Do you smoke? Such a question has been asked to most people at one time or another. The topic of smoking certainly requires a thorough analysis, whether you smoke or not. It’s also an issue which seems to polarize people. In this reading we’ll compare contrasting viewpoints by two different individuals. As I present the arguments, I’ll dissect them to truly understand their inner-workings. Both Dr. Haviland and King touch on many subjects yet seem to ignore others. I think a balance must be struck when it comes to smoking, both through individual rights and a social responsibility.
“I’d Rather Smoke than Kiss.” is Florence King’s very astute retort to anti-smokers. In this writing she advocates for smoking as a simple enjoyable thing to do. To emphasize this she recalls her first smoking experience, which is for the most part very normal and unexciting. However, this inconsequential account is not indicative of the rest of the story. King quickly switches gears as she goes on the attack. In the first section she labels hatred of smokers as a form of misanthropy which she goes on to say is “the most popular form of closet misanthropy in America today” (King 32). This perspective is further augmented by the fact that she considers second-hand smoke an invention; a means for the “Passive Americans” (King 32), to justify prejudice towards smokers.
As she moves into the second section, she begins to document the hostility shown to smokers. Through her own personal interactions or through examples she views in newspaper articles. King really focuses on the subject of public perception, and while some of the examples validate her perspective, others do not. We see this in her response to a Washington Post article, i...
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...r someone to quit. Instead of creating ads with the intent purpose to ostracize smokers, we should instead make ads to inform them.
The smoking issue is very complicated and some of the arguments are beyond the scope of this essay. Still, we can obtain a balanced outlook if we consider the following: the facts of smoking, individual right, societal responsibility, and the stigma of smoking. Haviland and King write essays which contain very important points, but seem to contain a bias which may alienate some people. To truly reach a consensus on the smoking issue, we must be willing to meet each other halfway. We must strike equilibrium between individual right and societal responsibility.
Works Cited
King, Martin Luther, Jr. “I Have a Dream.” Current Issues and Enduring Questions. Ed. Adam Whitehurst. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014. 687-690. Print.
Many of the characters in Monkey Beach are frequent smokers, and this habit influences the children in the community. Lisa had her first cigarette “six or seven years ago” (Robinson 19). Lisa was very young when she first started smoking, and is also a popular habit among her Aboriginal friends. Among the Aboriginal youth in Canada, the smoking rate is two times higher than in their non-Aboriginal counterparts (Reading and Allard 1999). Most of the adults in Monkey Beach are smokers, and because the adults smoke, this habit influences the youth. If one or both parents are current smokers, their children would have a significantly greater risk of intending to smoke because of the easy access to cigarettes and the indifferent perspective towards smoking (Jackson and Henrikson 1997). This is an example of how the past - in this case the ...
In the 1990 article "I’d Rather Kiss than Smoke" in the National Review, Florence King tries to persuade her readers to look through a smoker’s eyes in a smokist world. King has been around people smoking even before she was born. Her mother started smoking when she was twelve and she started this habit when she was twenty-six. Since she started smoking, she has been analyzing how non-smokers discriminate against them. Florence King expects everyone to be okay with smoking because it is what she was brought up in and it was okay in her family.
King, Martin Luther. "I Have A Dream." The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines. 8th edition, Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003. 309-312.
In the passage `A Nonsmoker With a Smoker' written by Phillip Lopate, the writer discusses his hatred as well as his fascination with smoking. He tells a story about his girlfriend Helen, who was a smoker, and how her smoking bothered him not only in a distasteful manner but also in a manner of not understanding. Because he didn't smoke he didn't realize what it means to those who do. He couldn't understand why, although Helen didn't like the fact that she smoked, she couldn't quit. He couldn't understand the addiction aspect of it. He goes through many of his life experiences of smoking and tries finding understanding with in them.
In the essay “Letting Go” David Sedaris, writes about his involvements with smoking. Throughout the essay Sedaris expresses his views and experiences with the teairble habit of smoking. Sedaris grew up in the 1960s and 70s when smoking was a common thing to do, so much so that grade school students in his native North Carolina would have field trips to tobacco factories where they were given packs of cigarettes to give to their parents. Sedaris describes views about smoking that changed throughout his lifetime. At one stage in his life he was against smoking and was even bothered by the smell of cigarettes. Then Sedaris himself in a different stage of his life became a smoker. Sedaris’s own mother had health problems due to her smoking habit,
Bates, Claire. "Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech: What does it tell us about him?." BBC. BBC History, 23 Aug. 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. .
The central point the author drives home is that at the turn of the twentieth century, cigarette smoking was not deemed an acceptable practice for middle or upper class men in the United States. The author states that there were numerous factors, each seemingly more extreme than the last, that lead to the acceptance
Laird, Pamela, “Consuming Smoke: Cigarettes in American Culture.” University of Colorado at Denver. Author of Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing. 1998
King, Martin L., Jr. "I Have a Dream." Archives.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Sept. 2013.
"American Rhetoric: Martin Luther King, Jr. - I Have a Dream." American Rhetoric: The Power of Oratory in the United States. Web. 14 Mar. 2010. .
I went on the Internet and started surfing around until I found this web-site called www.no-smoker.org. This site is About Americans for Nonsmoker's Rights. The article I read was called "Things are changing". The issue is secondhand smoke is bad for your health. The argument here is that tobacco companies are saying that secondhand smoke is not bad for your health. In this essay I will talk about this controversial issue.
People throughout the time have been worried about some acts that people make; these acts are sometimes performed unconsciously or without realizing these are affecting they negatively affect others. Some reasons why this happens, they do not realize they are making someone uncomfortable, or they simply do not care about it. Smoking is one of these activities. For a long time, smoking in public places has been extremely popular regardless of age or gender. Many smokers believe they are free to smoke wherever and whenever they. Even if they realize the damage they are causing to themselves, which is a personal decision, when they smoke in public places they ignore the collective damage they are causing others. It has been claimed that despite not engaging in the activity themselves, “passive smokers suffer the same horrifying bad consequences as active smokers” in the form of second-hand smoke (Ecobichon & Wu, 1990, p. 43). Smoking is thus a dangerous activity that is becoming more and more popular in campus every day and is becoming a social and educational problem. Schools should ban smoking from their campus, and those that have should implement stricter methods of enforcing such rules.
In the essay “Letting Go” by David Sedaris, he writes about his experiences with smoking. Throughout the essay Sedaris expresses his views and experiences with smoking. Sedaris grew up in the 1960’s and 70’s when smoking was a common thing to do, so much so that grade school students in his native North Carolina, would have field trips to tobacco factories where they were given packs of cigarettes to give to their parents. Sedaris describes views about smoking that changed throughout his life-time. At one stage in his life he was against smoking, and was even bothered by the smell of cigarettes. Then Sedaris himself, in a different stage of his life became a smoker. Smoking caused Sedaris’s mother to gain some health problems due to her smoking
Cigarette smoking has become a part of the daily life of many Americans. At every given second, someone somewhere is smoking a cigarette. Beginning in the early 20th century, institutions have been investigating the negative, and in some cases fatal, effects smoking tobacco products has on the body. Banning cigarette commercials from television and mandating warning labels on all sold tobacco products have not been enough to keep hundreds of thousands of people dying each year from the long term effects of tobacco. This country has taken a focus to begin to legalize marijuana; however, the focus should change to this negative element of our economy. Cigarettes should be illegal in the United States for its extensive damage to the body and it’s near guaranteed cause of death.
Bell, K. (2013). Where there's smoke there's fire: Outdoor smoking bans and claims to public space. Contemporary Drug Problems, 40(1), 99-128.