Smoking is the single most civilized act. No act is so vividly emblematic of the division we have placed between human and animal, between artifice and nature. What other animal could come up with such a thing? A monkey can smoke a lit cigarette, certainly. A monkey can be taught not to fear the fire, taught to enjoy taking the smoke into his lungs. But a monkey would never come up with such an idea - never arrange the herbs and paper, and then ignite it. The natural aversion to fire is far too strong.
Smoking is a symbol of our dominion over fire, and by extension, nature. It is a transgressive act, and a transformative act.
I don't smoke, by the way. I just admire it tremendously.
I suppose shouldn't say I don't smoke. I do chain smoke, very occasionally. I average about 3 packs every five years or so. I remember I smoked four or five cigarettes after the Superbowl (what you Canadiens call "Soccer").
My trick to never getting addicted is: I never buy my own. I tell you, it works!
Smoking is a symbol of our dominion over fire, and by extension, nature. It is a transgressive act, and a transformative act.
I don't smoke, by the way. I just admire it tremendously.
I suppose shouldn't say I don't smoke. I do chain smoke, very occasionally. I average about 3 packs every five years or so. I remember I smoked four or five cigarettes after the Superbowl (what you Canadiens call "Soccer").
My trick to never getting addicted is: I never buy my own. I tell you, it works!
Comments
However, you are mistaken about evolution. Sadly, evolution no longer cares a whit for you after you've survived long enough to pass the genes. In any case, "civilization" and "evolution" are not equivalent concepts. Civilization is not a means to evolution, but a means to leave it behind.
I believe it was Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) who observed that a chief attraction of smoking was that it was a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide. Some would say suicide is dumb, too. But I ask you: does anyone lighting a cigarette today honestly not know what they're buying?
Never mind that smoking was introduced to Europe in the 1600s, yet somehow we've supposedly only just figured out that it is bad for you within the past 70 years or so. You'd think anyone taking a drag could tell you that! Yet supposedly, we only just found out.
To some extent it makes sense - and the explanation is not some 400-year-long public health conspiracy. There was some awareness of the health risks going back through the entire history of smoking. Yet in a very real sense, up until relatively recently, smoking wasn't bad for you. Not really. You were almost certain to die from something else, long before your tobacco use could kill you. And in the meantime, you could draw pleasure and relaxation from what was considered (from what was in fact) an elegant delivery system for medicinal herbal compounds.
Our expected lifespans have only recently stretched out to the point where prolonged cigarette use is almost certain to take its toll.
If smoking is dumb, it is dumb to the exact extent that suicide is dumb. Arguably, it is dumb to a lesser extent - given that suicide often fails to provide the decades of smooth flavor and enjoyment that tobacco lovers nostalgically pine for on their deathbeds. But given its relative surety, perhaps smoking can now be made illegal based on the fact that at this stage, only a fool or a liar could claim to be unaware that cigarettes will kill you? After all, whatever its other relative features and benefits, suicide is against the law.
But there are people trying to change that, too. Our society seems less and less interested in prohibition for some reason.
I guess that's all part of what makes smoking such a Tough Topic.