The Inferno is a picture of human society in a state of futility and corruption, lack of living faith, loose morality, greedy consumption, financial irresponsibility and uncontrolled bad temper; a self-opinionated and obstinate individualism; violence, sterility, and lack of reverence for life and property including one’s own; exploitation of sex, the commercialization of religion, the pandering to superstition and conditioning of people’s minds by mass hysteria and spell-binding of all kinds, venality and string pulling in public affairs, hypocrisy, intellectual and material dishonesty, fomenting discord (class against class,nation against nation) for profit, the falsification and corruption of all means of communication; the exploitation of the lowest and stupidest mass-emotions; treachery even to the fundamental of kinship, country, the chosen friend, and the sworn allegiance: these are all-too recognisable stages that lead to the cold death of society and the extinguishing of all civilised relations.