they get drunk, they smoke, they have sex. and they never know what the hell they’re doing. mame & ms.comrade & i were having a discussion over nicole kidman & her smoking riff—as in, daddy-o, does she need to act a little better because there’s a host of baby aussies out there watching?
we fractured among expected signs: mame etc. among more libertarian viewpoints (freedom of choice is attributable to the individual and that’s it), and me along a more conservative or pragmatic notion (children can’t make choices, and the costs are passed onto society; a/k/a, freedom costs). it’s a fascinating subject and one that gets treated in various ways by society and by their legal expression—the courts.
so i’ve been reading more on it. lemme give you a pattern, and i want to know what you think about it—and then i’ll tell you what happened in the end.
1. in 1986 a pretty 18 year old girl gets asked to fraternity party at ole miss.
2. she goes. she begins to drink—as does everybody else.
3. the frat has built a pool as part of their theme. it’s shoddily built, and begins to leak.
4. the pool is like three-and-a-half feet deep when the pretty girl is thrown in, against violent protestation.
5. she breaks her foot—bone protruding. later surgery is needed and infection causes her to lose partial usage of her foot.
so here’s where one might line up:
1. she’s 18, and thus grown. one knows people are going to drink at the party—she knew there was a pool—and you can pretty much add 2+2.
or
2. she’s 18, just a kid. she knew people were going to be drinking—it’s a party—and of course she knew there was a pool, that was the cool part. but she never thought she’d get hurt.
the first option is much more centered on the idea of “personal responsibility”—that we take all the consequences of our actions, no matter how harmful. the second one says that there are some things that we may not assume, or risk—that while we might giggle and get thrown in the pool, we don’t want our foot to be shattered. are these the only options?
that’s pretty much my whole deal with smoking. not the nicole kidman thing, but the dying thing. do you consent to looking cool and maybe coughing every now and then when you’re younger? why, sure. but do you consent to long-term addiction and possible medical risks of cancer and death? well, uh, no. so often that ultimate risk—death—is so far away from that first cigarette that it doesn’t seem likely at all.
i’m not saying you need to walk on eggshells your whole life—but maybe be a little bit more careful, huh? and maybe think about the effects you have on others, too.