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. When King talked about how her mom smoked during her pregnancy and how she turned out a healthy baby, she implies that smoking does not cause any health defects. She claims that since she was not born with any birth defects or a “ low-birth-weight baby” that no one else will. Just because one person was fortunate enough to survive, does not mean that everyone else will. King also says that smoking is more pleasurable than sex. This says that if you want pleasure in your life, smoke.
This is not the case for all; however, she does have a promising argument, different people find pleasure in different things. Not everyone needs sex or cigarettes to find the pleasures in life. Florence King states in her article that she believes that life should be savored rather than lengthened. The majority of people would disagree with her because they feel as if they should live a healthy life and take life one day at a time hoping to be on Earth as long as they can.
Others would agree with her saying that life should be lived with no regrets. King does not care if cigarettes cut her life; all she wants to do is live life the way she wants to without people telling her how to. By saying smokers have the “ right to die,” but non-smokers have the right to “ not die” puts non-smokers in the dangers of smoking as well. This says that non-smokers can also be harmed by smoke and can cause death either way. A letter to Jeremiah O’Leary said, “ Smoke yourself to death, but please not me.
By the writer adding this in her article, she inserts brutality from the non-smokers. It makes the readers believe that non-smokers will use violence and harsh words to stop smokers from smoking. This quote from a letter makes the reader dislike smokists and feel sympathetic towards smokers like the writer wants. Misanthropes, someone who hates people, are trying to ban smoking from airports and other forms of public transportation. Ahron Liechtman, the president of Citizens against tobacco smoke, says that is one step closer to a smoke free society.
The writer states that this sly, cowardly form of misanthropy is called “ pleasure in the unhappiness of others. ” This states that anti-tobacco companies and others against smoking only discriminate against them because they find pleasure in mocking them. King wanting the readers to feel sorry for smokers is successful in this because it makes the readers believe that non-smokers want smokers to be unhappy. Non-smokers do have a fear of being physically disgusting and smelling bad; however, that is not all they are concerned about.
Although non-smokers do wave their hands in front of their face to clear the smoke filled air around them, that is not all of their worries. King seems to want everyone to believe that non-smokers go out of their way to prevent them from smoking in front of them or smoking at all. However, that is not the case, it is uncomfortable for smokists or non-smokers to inhale smoke, it is just common curtsey to not blow smoke in other people’s personal space. The tobacco company serves as a basis for a class war and since the immigrants we not treated fairly when they came into America, the writer states that it is an excellent way to hate white American working class without going on record as hating the white working class. This targets the immigrants and how they feel about smokers. The writer wants her readers to believe that even the lower class citizens oppose smokers since they are mostly made up of upper class citizens.
This might or might not be true, everyone is in titled to their own opinion. Florence King says that hating smokers is a “ guiltless way for a youth-worshipping country to hate old people as well as those over the hill. ” By saying this she implies that since the youth these days do not smoke as much as they did in earlier times that they would hate their elders just because they smoke. People are not so cruel as to hate someone just because they smoke.
The youth in this country today probably smoke just as much as they did back then so there is no use in hating each other for it. This article tends to persuade the reader into looking at a smoker’s point of view. The writer wants her readers to think that just because she is a smoker, she is treated differently and hated. It is not that the non-smokers hate the smokers, they do not like the smoke that comes with the smoker.
It is not the people who are being discriminated against, but the act of smoking. Smoking should be cut down; however, people are free to choose which ever actions they want and others should accept that. Smokers should also be respectful to non-smokers’ feelings and beliefs and not be offended when asked not to smoke in front of them.
