Adam Kotsko comments in a thread about “smoking in public”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001710.html:
bq. All the various smoking bans are simply further evidence of the repressive nature of postmodern biopolitics.
Which is fair enough. But my first thought was that I might prefer the repressive _methods_ of postmodern biopolitics to those of, say, modern or feudal biopolitics. I’m just saying.
{ 14 comments }
wcw 04.19.04 at 10:39 pm
for the record, I am in favor of smoking bans like California’s (which was a freaking blessing when I lived there and which I much miss) not because of the future health benefits, real though they are, but because of the immediate improvement in the quality of life of the 70% of the population who don’t smoke.
no more unwanted smoke wafting your way at restaurants. no more smokey clothing and hair after a night out at a bar or club. a more pleasant atmosphere — quite literally — in all sorts of public spaces.
it made my life better while I was there.
heck, smoking could be good for you and secondhand smoke concomitantly healthful I’d still support a ban in public. exercise is healthful, but I don’t see restaurants allowing joggers a right of way between tables.
whew. sorry to rant. anyhow, check out the public surveys done after the ban. in the aggregate people like it, mostly for the same reasons.
Adam Kotsko 04.19.04 at 10:52 pm
Honestly, I prefer it to feudalism and modernism, too. In fact, I wish they’d ban something really unhealthy, like cars.
(For the record, I live in the suburbs, commute to school, drive every day, and am part of the problem. It’s easy to throw around this stuff when I know that no one is going to try to implement it.)
Andrew Reeves 04.19.04 at 11:09 pm
If I were really clever, I’d make a Foucaldian remark about social control, but since I’m not, I’ll leave it to someone else. (Chun?) As for the problem with smoky bars, well, when you take away the smoke, what do you get? Sweaty bodies, puke, and other nastiness. As a non-smoker, I still prefer a bar/club be a bit smoky, even if it does make all of my clothes/hair reek.
djw 04.19.04 at 11:31 pm
As an ex-smoker, I prefer smoky bars, because I really like and miss the smell. This seems to separate me from every other ex-smoker I’ve ever met, who almost without exception avoid smoke assidiously, either out of a born-again aversion to it’s nastiness or a fear of temptation.
Sign me up for preferring postmodern biopolitics as well.
J P Kelleher 04.20.04 at 12:01 am
I just led a discussion section on (putative) ethical issues involving drugs. We eventually were led to a discussion of the smoking ban in NY, and the students proceeded to give their reasons for and against it. Interestingly, none of these (Ivy League) students knew that the issue, as it was taken up by the legislature, was cast a matter of workers rights, rather than as a general concern about the health of the population at large.
—
I support the ban: if the number and nature of employment opportunities is to be a function of the personal interests and whims of a populace; and if no one would be unreasonable to turn down one of those scarce jobs out of a concern for the health risks of being constantly exposed to second-hand smoke; then there is strong reason to prefer not imposing those costs on one’s fellow citizens.
Too Rawlsianly Scanlonian?
Matt Weiner 04.20.04 at 1:28 am
I’m in an interesting situation in Utah. Utah has a pretty wide-ranging smoking ban–not sure of the details–that goes by the name of the Utah Indoor Clean Air Act. This generally makes me happy, but I also can’t help but link it to the state’s draconian alcohol laws (outside of restaurants and private clubs, you can’t get anything stronger than 3.2% beer), which do not make me happy. Both seem to me to be connected to the fact that the state’s dominant religion forbids both alcohol and tobacco. I’ll leave it to the experts to parse the biopolitics.
Bruce Baugh 04.20.04 at 1:42 am
I actually am very severely allergic to cigarette smoke (and a few dozen other things, thanks to an immune system gone berserk), and I hate comprehensive smoking bans. They always, always have the same effect: right around the outer edges of the smoke-free area, there’s a gauntlet to run of concentrated smoke. Often it’s intense enough that I choose to skip going wherever it was and see if I can stay home and get it from the net instead. I would much rather have smokers comfortably smoking away inside someplace where I don’t have to cross paths with them.
Marco 04.20.04 at 8:36 am
As an ex-smoker, the only time I can get my ex-hit is to go to these joints and suck up the second-hand goodness.
I only miss smoking after meals, honest, Guv.
evan 04.20.04 at 10:44 am
First off i think notion of biopolitics in the original quote isn’t quite right. Bio-politics, as embodied in works like Empire is not so much an exclusive politics of the body, what you can and can not inhale and where. It’s the internalization of politics as something which is reproduced in fabric of our lives.
In feudal politics, as well as for example a modern dictatorship, there is very little importance placed on people having internalized the power structures of society. You don’t need to believe in your soul if you can be drawn and quartered for failing to fall in line. What’s more important in a feudal society is that you SAY you believe. Hence all the problems with heretics who declare publicly their disbelief.
But that’s an side issue. The point is i believe it’s not possible to have a NON-postmodern biopolitics. The conception of biopolitics is a product of postmodern (really post-structuralist) thought.
If there were modern or feudal biopolitics, and we were to conceive of biopolitics as something related to our bodies and not our ‘lives’ then you could say that the modern biopolitical punishment would be the jail and the feudal one would be the torture chamber.
Personally my problem with the notion of biopolitics is that it draws to much of a conception power dynamics which preclude the possibility of collectivized resistance.
In the case of smoking bans you need to understand class. This a case where the consumption of the drug tobacco has become an activity of the lower and middle classes. So the biopolitical control exercised is that of controlling the lives of the unkept multitude.
The first wave of smoking bans took place at the same time as the movement for prohibition. They were overturned by a PR movement which spun smoking as feminist. Today the most interesting thing about smoking is the lack of connection between the movement to decriminalize other drugs such as marijuana and preventing the criminalization of smoking tobacco. We could see a day where Marijuana is legal and Tabacco isn’t because their class positions have changed.
Another Damned Medievalist 04.20.04 at 4:25 pm
Evan: You don’t need to believe in your soul if you can be drawn and quartered for failing to fall in line. What’s more important in a feudal society is that you SAY you believe. Hence all the problems with heretics who declare publicly their disbelief.
First, pleast stop bandying about terms like “feudal” unless you know what the term means. Even at its most all-encompassing-to-the-point-of-meaninglessness, the term has almost nothing to do with belief, and certainly nothing to do with heresy. Since this isn’t a thread on things feudal, I merely suggest reading E.A.R. Brown’s “Tyranny of a Construct,” any of Susan Reynolds’ latter books, or even F-L Ganshof for a range of valid definitions.
As for the smoking — I don’t smoke. Except the very occasional defensive cigarette. As a customer, I hate the smoke, but kind of expect it. After all, I can leave, get a breath of fresh air, etc. But when I was a waitress not too many moons ago, I was often assigned to the smoking section. The difference in the way I felt after a shift in smoking compared to a shift in non-smoking was amazing. After a couple of nights in a row, I couldn’t wear my contacts, and generally woke up coughing. I’m not all that sensitive to smoke, but restaurant workers tend to get a fairly good work out if the place is busy and they’re doing their jobs correctly. That often translates into deeper breathing and no time to get off the floor and out of the smoke. Is minimum wage plus tips (or in some states, $2.75 plus tips) and no health insurance really worth it? It really is a workers’ rights issue, as much as is making sure agricultural workers have protective gear when working with chemicals.
Adam Kotsko 04.21.04 at 12:57 am
Evan,
In my own defense, I used the word “postmodern” before “biopolitics” for what might be termed pedagogical reasons — since not everyone is familiar with the term “biopolitics” on its own, I added “postmodern” to indicate that it is a distinctively contemporary phenomenon.
I have read Foucault, Agamben, Hardt and Negri, whatever, but I felt it would be ungrateful of me to “correct” Kieran when a) she had given a shout-out to me and b) the very meaning, import, and utility of the term “biopolitics” is very much up for debate in continental theory today (i.e., Foucault didn’t live quite long enough to clarify what he said; maybe we’re just using the term now because of Foucault’s prestige rather than the genuine usefulness or descriptiveness of the term, etc., etc.).
Have a wonderful day, everyone.
Adam Kotsko 04.21.04 at 12:57 am
Evan,
In my own defense, I used the word “postmodern” before “biopolitics” for what might be termed pedagogical reasons — since not everyone is familiar with the term “biopolitics” on its own, I added “postmodern” to indicate that it is a distinctively contemporary phenomenon.
I have read Foucault, Agamben, Hardt and Negri, whatever, but I felt it would be ungrateful of me to “correct” Kieran when a) she had given a shout-out to me and b) the very meaning, import, and utility of the term “biopolitics” is very much up for debate in continental theory today (i.e., Foucault didn’t live quite long enough to clarify what he said; maybe we’re just using the term now because of Foucault’s prestige rather than the genuine usefulness or descriptiveness of the term, etc., etc.).
Have a wonderful day, everyone.
DJW 04.21.04 at 2:42 am
To be clear, I wholeheartedly support bans in restaurants and bars, for, as ADM makes clear, workers health reasons, decide my rather idiosyncratic and quite unimportant preferences. The anti-paternalist in me bristles at a ban, but he doesn’t win the day.
Muninn 04.23.04 at 1:30 am
There was surprisingly little discussion here of Kieran’s main point the post, but it is hard to chew on in a short comment. I join a chorus of those who are overjoyed to be able to join friends in some places where smoking bans give me access to the sites of socialization. My alternatives before were social isolation or nausea for several hours. The result of the bans in Ireland in New York, where the “gauntlet” forms on the streets in in contrast to Japan where many cities or wards are trying hard to ban smoking on the streets. When you are walking to school/work behind hundreds of smokers on crowded streets, believe me, this is much appreciated. As for smoking indoors, with the exception of a few coffee shops like Starbucks and Tully’s, I continue my social isolation by refusing to go to any of the smoky Izakaya restauarants.
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