That's a point to consider, but I have seen my fair share of professors, teachers, and doctors who smoke. Whenever I walk past my local hospital there are always nurses and physicians outside lighting up. So I am not sure if education alone is the determining factor. What about social pressure?
Personally I think it is an issue of class - with class not being determined by wealth or education level. The higher up the class scale, the less likely a person is to smoke. There are always exceptions but the principle is sound.
I don't know if I see that either. I see a lot of upper middle-class people who smoke. I think all the added chemicals simply make it more addictive, but more importantly social pressures determine social outcome for the 'weak minded'. I don't think class really has a bearing on ones tendency to either think for themselves or not think for themselves.
How are you determining that they are upper middle class? We have a term here - CUB - Cashed Up Bogan. It is very common for new money or new education to appear to be class but that is just ignorance.
What is your point? That only people born into money can have class? I have seen plenty of people with money, who were born into it, who have zero class, and zero ability to think for themselves. I don't think class divide is the sole proprietor of who does and doesn't smoke, or who does and doesn't drink, snort cocaine and do heroine. I know they are upper middle class because I know who they are and where they come from. I wouldn't make such statements if I didn't know a little something about the superficial background of the people involved.
No, not at all. I was using it as an eliminator in the sense that new money tends to not have class but that does not automatically mean that old money all have class, some do and some don't, they just are seem to have more people with class than the new money. But as I said earlier, money and education are not the main indicators of class. Class goes to personality or character - what was once referred to as having culture. They also have wisdom rather than just education which is simply accumulation of knowledge. There are probably a lot more people with class with no significant wealth that people with class that have significant wealth. These determinants of class are the same things that make these people less likely to take up smoking, especially if they know it may harm their health.
My understanding is that in the US, it is commonly thought that having money means that you have class. I highlighted the alternate definition I use for clarity. I could talk about class for hours since it seems that most people don't seem to understand what class is about, and it's meaning has been badly misrepresented. It certainly is NOT about superiority.
Back to the general issue of smoking and it's impact on others, it really comes back to the surge towards narcissism and peoples sense of self importance even if that is at the expense of others. Short of a change in social attitudes, I think the only hope is to gradually make smoking more trouble than it is worth. This can be done by making it less cool, making it too expensive and more and more restriction on places to smoke. I remember hearing that in the City of Perth in WA, some specialists had determined that smoking would be effectively eliminated (based on projections of reducing rates of smoking to date) in I think they said 20 years. Seems optimistic but I guess it could happen. (They probably were referring to new smokers rather than existing but I cannot remember)
xEva, Thanks for the laugh, telling people to toughen up and then appealing to authority for a perceived personal attack.
LongeCity
