ask dr. zen, volume 1.1
a reader had this reply to dr. zen volume 1:
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Subject: i certainly agree with that last sentiment. :)
ok, let me cite a specific example of what i mean.
everyone knows that smoking is harmful. it kills the people who do it and has been shown to harm those who inhale it second hand through no choice of their own. is it more opressive for a society to ban it entirely in the name of the good of the whole, or should they maximize freedom and allow indivuals to smoke as they choose?
basically, i'm attepmting very hard to understand the individualist mindframe, because there are a lot of these fuckers out there, and they seem to care nothing for the idea of "humanity" because they find it to be the biggest coercive force ever conceived, meanwhile doing things for "the greater good" runs the chance of marginalizing the personal freedom of individual. i.e. if you ban things for "the greater good", be it hate speech, be it smoking, be it anything else, certain individuals will feel opressed. meanwhile, if you allow hate speech, and smoking in public, etc you will have the opression of those who are a victim to these dangerous behaviors. i happen to believe that personal freedom should be held as high as possible, as long as it is not doing any harm to other indiviuals. and even then, compromises are often found somewhere in the middle. smoking in public is kind of a touchy issue- if people want to smoke, go ahead, but if business owners are being forced to be non-smoking establishments that seems to violate their rights in a sense, but then we also have to consider the rights of the guy sitting next to a smoker in a bar who is unwillingly inhaling a tumor.
i was only asking vague questions as hopefully a jumping off point for conversation here. but i guess i should have hinted more at exactly what i was talking about. even in socrates cafe i define my terms. sorry. :)
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hmmm, i have been on both sides of the smoking issue, though i personally find smoking (cigarettes) to be a repulsive habit in about 12 different ways. originally i was on the side of the smokers though, because i thought that people can make choices for their damn selves to do things like not go to a bar that was smoky, etc. it is interesting that most of the legislation on this issue is couched in rhetoric of the people who *work* in these places though. they really do have it rough, something i hadn't previously considered.
i'd have to say i'm with you on this one though. i moved from a place that had a smoking ban in place for a few months before i left to a place (in the tobacco heartland) that has no smoking ban. as an asthmatic, i'd have to say it sucks. hell, even smokers like to go out and not have their clothes stink. and it certainly does them good to smoke less, to consider smoking a health hazard both for others and themselves, etc. almost every smoker agrees that they are addicted and it's not good for them or anyone around them, yet they do it anyway. but my own story and those of my friends are relatively petty compared to people with serious health problems, etc. so on this one i say individual rights do not outweigh collective societal rights. and it's not like ciggy-rats are *illegal*, they are just more limited under a smoking ban. so it's not really an either/or issue, it's what seems to make sense on balance. while we are at it we should tax fatty foods and roll back regressive taxes on things like food in general (which they also have down here in tobaccoland). it makes sense for society to make little nudges in the direction of good sense overall.
i can imagine someone reading this and giving me the slippery slope argument, that if we give the government power to tax grease and ban smoking in restaurants, soon we'll have some orwellian nightmare on our hands. this is a type of argument that comes from either a hopelessly dualistic either/or way of thinking, a pronounced paranoia or a bullshit rhetorical trick like arguing something reductio ad absurdum.
but of course all i am advocating for is a kind of sensible common sense approach, which is of course highly subjective. that is the state of the problem, our own little koan.
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Subject: i certainly agree with that last sentiment. :)
ok, let me cite a specific example of what i mean.
everyone knows that smoking is harmful. it kills the people who do it and has been shown to harm those who inhale it second hand through no choice of their own. is it more opressive for a society to ban it entirely in the name of the good of the whole, or should they maximize freedom and allow indivuals to smoke as they choose?
basically, i'm attepmting very hard to understand the individualist mindframe, because there are a lot of these fuckers out there, and they seem to care nothing for the idea of "humanity" because they find it to be the biggest coercive force ever conceived, meanwhile doing things for "the greater good" runs the chance of marginalizing the personal freedom of individual. i.e. if you ban things for "the greater good", be it hate speech, be it smoking, be it anything else, certain individuals will feel opressed. meanwhile, if you allow hate speech, and smoking in public, etc you will have the opression of those who are a victim to these dangerous behaviors. i happen to believe that personal freedom should be held as high as possible, as long as it is not doing any harm to other indiviuals. and even then, compromises are often found somewhere in the middle. smoking in public is kind of a touchy issue- if people want to smoke, go ahead, but if business owners are being forced to be non-smoking establishments that seems to violate their rights in a sense, but then we also have to consider the rights of the guy sitting next to a smoker in a bar who is unwillingly inhaling a tumor.
i was only asking vague questions as hopefully a jumping off point for conversation here. but i guess i should have hinted more at exactly what i was talking about. even in socrates cafe i define my terms. sorry. :)
___________________________________________
hmmm, i have been on both sides of the smoking issue, though i personally find smoking (cigarettes) to be a repulsive habit in about 12 different ways. originally i was on the side of the smokers though, because i thought that people can make choices for their damn selves to do things like not go to a bar that was smoky, etc. it is interesting that most of the legislation on this issue is couched in rhetoric of the people who *work* in these places though. they really do have it rough, something i hadn't previously considered.
i'd have to say i'm with you on this one though. i moved from a place that had a smoking ban in place for a few months before i left to a place (in the tobacco heartland) that has no smoking ban. as an asthmatic, i'd have to say it sucks. hell, even smokers like to go out and not have their clothes stink. and it certainly does them good to smoke less, to consider smoking a health hazard both for others and themselves, etc. almost every smoker agrees that they are addicted and it's not good for them or anyone around them, yet they do it anyway. but my own story and those of my friends are relatively petty compared to people with serious health problems, etc. so on this one i say individual rights do not outweigh collective societal rights. and it's not like ciggy-rats are *illegal*, they are just more limited under a smoking ban. so it's not really an either/or issue, it's what seems to make sense on balance. while we are at it we should tax fatty foods and roll back regressive taxes on things like food in general (which they also have down here in tobaccoland). it makes sense for society to make little nudges in the direction of good sense overall.
i can imagine someone reading this and giving me the slippery slope argument, that if we give the government power to tax grease and ban smoking in restaurants, soon we'll have some orwellian nightmare on our hands. this is a type of argument that comes from either a hopelessly dualistic either/or way of thinking, a pronounced paranoia or a bullshit rhetorical trick like arguing something reductio ad absurdum.
but of course all i am advocating for is a kind of sensible common sense approach, which is of course highly subjective. that is the state of the problem, our own little koan.