Tobacco Documents Online

eadly peril of a society that won't take any risks `We so fear dyin tbat ~ we deLtro the -tY of living '!~ ' HE prevailing wind blows frola the West. Fbr Znost of this century America has exerted such an influence that it may be said to have formed our populsr culture, and our habits of thinking about society and morality. F'znm the Charleston and cocktafls in the Twenties through the great years of Hollywood. jaa, rock 'n' rolI, to the i youth culture or caunterr ~ -ulture of the Sizties, the ' merican influence was O1 avigorating and liberating. ~ But historically America was a' force for good in more imporraaz', more fundamental ways. It was ~ the land of the free, which wei- comed the wretched of the earth; 'it was the land of opportunitT the land of the open F=ntier. . And of course. throughout the ' grim and dangerous •ytara of the ~ Cold War. especially whea it was at its f.-ostiest, the IInited State3 I served as the bastion of the Fvee World. Crod knows what would have happened to Western Europe in the decade after 1945 if . there had been no America. Back in the Sixties I used to laugh scornfully when Lefty friends assured me that Chair- taan Srtao's China was a great experimentai society. Nonsense. I repued. it was just another ver- sion of despotic tyranny, as old .• and wicked as tyrznnies had been throughout the centuries. , ' The only truly experimental society. I argued, was the United ; 6tstes of Americs Its Decisra- ~ ticn of Independence brought a ~ new thing into the world when it I asserted man's 'inalienabie right to Life. Liberty and the pursuit of Fiappi.:ess'. •1r.is might not always be I ac'-aeved in pra.ctier, but the ; premise wss them and the reai- ' it9 cf that prv-•....+3e was e=peri- : enced by millions of =+gM=ta flee:: g persecutlon aad povertT. in their native lands So it :as : no wonder that one such iarl- ! grant• the great songwriter Irv- ! i.ng Beriiz - bori L.-y Bali.ne in i Sibers, where he saw CossaeYs 1 ra e his viL'a.ge in a gvven~n:ent- ~ sponsored pogrom - could wr':e with utter sinarity: God b:es I Acer:ca. Iand that I love. Ano suppose some Idiot did. Why then= such is the abdication of the idea of personal responsi- bility that he would certainly fir.d : one of Ameriee.'s E00.000 lawyrrs resr-iy to brfng' .s avit agairst the manufacturer for neglectl~ to Rarn the consumer that this was not the purpose for which screwdrivers were designed. and that to use a screwdriver in this manner might be dangerous. As a mat~,.er of fact, the idiot would find lawyers tumbling over esc.'t other in their enthusiasm to handle the case. Probably it wouldn't go to court, but only because the hapless. manufac- tu.-er wouid settle the claim. This Is not the way an iatelliger.t adult society behaves; but it is the •way a society in which the -incisidual has been divested. or has divested himseif, of aii respo.sibility for his oAn act:ons. seems to function. Nowhere is this tendency to treat adults as irxrsponsible chil- dren aore evident than in health-care. Many American cotnpanies now try to regulate their employees' drinking and ^~*^ habits, not only at work. ut even off duty. There are companies that will not hire smokers: there have been cases of co:npzrules dismsR'= g emaloyees for drir.lrng after office hours or even at home. One reason given is that U. S. companies have to pay for most of their workers' heaith-care costs. The result Is the emergence of what have been called 'corporate 1'lestyle police'. There are signs of the same thing happening• here, wherever companies contrsbute to private health-care insurance sehemes Moreover, just as in America. we are bombarded with advice couched in terms so stern as to be called dictatorial about what we should eat Last autumn the C:overr.ment's Committee on the Medicai Aspects of Food (did you know that there was such a cor..mit.ee. and that we pay for it?) issued a bossy plan for ~ ~ i UT TEP.4 G3 have I chan¢ed. The frontier ' is closed. Mie spirit of adventure Is dead. , Ar.EZ=pts are now being made - and ntsdep alas successtulLT - to j create in the United States what i has been called a:•Sskdree 6ocie- ~ t7•. 'Ib make such a society, ; A=e^csns are being subjected to a tpza,any ef"thel- own coa.struc-, tian. a t;rznxiy of experts and ! bu.•rsucrats, which represents a i perversion of all that America i was supposed to be, and which is I turning the A=erican dream ~ into an dn:ericsn ni.ghtnzatz Moreover. sfrce the pn•vailing j wind st+.ll blows from the West,1 this st."ange disease of modern American life has alresdy begun to infect vs So it is necesary that we try to understand it. so that we may seek a cure. 'I!•st great Of frequentty errant) former Daily Mail journalist Eenry Pai.•iie, who spent the last ZS years of his life in the U. S_ eaL'ed this diseasr, in what must have been acong his lsst atti- eies, 'fear of litiing'. F.e wrote: 'Ilie desire for a risk-free society is one of the most debilitating infiuer.ces in America today, progressively enfeebling the economy with a mass of safety cf~liability ruLngs, and threaien inC to ctate an unbuoyant and ur.=ventive society: Indeed. so terr '.fied of legal ~ actions have manufacturers ; bepme. that in the II. S. screw- : dr:vers are now sold with ths r instrsction: 'Do not insert in the , ear.' It Ls• of course. unlikely that anyone would do so: but you never know. tiOnttnl.IE$•

*.:c n ~I 5eu e %s. controlling the nation's health through its diet. The joke that discredits such health fascism is that the self-styled •experts' not only disagree among themselves as to what constitutes a'healthy diet', but change their minds every few years. So, for example, in July 1988 a Government report criticised levels of aflataxan fla- vouring (which may be carcinogenic) in peanut butter and, obediently, consum- ers bought less peanut butter. Fbur years later a II S. study showed, or seemed to ahow, that a handful of pea- nuts a day reduced the risk of heart attacks and prevented constipation. • Sales of peanut butter recovered. Mad- ness lies in such deference to the experts. The cause of such deference is the fear of dying, the belief that everyone has the right to enjoy perfect health. Para- doxicaily, however, the fear of dying inculcates the fear of living. Ltfe ceases to be an adventure. Instead of exploring 'seeks to control the thoughts. beliefs and behaviour of its citizens along the lines that it considers acceptable'. The state, using its 'experts' as the source of moral authority, also sets out to persuade us that this attempt at ~ control is for our own good. But, as the exiled Czech writer Petr Shtabanek reminds us, 'ali totailtarian ideologies use the rhetoric of freedom and happi- ness ness with false promises of a bappy ~ future for all'. Zltat happy future which we are pr~mised is essentially a passiTe one. IL is a future which is alssadr being real- th~e 'ptusuit ~ happiness'~ whic~ttu Declaration of Independeace called '!a- ailenable', happfnea is to be imposed: which is an essential part of conflict . creativity, is to be outlawed: iish, which is inherent in human eastence, is to be eliminated. Zhis is bad enough: but the conse- ! Quence is wotse, for the inescipabie fact • is that things do go wrong In Sap- • piness, peace of mind. good health. na never any of them bep t. But if • the individual is no king~ressponsibie I for his own conditian or misiortvnes.: and if the concept of aecident has been ! abolished by the assumption that life is i free of risk then someone or somethiag ; else must be to blatne. I In the passive society people become ! victiass rather than the authors of their : own misfortunes. Selt pity becomes the - norm - and nothing is so debilitating as : the frontier, we take refuge in the moral equivalent of an air-raid shelter. • ' The Iifestyle police are now active on both sides of the Atiantic. 'IZte thought 9 lice. creating a world which bears a ornd resemblance to arweII's futuristic ' novel 1984, domiaste American univer sities and the American media, having ~ established their cult of political correctness. It is easy to laugh at this and most of us. except the politically correct them- selves. do so: this is probably the best response, for there is nothing like • laughter to blow away nonsense. Even so, the nonsense still seems to be win- ning, and. it is doing so because it accords with this tendency of our times - the search for a risY-free society• which requires that the individuai abdi- cate responsibility for what he or she; thinks. as well as for what he or she: does. I N OT TO think for yourself Is 'safe ; to think for yourself will lead you into 'danger- ous' areas. for it will compeil you to determine the questions of value. and bring you to the conclusion that' some things are better than others - an idea profoundly offensive to the culturet of conformity. Somebody, of course, must take• responsibility; and if the individual sur- renders it, then it will be assumed byj the State which increasingly, as a judg le of the Quebec Supreme Court sid. self-pity. I I EALTgY people• aecept ' that things go wrong in iife. sometimes others ate indeed at fault, but more often what gves wrang is the result either of accideat or of one's own mis- takes, wealmesses, misjudgments. faults of character. And they acce~ tbat. They act an a sensible rule of e: do what you please (as long as It doesn't evi- dentiy, dattua e others) and take the consequences which msy indeed often be uapleasaat. But that, too, is part of the adventure of life. Peter Pan said; Zb die will be an awfully big adventttrr.' Perhaps so: we can't tell. But we do know, if we are sensible, that before we reach that point we must experience the awfull.y big adventure of life, and we know also that if we crouch in the air-raid shelter of a risk-free society, we am den yinB onti` selves that adventure, and so !-i*{--- - Ing ourselves. Thc prevailing wuzd blows from Cc West and. Ss of now, it is not a hea:tt wind. Henry ftirlie, again. deplored ':.`. loss of the Amcrican adventuring spu:: of the American gusto whose abser.c the world now laments, the gusto • that blew like a fresh wind around th globe, showing what could be done in s short a time by a nation that did nc ahrink from risk, but found it cbtalien~e'. 'The world is a poorer place for the los of that gusto. In its absence we would d well to listen to an older wisdom, to th words Zlennyson gave to Ulysses. great est of adventurers, ezprezsdng his deter mination: To Iotlom lerramledge iike sivtldrtg star. Beilortd the utatort bound c lt~uaan flrouqlst.' of this poem. 7ennyson said that : stated his feelings 'about the need c going forward and braving the struggi of )ife':- that need which the risk-fre society, tii*+g under the weight c experts, is designed to obviate. ends, t