Readers of this weblog know that I am no friend of those benighted purveyors of misplaced moral enthusiasm, the 'tobacco wackos.' But the best way to oppose fanaticism is not by an equal and opposite fanaticism, but by moderation and good sense, qualities usually absent in cults. In The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult, a very good essay, Murray Rothbard relates the Randian party line on smoking:
The all-encompassing nature of the Randian line may be illustrated by an incident that occurred to a friend of mine who once asked a leading Randian if he disagreed with the movement’s position on any conceivable subject. After several minutes of hard thought, the Randian replied: "Well, I can’t quite understand their position on smoking." Astonished that the Rand cult had any position on smoking, my friend pressed on: "They have a position on smoking? What is it?" The Randian replied that smoking, according to the cult, was a moral obligation. In my own experience, a top Randian once asked me rather sharply, "How is it that you don’t smoke?" When I replied that I had discovered early that I was allergic to smoke, the Randian was mollified: "Oh, that’s OK, then."
The official justification for making smoking a moral obligation was a sentence in Atlas where the heroine refers to a lit cigarette as symbolizing a fire in the mind, the fire of creative ideas. (One would think that simply holding up a lit match could do just as readily for this symbolic function.) One suspects that the actual reason, as in so many other parts of Randian theory, from Rachmaninoff to Victor Hugo to tap dancing, was that Rand simply liked smoking and had the need to cast about for a philosophical system that would make her personal whims not only moral but also a moral obligation incumbent upon everyone who desires to be rational.
On the other hand, a lawyer acquaintance became so disgusted with PC efforts to stigmatize smoking that he took up the habit -- but only when in the presence of those he hoped to offend.
Reminds me of a conservative friend who, having given up the weed many years ago, threatens to start up again just to spite the anti-tobacco zealots.
“The world today is divided into smokers and non-smokers. It is true that the smokers cause some nuisance to the non-smokers, but the nuisance is physical, while the nuisance that the non-smokers cause the smokers is spiritual.” [1]
“[H]ow could imagination soar on the clipped wings of a drab, non-smoking soul?” [2]
[1] Lin Yutang, “On Smoke and Incense” The Importance of Living (London and Toronto: William Heinemann, 1938), p.236-7.
[2] Ibid., p. 242.
Odd how it seems shocking, yet it was commonplace in England only twenty years ago.
That's a gret quotation. I cam across that book a while back ina usred book store but declined to buy if for some reason. These days, lack of space is more of a problem than lack of money.
Pipe in hand, every man's a philosopher.
Yes, the Greeks are mad about smoking, as are the Turks. I report an altercation between a Brit and a Greek over smoking in Ataraxia and the Tobacco Wacko.
Just the sort of thing Mr Yutang would have liked to hear said! The man himself happily admitted that he was no hard-headed analytical philosopher, but his book is charming, and concerns itself contentedly and simply with what its title claims: The Importance of Living.
>>The second moral is the arrogance of the British. This charge is not an inference from this particular case – which would be a hasty generalization – but an illustration of a point antecedently known.(People often confuse hasty generalization with illustration or exemplification: if I give an example of a general truth, that is not to say that I have arrived at the truth by generalization from that example.)
I was curious about this generalisation. From which data is this generalisation derived?
During the holiday I have just returned from, in that very place you refer to, my children asked why we should, as I have taught them, try and learn the elementary vocabulary (please and thankyou words, hello words, numbers, the word for 'beer' &c) of any country they visit.
They asked why, given that it generally looks foolish. I replied that it is a politeness. I think a great many English people would feel that way. And certainly the behaviour you refer to in the post (splashing someone who was smoking) was appalling, and most English people would feel that way. So why the generalisation?
Arrogance of the British = 42,900
Arrogance of the English = 27,100
Arrogance of the Americans = 22,700
Arrogance of the French = 623
Arrogance of the Irish = 6
Arrogance of the Scots = 2
Mystifying. Given that British = English + Scots + (Northern) Irish, the difference between British and English arrogance (15,000) should equate to the arrogance of Scots + arrogance of Irish. But according to Google, there is practically no Irish or Scots arrogance. More puzzling still is the low score acceded to the French, who, it is universally agreed (even by the French) are the most arrogant people on earth.