“It’s the situation, not the person,” goes a mantra of social psychology. That is the idea that people are influenced as much by their surroundings as by their deliberative judgements and free will. If lots of people around us overeat and snacks are close by, we may too; if we’re in a circle that exercises, we might do likewise. Attitudes are as communicable as viruses: the environment we are in, the culture around us, matters.
When I started smoking at age fourteen in 1959, many of my friends had already been smoking for several years. My parents didn’t want me to smoke, but as smokers themselves, their objections rang hollow. In those days, more than 60 percent of American men were smokers, and almost as many women. Smoking was just something that most people did.
Given the long-standing American hostility to social engineering, each of these steps faced heavy pushback. When called on to justify them, regulators offered their time-honored response: restricting individual freedom is often the only way to prevent undue harm to innocent bystanders. By a wide margin, the example of harm to others they have most often cited has been that secondhand smoke causes injuries that bystanders cannot easily avoid.
The narrow focus on secondhand smoke and fiscal effects greatly understates the harm that smokers impose on others. By far the greatest injury caused by someone’s decision to become a smoker is the harm caused by making others more likely to smoke. I applaud the sentiment that motivates this objection. People faced with the decision of whether to smoke do indeed have greater agency than those who are damaged by secondhand smoke. And all else equal, the regulators’ burden of proof clearly should be heavier in the first case than in the second.
Yet since each individual’s influence is so small, we tend to ignore this second pathway. Because the social environment influences us so strongly—sometimes for good, but often for ill—we have compelling reasons to shape it to our advantage. People who want to play the liberty card in this debate need to show why the particular liberty they favor should trump the competing freedoms that would have to be sacrificed to defend it.
We know we are in a shitload of trouble, but a reminder from the UK is always welcome.
So Let's All Save Fruit Seeds and Grow Fruit Trees Everywhere Literally and Figuratively Along with School Kids to Sensitize Genext& Grow Globally 46 Billion Fruit Trees/YR SEQUESTER NOURISH ENRICH & ENLIGHTEN.! SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PEER ACTION FOR HEALTH OF PEOPLE &🌎.! DOABLE.!
People copy those they admire not those in charge, how many David Cameron or Theresa May impersonators have you seen? We blame our leaders,not copy them,now im off to uncomb my hair & betray a perfectly effective immigration system so my rich mates can keep paying workers nothing
Robertfrank615 Thank you for setting the example of being jacked, tanned and juicy as fuck.
Better idea, use guns to fight mob rule.