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A Lincoln County case of sympathy for business vs. public policy on tobacco
November 2,1999
In her essay "A daughter's lessons from her own puff daddy," (The Oregonian, 10/30/99) writer Lyssa Friedman makes the point that when she grew up and put aside her childish grieving impulse to blame the tobbacco industry for her father's fatal heart attack, "adulthood brought me wealth. Love of family, comfort of friends and happiness...." Shockingly, she goes on to say of the recent near-admission by Phillip Morris Tobacco Company that cigarettes are addictive and cause cancer, heart disease, etc.:
At last! I've always looked for someone to blame for my father's youthful death three decades ago. But now that Nicorette ads have replaced the Winston jingles of my childhood, I realize the executives' near-admission of guilt bears no relationship to my childhood pain or suffering. (Emphasis added.)
If Friedman's remarks are to be taken as advice to readers of The Oregonian, where is some sense of public accountability for the unnecessary death and suffering of yet another victim of the tobacco epidemic that has claimed the lives of millions? Friedman seems to be telling us to ignore the injustice and public responsibility for controlling and regulating dangerous products and get on with our lives. On the other hand, if the essay is a purely anecdotal personal or literary account, why did it appear on The Oregonian OpEd page?
Without going so far as allowing anger and blame to consume our lives, we must recognize it as a responsibility of citizenship to hold the tobacco industry and other polluters accountable. Friedman's essay is the story of a drug addict whose life was cut short by the effects of compulsive smoking, and the traumatic effects of the loss of a father on a young girl. If it was about a father's death due to poisoned food instead of tobacco, the bereaved daughter would be recognized as a crime victim; her anguish would be a grievance deserving public redress. The makers of the poisoned product would be officially blamed.
The Friedman story also raises a deeper and more philosophical question: who is a victim and what are the boundaries of individual responsibility? As a society we are ambiguous about who should qualify as victims and what are the boundaries of personal responsibility. The French Existentialist Philosopher Jean Paul Sartre said in 1952: "The war you get is the war you deserve." Such a view makes it difficult to recognize that there are victims at all. True, this attitude makes one "own" his or her personal history; but is such an empowerment an illusion? Are substance abuse and chemical addiction strictly matters of personal responsibility, or should these be treated as public health and justice issues?
There is an appeal in the simplistic Ayn Randian notion that all responsibility is individual; that collective responsibility (and punishment) is unfair. Under the influence of criminal prosecutors, crime victims' organizations are quick to place all the blame on perpetrators, and they frequently describe the cause of crimes as individual evil. Defendants' excuses that they have been abused as children and that their mental health care has been neglected by society are scorned. Likewise, conservative jurors in tobacco lawsuits say smokers are not victims; individual responsibility is the bottom line and the smokers themselves are to blame for their damaged health. On the other hand, most would agree with laws that make it a crime to distribute highly addictive sustances such as heroin or cocaine. Then again, important studies find susceptibility to nicotine addiction to be more prevalent and more powerful than addiction to heroin or cocaine (Licit and Illicit Drugs, Consumers Reports, 1972)
Included with the conservative call for acceptance of individual responsibility is a strong undercurrent "atomizing" ordinary US citizens -- that is, dividing us into smaller and smaller units with respect to our self-interest (the isolated individual being the ultimate unit). On one level, a young person in trouble with the law may not find much sympathy for being fatherless; on another, Hillary Clinton's assertion that it takes a whole village to raise a child arouses much hostility. More generally, the perception that Americans comprise distinct economic and social classes is discouraged by our mainstream media and is rarely taught in our public schools. Such an awareness could lead to a collective resistance to the advantages currently enjoyed by corporations and the wealthy under our undemocratic economic system. The movement to divide and conquer opposes the maxim of Duma's Three Musketeers, "united we stand; divided we fall."