Authoritarianism is generally associated with the repression of the Jews, the massacre of Kurds, mindless or terrified salutes to Brother #1, the Fuhrer, or myriad other personalities, and the strict control of personal and social liberties. So captivatingly wicked has the totalitarianism of 20th Century Europe, Indo-China, and Africa been that it seems that western nations have become comfortably numb, immunised against the smaller, more discrete elements of control that creep into our lives. Indeed the population of the UK in particular seems quite content to offer a silent complicity when it comes to restriction of liberty, seemingly on the basis that none of it 'really' amounts to fascism after all.
What we're left with after this muted vote of confidence is a society floating, but only just, whilst its integrity is compromised by a variety of leaks and design contradictions - A society where anyone can drink themselves into the gutter within hours but where a gram of Cocaine will land you in a Police Station, where films containing sex scenes can be viewed by fifteen year olds, but the legal age of consent is sixteen, where people trust the state with their tax details, address and date of birth...but not their DNA. In short, not just the laws, but the attitude, the culture, of the UK is deeply conflicted between wanting 'liberty' on the one hand, but not knowing what it really means on the other.
And so it is proven by the latest report from Thorax, a part of the BMJ commissioned by the British Thoracic Society. The report finds that various cohort studies from around the world have noted that effect that smoking imagery in films can have upon the impressionable minds of teenagers, and concludes that it is largely responsible for the uptake of smoking by children. The report does acknowledge other factors (peer pressure, parents, alcohol intake, drug use etc) and takes these into account in its findings. In fact, it is quite a convincing study and reasonably well reported. However, what is objectionable are not the findings, but the conclusions of the author. The abstract concludes that the results indicate a need to 'review current film classifications'. This in itself should immediately expose the motive of this review. In any other piece of medical literature, especially one where a link but not causality has been found, the author would usually conclude with suggestions regarding how best to consolidate the apparent correlation, or perhaps to establish the mechanisms by which such a link is created. But not this report. This report concludes with a suggestion of social policy.
Subsequent commentators and journalists alike have since discussed the merits of any proposal to re-classify any film containing smoking, or tobacco imagery. Advocates see it as being inline with the current ban on tobacco advertising, whilst opponents dispute the validity of the evidence. Both sides might have a point on the letter, but have missed the point on the spirit of such a notion. The fact is that to demand a re-classification of such films is in fact a cry out for a law to 'save us from ourselves'. Although to be fair to think tanks and the media, it often isn't so much a call to save us from ourselves as much as saving other people from themselves. Indeed, upon posing the question most people would deny that they would begin taking drugs if they were legalised. No problem then, full steam ahead!...But wait, I know I said that I wouldn't...but they will. Enter the enigmatic 'they' with their loose ethics and seeming disregard for their own lives and health. In fact so wayward is this milieu that more 'sensible' members of society are happy to forgo their own liberty to save 'they' from their self-destructive tendencies. No one can tell who 'they' are, but apparently 'they' definitely exist.
To say that films affect us in this way is a gift of an excuse to all feckless parents and wayward teenagers. Any psychologist will tell you how imagery, audio, and our surroundings can influence us, but to simply give up and accept these phenomena as inescapable is to wave goodbye to anything even resembling classical liberalism. Once you admit that you are a slave to advertising, or a sucker for a smile and wink, you can give up on autonomy, personal sovereignty, it's all a myth. On the other hand, we can continue upon the path which mankind has walked throughout its existence, endeavouring to overcome its own limitations, to control its urges, and to truly become a master of ourselves. In fact, given the sheer number of instinctive human actions that we now find abhorrent, to shrug our shoulders and to say 'well it's just human nature' could probably considered a contradiction in terms.
Successive governments have engaged in a long, reluctant, shuffle along this road in the past, and are quite content to drag their feet even now. This should be hardly shocking to anyone - the duty and excise on tobacco in the UK currently pulls in just over £11 billion per year, whilst the cost to the tax payer of smoking related illnesses is estimated at just below £3 billion. Additionally, there is already many a penny to be made in the sale of black market tobacco products which would only serve to soar with any future tax rises. So the State does indeed find itself in a bit of bother, pulled by the market on the one hand to keep things as they are to furnish the exchequer, or battle towards a healthier society and seek to raise revenue in other, less popular, sections of the economy.
Of course it could attempt to do neither and simply leave the future in the hands of the public, choosing education instead of legislation. The Thorax research might well show a very strong and undeniable correlation between phenomena, but of course not every child who visits the cinema is smoking, and although I've said it before I shall repeat myself - once you acknowledge the existence of an exception to the rule you cannot ignore it. More fruitful would be to establish the cause of the exception than dismiss it as an anomaly. Perhaps there is a factor in children's lives which means that they can see cigarettes in a movie and not be heavily influenced. In the name of liberty itself would this not be a far greater and useful discovery than the fact that the kids want to be cool?
