Why do haredi and left-wing radicals smoke?

Unless things have changed in the last few years, smoking is very fashionable among the radical left in Europe.  It's not just the snooty intellectual smokers of Gitanes; it's also the Norwegian working-class-wannabes that light up cigarettes to assume an eastside dialect that never really existed.

It's ironic, because I honestly can't imagine a more cynical, greedy industry than the tobacco industry.  Whether it's subliminal advertising to minors, lack of corporate accountability, barriers to trade - you name it, the tobacco industry is on the forefront pushing the limits of what is legal and way beyond what is ethical.  You'd think dyed-in-the-wool socialists would be vehemently opposed to smoking if there were any consistency in their philosophy.

I suppose there's something anti-establishment about smoking, but it should have worn off by about age 17, when the rebels realized that smoking is pretty much like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Of course, I'm also tempted to tell haredi Jews I see smoking that they might as well be eating a ham and cheese sandwich in public, as far as I'm concerned.  Smoking violates Jewish law because it's:

• Vain, when we're supposed to be humble
• Frivolous, when we're supposed to be charitable
• Hazardous to your health, when we're obliged to live healthy lives
• A desecration of the Shabbat and holidays, because:
  • Don't try to convince me they don't smoke on Shabbat
  • Even if they didn't, what kind of rest would they have suffering from nicotine withdrawal?
• A stumbling block for the blind (a figure of speech), since others may be misled into believing there's something virtuous about smoking when they see supposedly pious people smoking in public

I'm sympathetic to those addicted to nicotine, and I'm not inclined to treat smoking as a character flaw.  But there's something bizarre about the fact that people who are otherwise so self-righteous apparently feel no remorse about doing something that violates their principles so flagrantly. 

Maybe they just think it looks cool.

Comments

[Øyvind, Bergen]

Doesn't it? *chock*

Well, you have a point when it comes to the leftists anyway, not that I'm so sure we pinkies are any worse when it comes to smoking than other groups in the society, but hey - if there is one evidence of how corrupt capitalism can become, it is the tobacco industry.

Øyvind

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Nice post. I believe Sistani has made a similar argument that smoking violates Islamic law.

[Franko]

According to UK gov stats in 1948 82% of all UK men smoked. In 1994 only 28% of men smoked and that number has pretty much held steady since then. Interestingly this data suggests that roughly 30% of the population will become addicted to cigarettes if given access to them. If that 30% number holds for a long time one would have to wonder if that 30% is genetically programmed in someway to become addicted to smoke. The most interesting coloration is between socio economic status and the proclivity to smoke. In a word, the poor smoke more than the rich. Why this is the case has never been explained to me.

http://www.ash.org.uk/html/factsheets/html/fact01.html

So how do these statistics tie into Leftists and haredi Jews? Perhaps Leftists and Haredi Jews are disproportionately poor and thus more prone to tobacco addiction? But even if we accept this, it still leaves unanswered the question of why poor folk smoke more than rich.

[Leif]

I'm not suggesting that radical leftists or haredi are more likely to smoke than others - I have no reason to believe they do. Rather I'm curious about the fact that some of them smoke at all, since smoking would seem to violate principles they claim to hold dearly.