Solipsists Against Smoking

George Blecher's argument in "Healthier in lungs, poorer in spirit" is one we've heard before, but which bears repeating.

The efforts to curb smoking are symptomatic of a larger Puritanism that promises us all the 'pleasure' of being safe and protected. As Pynchon might put it, Americans are seduced by the false promise of being exempt from the ravages of time and, ultimately, death. As Zizek would say, it's the logic of the chocolate laxative. Yes, you can have the substance, but deprived of the 'harmful' ingredient that makes it pleasurable.

One of the great ironies, of course, is that while smoking and smokers are attacked in the name of better health, we still have no national health-care plan that would provide coverage for every American and the Bush Administration and its Repug allies are plotting to cripple Social Security, which will only make the situation worse. Blecher is aware of this, as he notes America is "profoundly anti-social" and increasingly "altruism takes a back seat to solipsism."

Smoking or not smoking isn't the issue. It never really was, since as every non-smoking New Yorker knows, he inhales the equivalent of two packs a day just by breathing. What concerns me is the picture of who we perceive ourselves to be: self-involved children pretending that we can escape death by playing God the Doctor and Personal Trainer. Though smoking may not have been good for us, the camaraderie that went along with it made this journey more fascinating, and its end perhaps more bearable.

Camaraderie, as a value, in America? These days, it sounds like wishful thinking.