Aly and Susanne Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung (Hamburg:  Hoffmann und Campe, 1991, page 288:  “The National Socialist ideology was no matter of faith for most of these young, career-oriented experts.  It simply offered them the most room to act freely.”

More notes and quotes from my readings on Nazis, Fascism, and tyranny:

----------

More Notes on Nazis, Fascism, and Tyranny

https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2024/07/notes-on-nazis-fascism-and-tyranny.html

Defying Hitler
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2022/01/defying-hitler.html

The Voice of Memory: Primo Levi Interviews 1961-1987
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-voice-of-memory-primo-levi.html

Into That Darkness: From Mercy Killing to Mass Murder
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2016/12/into-that-darkness-from-mercy-killing.html

The Healing Wound: Experiences and Reflections on Germany, 1938 - 2001 by Gitta Sereny
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-healing-wound-experiences-and.html

Notes on The Language of the Third Reich
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2018/08/notes-on-language-of-third-reich.html

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-true-believer-thoughts-on-nature-of.html

Every Man Dies Alone
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2018/10/every-man-dies-alone.html

Friendly Fascism
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2023/01/friendly-fascism.html

Sawdust Caesar:  That Mussolini Lip
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2015/10/sawdust-caesar.html

First day of tyranny: Margaret Atwood
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2006/6/23/221551/- 

First day of tyranny: Sebastian Haffner
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2006/6/24/221747/- 

First (and more) day(s) of tyranny: Sinclair Lewis
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2006/11/3/265848/-

Notes on Business Lessons from a Radical Industrialist

 Business Lessons from a Radical Industrialist by Ray C Anderson with Robin White

NY:  St Martin’s Griffin, 2011
ISBN 978-0-312-54455-3

(xi)  Distancing ourselves from the wellhead requires that we reimagine the antiquated, linear, take-make-waste industrial system of which we are all a part.  And instead, to become part of a thoughtful, cooperative, cyclical system that mimics nature in the way that we design, source, manufacture, sell, install - and eventually reclaim and recycle - our products.

(xxi-xxii)  As you read this book, you will see that the choices - the trade-offs - we are told we must make between financial success and environmental success, between doing well and doing good, are just plain false.

(5)  Here’s the thing:  Sustainability has given my company a competitive edge in more ways than one.  It has proven to the most powerful marketplace differentiator I have known in my long career.  Our costs are down, our profits are up, and our products are the best they’ve ever been.  It has rewarded us with more positive visibility and goodwill among our customers than the slickest, most expensive advertising or marketing campaign could possibly have generated.  And a strong environmental ethic has no equal for attracting and motiviating good people, galvanizing them around a shared higher purpose, and giving them a powerful reason to join and to stay.

(6)  Based upon our experiences since 1994, I can promise this:  Done right, sustainability doesn’t cost.  It pays.

(7)  I stood indicted as a plunderer, a destroyer of the earth, a thief of my grandchildren’s future.  And I thought, My God, someday what I do here will be illegal.  Someday they’ll send people like me to jail.  - Ray C Anderson

(11)  According to Hawken [in The Ecology of Commerce], we didn’t own the earth.  We were part of it.  And there was no place called “away” for throwing things, either.  Thinking there was had put us on a collision course with two of nature’s iron laws of thermodynamics that we have been slow to realize:  nothing goes away or ceases to exist, it just disperses;  and everything is connected - that what we do to the earth, we also do to ourselves.

(15)  If I can be allowed to borrow something Thoreau once said:  “What use is a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?”

(17)  Anderson’s speech to Interface's environmental task force in August 1994:  Every business has three big issues to face:  what we take from the earth;  what we make with all that energy and material;  and what we waste along the way.  We're going to push the envelope until we no longer take anything the earth can't easily renew.  We’re going to keep pushing until all our products are made from recycled or renewable materials.  And we’re not going to _stop_ pushing until all our waste is biodegradable or recyclable, until nothing we make ends up as pollution.  No gases up a smokestack, no dirty water out a pipe, no piles of carpet scraps to the dump.  _Nothing_.

…The past belonged to the labor efficient - replacing people with machines.  But the future is going to belong to the resource-efficient,”  I told them.  “And that’s what Interface must become.  If our competitors copy us, fine.  The earth wins.  If they don’t, _we’ll_ kick tail in the marketplace.  Either way, we _will_ win.”

…So here’s the vision that Jim asked me to share with you today:  I want Interface to be the first name in industrial ecology, and here’s my challenge to you.  I want to know how long it’s going to take us to ge there.  Then, I want to know what we’ll need to do to push that envelope and make Interface a _restorative_ enterprise.  _To put back more than we take from the earth_ and _to do good for the earth, not just no harm.  How do we leave the world better with every square yard of carpet we make and sell?

(19)  “If we can make these changes,” Graham [Scott] told them [the environmental task force], “if we can transform a company that uses so much energy, so much oil, that wastes so much - if we can do all that profitably, then _any_ business can do it.  _No one_ will have an excuse.  And if we can show that to the world, I think it will make up for all the compromises we’ve had to make in our lives.  Every one of them.”  And then he sat down.

(31-32)  To operate this petroleum-intensive business in a manner that takes from the earth only that which is naturally and rapidly renewable - not one fresh drop of oil - and to do no harm to the biosphere.

In short, _Take nothing.  Do no harm_.  The utility of that definition is that it works today and all the way out into the indefinite future, to any number of unborn generations, and focuses us on our business and what we must do better today, and day after day.

(37)  Here’s the thing.  While a few of us might enjoy the fruits of what we think is a free market, we all suffer the consequences of a rigged one, a market that is very good at setting prices but has no concept at all of costs.  A market that’s rigged to get someone else to pay the bills whenever and wherever a gullible or unwary public allows it to happen.  A system of economics that idealizes the so-called Basic Economic Problem as the driver of all economic progress.  The “problem”?  The gap between what we have and what we _want_;  not _need_, want.

(39)  In that kickoff speech, borrowing from Hawken, I said that every company has to face three ecological challenges honestly and head-on:
1.  What we take from the earth.
2.  What we make, and what collateral damage we do in the making of it (pollution of all kinds).
3.  What we waste along the way (in all forms), from the wellhead to the landfill.

(40)  Try this metric on for size:  Ninety-seven percent of all the energy and material that goes into manufacturing our society’s products are wasted.  Mountains of tailings pile up at the mines.  Energy goes up the smokestack, leaks out the wires, and ends up as waste heat.  Year after year we send a tsunami of scrap to inundate our landfills.  Only 3 percent ends up as a finished product that still has any value six months later.  Three percent!
NB:  Swiss factory that provides cleaner effluent water than its intake water (in Bill McDonough’s Cradle to Cradle?)

(41-42)  … now you see the seven paths to sustainability in sharp focus:
1.  moving toward zero waste;
2.  increasingly benign emissions, working up the supply chain;
3.  increasing efficiency and using more and more renewable energy;
4.  closed-loop recycling, copy nature’s way of turning waste into food;
5.  resource-efficient transportation, from commuting to logistics to plant siting;
6.  sensitivity hook-up, changing minds and getting employess, suppliers, customers, and our own communities on the same page;  creating a corporate “ecosystem,” to borrow a term from nature, with cooperation replacing confrontation;
7.  redesigning commerce, teaching a new Economics 101 that puts it all together and assesses accurate costs, sets real prices, and maximizes resource-efficiency.

(44)  The truth is, attacking waste is the engine that will pull the whole train.  If you’re looking for a quick, profitable assent up one of those seven faces of Mount Sustainability, going after waste is the natural place to begin.

(46)  _Waste is any measurable cost that goes into our product that doesn’t add value for our customer._… Then, in 1998, we added this little kicker to our own definition:  _All fossil fuel we use will be counted as waste to be eliminated_.

(49)  … we do not count the carbon emissions benefits from the RECs we buy.  Why not?

Because the rules for buying and counting RECs are still being ironed out, and there remains a danger of double counting the carbon benefit as well as questions about clear titles to the credits.

(50)  Today the actual reduction in nylon for that plant’s products averages 17 percent, and the nega-energy generated each year (to the earth’s great benefit) will run that factory for more than two years, for in the meantime the factory has also reduced its energy usage.  Strictly speaking, this is not waste control.  This is a very careful redesign effort, and it has its own name:  Dematerialization through Conscious Design.  Incidentally, we do not count our suppliers’ nega-energy in our GHG reductions either.

(51)  How do you start?  Here are the key steps:
First, define waste and apply that definition across the board.  Reject the temptation to include any allowable waste in your definition.
Next, set up a procedure to measure that waste accurately and fairly.
Then, once you’ve got your baseline established, set annual, year-on-year goals that are both challenging and possible.
Finally, plot progress and post it for everybody to see.

(54)  1.  Measure on the macro but manage on the micro.
2.  Make the waste number relative to output.
3.  Index waste costs per unit to a historical baseline.
4.  Measure consistently and fairly from one business to the next and share results, but compare each facility only with itself.
5.  Post the results for all to see.

(55)  Lina Marshall, one of our yarn preparation associates in my hometown of West Point, wondered out loud why we were buying Cool Fuel (gasoline with an added green tax) to offset the travel of our sales force but not that of our plant workers?

… Lina asked a good question, and it set off a chain of events that resulted in our Cool CO2mmute Program.  In it we split the cost with our associates to plant trees that offset the CO2 emissions produced by their daily commutes to and from work.  The first year 1,500 were planted.  By 2008, that number had grown to 11,572!

(63)  So here’s the big picture.  As my associate Melissa Vernon says, “A ‘brown’ company cannot make a green product.”  And as you will see, when we get to life cycle assessments, when it comes to being green you are your entire supply chain.

(64)  That was my experience when I opened up Pandora’s box and asked for a complete inventory of every chemical we discharged into the air, water, and ground.

(65)  Ultimately, we would send out into the world only valuable products (liked carpet tiles and broadloom carpets), plus clean air, clean water, and biodegradable materials the earth can use to regenerate itself.  You may well ask, is that even remotely possible?

(68)  As I understand the precautionary principle, it says that when the risk of not acting overshadows the cost of acting, it is time to act. When we slow down in our cars before taking a blind curve, that is the precautionary principle in action.  It applies to business practices, too;  and governments are not exempt either.

(69-70)  [The Natural Step]
1.  Substances extracted from the earth’s crust must not systematically increase in nature….
2.  Substances produced by society (man-made materials) must not systematically increase in nature…
3.  The productivity and diversity of nature must not be systematically diminished…
4.  Fairness and efficiency are linked!
The fourth rule is the social principle.  It mandates fair and efficient use of resources to meet humanity’s basic needs.  Because there are so many genuine needs, they must be met in the most resource-efficient manner possible.  Further, meeting the basic needs of the many takes precedent over providing the “wants,” the luxuries, for the few.  (The Basic Economic Problem of Economics 101 rears its head again.)  Why?  Because violating this principle yields a bitter harvest of social and environmental instability.  Humanity has already suffered enough from the results of resource wars fought over arable land, freshwater, or oil deposits.
… 5.  Resource-efficiency is the rising tide that will float _all_ the boats higher.

(71)  We must lift the poorest among us out of grinding poverty while repairing our damaged earth.  This is, without much doubt, the greatest technical, moral, and ethical challenge humanity now faces.

(72) Their [Toxic Chemical Elimination Team] mission was to work with our upstream suppliers to eliminate all ecologically damaging from our facilities.  No one stands alone.

… The objective?  To make sure that every Interface facility, no matter where it’s located, no matter how lax the local environmental laws might be, complies with the strictest rules on air and water pollution in effect at any of our facilities anywhere in the world;  that is, the strictest rules anywhere apply everywhere at Interface.  We just do not believe a brown company can make a green product.

(73)  Once out toxic chemicals teams knew what we were discharging, they went to work.  After some initial disappointments, theyt eventually decided that we had to drastically reduce the number of suppliers we use.  Why?  To eliminate toxic emissions we had to work upstream with our suppliers to keep bad actors from entering our factories in the first place.  Consolidating our suppliers made that an attainable goal.

(74)  Today, an extremely efffective shield is in place against vendors sending us things we do not want.  We have used this approach to screen out lead, mercury, perfluoronated alkyl surfactants, and other persistent bioaccumulating toxic substances and chemicals.  What has all this cost us?

Nothing.  Annual savings run about three hundred thousand dollars.  By consolidating our supplier base, the fewer but larger contracts allow us to enjoy discounts we had not seen before.  And even more important, our protocol has given our suppliers a very good reason (and a tool they can borrow) to take a hard look at _their_ suppliers, setting up a ripple effect that has spread, as more companies are motivated by enlighted self-interest to invest in benign even green, chemistry.

(78)  Last year Wal-Mart announced an impressive array of energy and efficiency initiatives that came from their companywide sustainability plan, which is somewhat similar to our own Mission Zero.

(79)  Dell, the computer maker, is another example of what can be accomplished when a company decides that just compliance isn’t enough

(99)  Could they sell a product like that:  Solar-Made™ carpet, something the world had never seen before.  And their answer was, Bring it on!

….  All the talking, all the advertising and marketing in the world, could not have brought that recognition without the actual _doing_.  When I say the goodwill of the marketplace has just been astonishing, that’s what I mean.

(106)  So you see, decisions made in the round are right and smart.  In the new thinking of sustainability, “extraneous” factors like market presence, reputation, and leadership are every bit as real and positive as the hidden subsidies to fossil fules are real and negative.
NB:  The chapter on renewables is completely out of date as the prices of solar/wind have declined so drastically since 2011.  The only thing still pertinent is probably the landfill gas story - diverting local landfill methane to power their factory, reducing emissions (and smells) while increasing the lifetime of the landfill and providing income to the town.

(107)  I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation one day that showed the United States could have met its Kyoto commitment, a 7 percent reduction in greenhouse gases, on landfill gas alone, at a profit to everyone

(111)  Consider the nine most energy-intensive industries - aluminum, metal casting, chemicals, oil refining, glass, cement, mining, paper, and steel …

(122)  This is the dawn of a carbohydrate economy that will complement - someday, perhaps replace - the hydrocarbon economy.  It evolves right alongside solar energy, leading to the solar-carbohydrate economy of the future, as we get ready for the end of oil.

(126)  Recyclebank https://recyclebank.com/ - municipalities contract for a recycling system that measures what and how much is recycled and pays customers back with currency redeemable at participating local businesses

(128)  "When you take out the carbon, you take out the cost."  Tim Riordan, vice president for supply chain, Interface, Inc.

(136)  It takes about 31,000 BTUs of energy to move a ton of freight by air.  Move that same ton by truck and the energy intensity falls to about 2,300 BTUs.  What about going by rail?  It drops to an astonishingly low 370 BTUs per ton mile!

(139)  According to the EPA, trucking accounts for about 27 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions here in the United States.

(148)  When you take the carbon out, profits go up.  Efficiency equals profits, profits equal good jobs, and good jobs mean a strong economy.

(151)  … for an industrial company that really acts as if there is no away, everyone lives downstream.

(154)  After all, nothing fails like success because success doesn’t prepare one for adversity.

(155)  Our own culture shift in the direction of sustainability has many components.  It begins with constant emphasis on safety in the workplace.  It extends to organizing women's networks within the company, to counterbalance any good old boy networks still in place.
NB:  Anderson mentions the importance of involving women in decision-making much more than just once

(156)  Interface is a very small pebble in the world’s economy, something like 1/60,000 of global commerce in 2008.  But our consulting arm, Interface-RAISE, has worked with some of the world’s largest corporations to help them adopt sounder, more competitive business practices.

(165)  Georgia Tech School of Industrial and Systems Engineering chair for Natural Systems

(166)  Early in our mountain climb we embraced our environmental initiatives under the label EcoSense.  We developed Ecometrics for measuring progress and later, Sociometrics.  Essentially, those together formed a road map to sustainability and a report card to show how far we have on our journey.

(167)  [October 2005, Wal-Mart CEO Lee] Scott detailed Wal-Mart’s simple, straightforward environmental goals.
1.  To be supplied by 100 percent renewable energy.
2.  To create zero waste.
3.  To sell products that sustain our resources and environment.

(170)  She [InterfaceRAISE client] stopped a forklift driver [on the factory floor] who was transporting a big roll of carpet and asked, “What do you do here?”

“Ma’am,” the truck driver, James Wisener, said, “I come to work every day to help save the earth.”

Stunned by his answer, she started probing that forklift driver with more questions.  Finally, James said, “Ma’am, I don’t want to be rude, but if I don’t get this roll of carpet to the next process right now, our waste and emissions numbers are going to go way up.  I’ve gotta go."

(179)  The numbers are different for every installation, but in general, 80 percent of the wear [on carpets] happens to just 20 percent of the carpet.
NB:  Pareto

(185)  Janine Benyus from Biomimicry, natural design rules:
Nature runs on sunlight.
Nature uses only the energy it needs.
Nature fits form to function.
Nature recycles everything.
Nature rewards cooperation.
Nature banks on diversity.
Nature demands local expertise.
Nature curbs excesses from within.
Nature taps the power of limits.

(189)  There is a well-known environmental impact equation popularized by Paul and Anne Ehrlich that declares I = P x A x T.  I is environmental impact (the bigger, the worse), P is population, A is affluence, and T is technology.

(189 - 190)  But what if the characteristics of T were improved, not just here and there, but with its very basis fundamentally changed to incorporate the technologies of the next industrial revolution?  Renewable instead of extractive?  Cyclical rather than linear take-make-waste?  Focused on resource efficiency rather than labor productivity?  Benign in their effects on the biosphere, rather than abusive?  And what if they emulated natural processes, in which there are no wastes?  Mightn’t it be possible to restate the environmental impact equation is I = P x A/T2?

Move T from the numerator to the denominator and we can change the world.  The mathematically minded will see this immediately.  Now, the more technology of the right kind, the better.  By harnessing technology to reduce environmental impacts, the technophiles and the technophobes, the environmentalists and the industrialists could be aligned and allied in their efforts to redesign and reinvent commerce (and save civilization).

Such a transformation will not happen overnight.  There must surely be a transitional equation:  I = P x A x T1/T2.

(192)  There were no incentives, no tax breaks, no subsidies, mandates, or government agencies forcing us to do a thing.  In fact, from our experience with the landfill gas project (the one the Environmental Protection Agency said was way too small to work), I’d say we were leading them.

(196)  The status quo is an opiate.

(202)  [1997 vote in Senate against Kyoto agreement]  Senators were terrified that reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent over the next fifteen years would just cripple American industry.  And that sounded truly dire.  Who could be in favor of something like that?

For a little context, it is worthwhile restating that as Congress gave up and ran for cover, Interface was cutting its net greenhouse gas emissions not by 7 percent, but by 71 percent (in absolute tons) within twelve years, while our sales were increasing by two thirds and our earnings were doubling.  Interface wasn’t crippled by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions;  we profited from it.  So that congressional terror was pretty much stuffed with hot air, lobbyist cash, and so much dead straw.

(204)  2006 - Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP)

(205)  We were planning a step-by-step campaign to achieve nothing less than a 90 percent reduction in US greenhouse gases by 2050, with an interim 30 percent reduction by 2020 (the year Interface expects to be at zero emissions).
NB:  Interface reached zero emissions in 2019

(207)  Mr President:  In your first 100 days….

take the lead by announcing that the largest single consumer of energy and generator of greenhouse gases, the United States government, will become climate neutral - zero net carbon emissions - by 2030.  (The government’s own Mission Zero!)

(231)  The Institute for Sustainable Technology and Development (ISTD) has evolved into a university wide advocate for sustainability.  Like our own Mission Zero, it is guided by a long-range (in their case, twenty-year) plan to achieve sustainability at Georgia Tech.

(233)  The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) - https://www.aashe.org/
https://www.aashe.org/calendar/

(236)  To help with the search [for a green MBA], the Aspen Institute publishes a biennial survey called Beyond Grey Pinstripes.  Its Center for Business Education publishes this ranking of business schools to spotlight MBA programs that integrat social and environmental stewardship into their curricula and research.

(237)  The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania has created its Institute for Global Environmental Leadership, and Interface holds a postion on its Advisory Board.

(241)  Why should Christians care about the environment?  I believe the signatories of the Evangelical Climate Initiative would say creation care has nothing at all to do with politics and everything to do with the fundamental responsibilities of faith: 
because we should care for the world as God does;
because God has commanded us to be good stewards of the earth;
because it is a way of showing love for our neighbors, even if, from a climate perspective, our neighbors live in flood-prone lowlands or parched deserts thousands of miles away.

NB:  Golden Rule applied to use and practice

(246-247)  Since 1996, our baseline year, Interface has cut its net greenhouse gas emissions by 71 percent (in absolute tons).
During the same span, our sales have increased by 60 percent.  Carbon intensity, relative to sales, decline by 82 percent, and profits doubled.  As profit margins expanded, our shares went from two dollars in 2003 to twenty dollars in 2007, before yielding to the worldwide market sell-off of 2008.
Our global use of renewable energy went from 0 to 28 percent.  Renewable energy provides electricity to power 8 or our 10 factories or 89 percent of total electricity.
Our consumption of fossil fuels per square yard of carpet declined 60 percent.
The energy content of our carpets - the total number of BTUs required to make one square yard - fell by 44 percent.
Our companywide waste elimination measures saved us a cumulative $405 million in avoided costs, paying for the transformation of our company.  Sustainability has been self-funding.
Water intake per production unit was reduced 75 percent in modular carpet facilities, 47 percent in broadloom facilities, 72 percent overall, thanks to conservation efforts and process changes.
We’ve kept 175 million pounds of old carpet out of the landfills, and reduced our generation of scrap for the landfills by 78 percent.
The percentage of recycled and biobased materials used to manufacture our products worldwide has increased from 0.5 percent in 1996 to 24 percent in 2008, and it is increasing rapidly with new technologies and the development of reverse logistics.
Since 2003, we’ve manufactured and sold over 83 million square yards of Cool Carpet with no net global warming effect - zero - to the earth.

(249)  Setting the stage for the Brasstown Valley meeting [in 2008], our CEO since 2001, Dan Hendrix, observed, “Many are bracing for an economic slowdown.”

Was that an understatement!

“But,” Dan continued, “I feel the time is ripe to energize our associates around our most powerful, unifying element, which is also our most compelling strategic advantage - sustainability."

(250)  Incorporating sustainability as a defining element has greatly improved our competitiveness - a good thing in hard times.  It has enhanced our brand and our reputation, reduced our costs, and boosted our productivity.  It has awarded us access to the very best talent, energized our entire company from the factory floor to the corner office, and spurred innovation.

(253)  The appreciative inquiry approach developed by Dr David Cooperrider of Case Western Reserve 

(257)  “_Economic_ degradation,” she [Majora Carter] said, “begets _environmental_ degradation.  And environmental degradation begets _social_ degradation.  The linkage is absolute.  No exceptions.  It’s not a menu.  You can’t pick and choose which one of those three you’d like to address.  You’ve got to address them all.”

(269)  I = P x A/T2

Let’s revisit it and ask ourselves how to make that equation reflect the new worldview I am describing.  What about capital A for affluence?  To me it suggests that affluence is an end in itself.  but what if we thought of it as lowercase, a, suggesting that it’s merely a means to a different end, and that that end is happiness?

We might then rewrite the equation again as ….
I = P x a/T2 x H
… in which H stands for happiness, the real end we seek.

… The old, flawed view of reality holds to the belief that business exists to make a profit, when we know in our hearts that business makes a profit to exist, and it must surely exist for some higher purpose.

(280)  The problem this Pac-Man process produces, as Bernard Lietaer, a European economist who helped create the euro, has shown, is that efficiency and resilience in any system are inversely related.  So there is a tradeoff between the two.  Efficiency, pushed too far, produces a loss of resilience.  When a big investment bank fails (read, Lehman Brothers), a big part of the system goes with it.  That’s lack of resilience.

Lietaer advocates looking to natural ecosystems for the model of redesigning and balancing, and thus optimizing, the tradeoff between resilience and efficiency in the financial system.  Ecosystems specialize in self-organizing resilience, based on diversity.
NB:  efficient resilience, anti-fragility

Harvard Business School Case Studies
Interface's Evergreen Services Agreement (2003)
https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=29680

InterfaceRAISE: Sustainability Consulting (2012)
https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=40509

Interface: The Journey Toward Carbon Negative (2022)
https://store.hbr.org/product/interface-the-journey-toward-carbon-negative/W10C83
or https://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/product/W10C83-PDF-ENG

Previously  

Interface from Living Zero to Climate Takeback 

https://solarray.blogspot.com/2022/03/interface-from-living-zero-to-climate.html

Notes on The Hopi Survival Kit

 The Hopi Survival Kit by Thomas E Mails

NY:  Penguin, 1997

ISBN 0 14 01.9545 9

(1)  Techqua Ikachi! is the creed of the Hopi Traditionalists.  In its English translation, what it means is “blending with the land and celebrating life.”  The traditionalists’ aim has always been to achieve this for themselves and everyone else in the world.

(14)  As you would expect, there have been other outstanding male Hopis among the Elderly Elders, but all except one of these have put on the “cloud mask” and gone to live with the Kachina spirits.

(89)  No true relationships with the things of the Creator could come from coercion, and true relationships between individuals could not be forced either.

(152-153)  “One by one, bowed darkened figures would whisper and breathe their prayers upon the cornmeal that their hands held:  ‘Our Father Sun, all the Unseen Living, help us this day with your Supreme Power.  Echo your voices into the ears of men so that they may hear and understand our purpose here this day.  Protect and guide us in the right way.  May our body, mind and spirit be wholesome this day, I humbly ask Thee.’”

(165)  When the Hopi do their rituals, these Spirit beings send power and strength and wisdom into the celebrants.  The performers receive it first, and then pass it on to villagers and friends who in heart and soul and mind are identifying with them.  This is power for understanding, power for the growth of crops, and power for the deepening of the love relationship that bonds creature with Creator.

(199)  The Gods do not allow the secrets to be known unless for the benefit of all living things.

(214)  We think their [Hopi] forecast is very frightening so suggest those who care about coming generations should write to:  Hamaker-Weaver Publishers, Box 1961, Burlingame CA 94010 - Hamaker's main book was The Survival Of Civilization (1983, 2002). His ideas were further elucidated by Donald A. Weaver in his book To Love & Regenerate The Earth (2002).  

Editorial Comment:  Remineralization.

(219)  Innocence is something that captivates us.

(224)  Maasaw [agent of the Creator] taught the founders of Oraibi that what we think and feel about any task we are performing has everything to do with its failure or its success.

(239)  From the cradle to the grave, we must, as the Hopi Traditionalists do, immerse ourselves in Mother Earth.  To put this succinctly, we need to blend with her so that we can celebrate life.

…  As a result of this blending with Mother Earth, which includes in fact a blending with ourselves, we will become calmer, more serene, less argumentative, and more secure.  No matter what developments take place in the world, our oneness with others will deepen.

(258)  When planting one must be in a good humor, no anger or sad thoughts.  One must sing and talk to the seeds, encourage them to come to the surface with joy.  When they surface, thank them and encourage them to keep strong.  As they grow, you thank them and also the unseen spirits who helped make it possible for the harvest which will provide food.  These are a few sides of the wisdom for growing crops.

(282)  Plants already know that the earth is a living mother to life, and that she nourishes her living children.  Plants know that everything is a brother or a sister.  Plants already know that everything is a person.

(288)  We always have our natures and weaknesses to consider, for no one succumbs to temptation better than we do.  We are masters at it.

(296-298)  Is not the idea of everyone - rich or poor, extraordinary or ordinary, pitching in and feeling truly worthwhile and good about it - an exceptional one?  This, of course, is precisely what the Creator told the Hopi at their Oraibi beginning.  He was offering them, along with everyone else in the world, the way to work together to affect the pace, intensity, and violence of the closing down of the Fourth Cycle.

(341-342)  Beyond this, the professor misses entirely the point of my books about Fools Crow and with Dan Evehama.  Neither person is telling his story for personal gain or adulation.  They deal with critical matters involving the world and its inhabitants, and with expressing the love and concern they have for their readers.  Readers need to know that this is part of a pattern followed by the great ones among the Native Americans.  They usually begin their prayers by praying for all of the people of the world.  They always put others first.  They feel a unity of spirit with everyone who exists that is marvelous to behold. And that is why so many people respond to them as warmly as they do - two-hearteds excepted.

(366)  It makes me sad to think I may not get to meet our True White Brother in person, but it is prophesied that just two or three righteous persons will be plenty to fulfill his mission.  Even one truly righteous would be able to do it.

(373)  “For years,” the Elderly Elders say, “our founding fathers have passed the knowledge of survival from mouth to mouth, which is to respect all living things, for we are all one and created by One."