MB Civic

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Here’s an excerpt…

ANITA RODDICK: I remember being invited to the International Chamber of Commerce some years back to do a talk, and I’m always invited, because, you know, I’m supposed to be a founder of a very interesting organization, top brand in the world and no advertising. You know, the question is, “What can she tell us? You know, she didn’t go to business school. I mean, she must have tripped, and this must’ve been a series of brilliant accidents. Well, let’s see what we can learn. It’s going to be really cheap bringing her over.”

And I remember always going into these conferences and never telling people what I am going to say, because I usually travel. Before I go onto a conference, I spend time in the area. And I traveled with the Huichol Indians, and I saw the pesticides that are produced, that are scattered in those tobacco fields, and all the babies that were born with no genitalia as a result. And within the audience were a lot of the heads of tobacco companies in this particular International Chamber of Commerce. And I was showing the slides and telling the story.

And the most painful thing was their reaction. It was almost a coldless sense — a bloodless sense of good manners. They clapped, they — no reaction, no embarrassment, no shifting around in the chair, no — you know, none of this. It was an acceptance: “Well, this is business. Hang on, you know, this is business. We’ve got business here. Now, come on, grow up. Now, you know, we’re business people. We have to be strong about this.” And it reminded me what Mahatma Gandhi said when he called this source of indifference is timid kindness, where you intellectually know that this is wrong, but that knowledge cannot move you to action, does not polish your human spirit to such outrage that you promise yourself you would never do these things, never be part of this.

And so, the question, which is a big conundrum for many of us, is, why do people who are good and true — care for their kids, are good in the community — why are they so careless? Is it racism? Is it easiest to say — is that, you know, well, we don’t care that, because it’s not part of our local community; this is not a local problem; this is so far away that we can’t relate — is it that? Is it because we have a language which approves of this? You know, we approve of this. This is a language of business. Is it maybe the clothes we wear? The minute we’re going into the office, we’re wearing these suits and these ties, this new coat of appearance that separate us from who we are as fathers and husbands?

Whatever it is, it is fashioning a schizophrenia in many of us, or many business people, that allow this to happen. I’ve never understood how people can go to church and pray and ask forgiveness, but never ask forgiveness about their behavior. I can’t get it. I don’t know what happens or what — maybe there’s something in — maybe it’s something in the breakfast cereal that stops people having a sense of empathy with the human condition or stops them being imaginative to know the responses of their actions. I am utterly, utterly confounded. I do not know why.

You can go read the whole interview here.

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