Many years have passed since I first watched "Thank You for Smoking". Since I recently recommended this unpopular and low-cost masterpiece full of classic logic trap principles to others, I also watched it again by the way, and I still feel emotional. Ten years ago, I was impressed by Aaron Eckhart's superb acting skills and excellent lines in the film. Now I am impressed by the ubiquitous libertarian values through Hollywood's ability to subtly change the world.
Although the second part of this film review talks about things other than movies, anyway, this movie is a good movie that you won’t regret after watching it. It is strongly recommended to read this article after watching the full movie.
1. The main passages embodying liberalism in the plot
"Thank you for smoking" mainly tells the spokesperson of the tobacco industry, Nick, with his invincible tongue and the invincible logic of "you have science, I have magic", tossing about smoking, environmental protection, science, government, Congress The story of efforts to safeguard the interests of the tobacco industry among other organizations. Nick transformed various crises that are not conducive to the tobacco industry into issues that are beneficial to his side through logical traps, and beat the other side to the bottom again and again.
In the film, there is a conversation that Nick uses the ice cream he is eating in the hands of his son Joey to teach him about the logic of the debate. The full excerpt is as follows:
"Joy, I never make a mistake."
"But you can't be right forever."
"If your job requires you to be always right, then you will never be wrong."
"But what if you are really wrong?"
"Well, let's make a hypothesis. You defend the chocolate flavored ice cream. You think the chocolate flavor is the best, and I stand for the vanilla flavor. I say to you, I think vanilla is the best. How do you respond?"
"No, the chocolate flavor is the best."
"I guess you would say that, so you won't be able to win the debate. Then I will ask you, then, do you think ice cream all over the world should be made into chocolate flavor, right?"
"Chocolate flavor is the best. I won't buy any other flavors of ice cream."
"So for you, you only have the taste of chocolate, isn't it?"
"Yes, all I want is chocolate flavor."
"But I want more than just chocolate, and I want more than just vanilla. When we talk about ice cream, I believe we need to have the right to freely choose ice cream flavors, and you should not hinder people's freedom of choice. Joey, This is our definition of freedom."
"Huh? But this is not what we are discussing."
"But this is what I want to discuss."
"But you didn't prove that vanilla is the best."
"I don't need to prove this, I'm just proving that you are wrong. If you are wrong, I am right."
"But you still haven't convinced me."
"Because the object I want to persuade is not you, but them." After speaking, Nick pointed to the people around him.
This sophistry is really wonderful, it is used to criticize the opponent's mistakes, and the moral foothold of one's own justice is the core of liberalism-the right to free choice.
Next, look at the climax of the whole film, the offensive and defensive battle at the hearing. After the actor came on the field, Zhuge Liang's tongue and Confucian spirit was quite strong, and the soldiers came to cover the water and earth. Seeing the debate, the senator was about to lose the battle, and suddenly raised the long-planned ultimate question: "You will be on your son’s 18th birthday. To smoke) That day, will you give him a cigarette?"
If Nick answers "yes", he is so frantic that he does not care about his son's health for the benefit of the tobacco industry. Such moral flaws will cause him to be strongly criticized. If Nick answers "no", he is admitting that cigarettes are so harmful to his health that he admits that not allowing children to smoke is the right choice. The senator thought he had a chance to win, and he thought so, because regardless of whether Nick's answer was yes or no, he would eventually get the effect he wanted, which would both disgust Nick and end the debate.
As a result, Nick replied: "If he really wants to smoke, I will buy him the first pack of cigarettes in his life." The implication is that as long as the choice is made by his son, I have no reason for Nick. Go against his freedom of choice. Nick used libertarian values to successfully defend the interests of the industry once again, defeating the moral dilemma created by the senator.
2. A brief discussion on liberalism
A child reposted the following dialogue in the circle of friends. The logic in it is naive, but it is very suitable as an introduction to discussing liberalism:
"If you had that capital, would you reject multiplayer sports?"
"No civilized country will recognize this kind of values. I admit that I am a little envious of Luo Zhixiang, but I still believe that this kind of behavior is wrong. I admit that there is no loyalty that cannot be corrupted, but the temptation and cost of betraying this principle is that The weight of our beliefs."
In fact, the multiplayer movement does not conform to the morality of a "civilized country". In addition to the relationship between desire and morality, it also involves how the principles of morality are established. Different philosophical schools have different directions of moral origin. Kantian morality originates from rationality, Confucian morality originates from a simple view of the natural universe, and utilitarian morality originates from utility.
Regarding sexual issues such as multi-person movement, their views are obviously different in different ways: Kant believes that all actions that cannot resist the erosion of desire are by no means rational, that is, they are absolutely immoral; Confucianism believes that people must do what they want. Exceeding the rules, self-denial and restoring rituals, that is, we must first discuss what rules are, and then we can discuss the immorality of multiplayer sports. How the rules are generated is another topic, so I won’t discuss it here); Utilitarianism believes that the moral value of everything depends on the amount of social utility it can produce. Only by comprehensively calculating the utility of a multi-person movement can it be judged. Immorality (Generally speaking, multiplayer sports conform to utilitarian morality, and the personal utility of multiplayer sports that does not affect other social publics in private will be greater than the damage to the overall social utility after being superimposed).
So how does liberalism look at this issue? Now the most popular liberalism in the world just thinks that multiplayer sports are fully in line with the liberal ethics built on it, because this movement fully embodies the freedom of choice that people have. The core claim of libertarians is that each of us has a fundamental right to freedom-the right to do anything with what we own, assuming that we respect the right of others to do the same. Because multiplayer sports are collectively agreed by the participants, out of a completely voluntary choice, it conforms to liberal ethics. Incidentally, this is exactly the liberal principle that underpins the sexual freedom and liberation movement.
I will not discuss the right or wrong of liberalism for the time being, because it may turn into a critique of specific behavior, which goes against the original intention of discussing philosophical issues. Let us first look at the challenge of liberal values to modern prevailing laws and regulations. Although the following examples are specific, what we are discussing is actually freedom in philosophical concepts. Liberal values strongly oppose the government’s “paternalistic legislation”, that is, laws that protect people from harming themselves. For example, liberals believe that laws such as wearing a seat belt to drive a car and a helmet to drive a motorcycle seriously violate people's right to freedom of choice. In the values of liberalism, as long as no third party is harmed and the driver is an adult who can be fully responsible for himself, the government has no power to stipulate what risks the driver can take with his body and life, otherwise It is a violation of freedom. (For a more specific case discussion of liberalism, see Michael J. Sandel's book "Justice, What Should We Do?" Chapter 3. Do We Own Ourselves?)
Yes, you read that right, and enacting a law to protect you is actually a major mistake that violates the principles of liberalism. But this is actually not ridiculous, because this conclusion is a clear conclusion drawn by generations of liberal masters through serious philosophical discussions in a series of works. To discuss why liberalism has such a proposition, one has to go back to the source and figure out where the source of liberalism is.
If you look through the philosophy textbooks, it clearly states that liberalism comes from Anglo-American empiricism. Continental rationalism gave birth to Kantian rational morality, while British and American empiricism gave birth to liberal morality. Rationalism uses a deductive method, which is an absolute morality, just like Kant's motto "self-discipline is freedom." Liberal morality is summed up by induction, "people should have the freedom of choice", which is a relative moral concept.
Liberalism has a tendency to separate the individual from the society, and to advocate that the individual transcends the collective is actually challenging the traditional social contract. It can be concluded that when liberalism develops to the end, all social factors will be eliminated from the moral system and a large number of personal factors will be added. Of course, liberal philosophers did not fail to foresee the dangerous consequences of social collapse, so they and utilitarian philosophers came up with "neoliberalism." A digression, so now a new enemy of neoliberalism outside of the old collectivism emerges—communism (new collectivism).
It is undeniable that liberalism is increasingly being supported by the general public. Liberalism continues to spread to traditional collectivist countries (such as China). In addition to the external factors such as Hollywood's ideological propaganda, the internal reason is very simple-the full set of liberal moral system is fully in line with the reality of private ownership, and at the same time it is fully posted. It is in personal interest.
The author believes that when we reflect on the mistakes of collectivism, we must not forget that liberalism also faces many problems. Isn’t it as ignorant as to adhere to the dogma of collectivism to blindly turn to liberalism just because of the ideological preaching of Hollywood movies? The movie tells us that we must use our brains more and then make the right choice ourselves. In fact, I don’t care about freedom or liberalism. I’m just writing this article to tell you that it’s your own business to choose the wrong path. This is very important. Don’t wait until you bear the cost to realize that you’re going in the wrong direction. Otherwise, Regret too much. Before taking this road, it is always right to learn more about the knowledge left by the predecessors about this road.
Finally, I want to make a special note. Although the author himself prefers collectivist philosophy, this article is not intended to criticize liberalism. I just hope that through these superficial analysis, readers can understand the broader world beyond liberalism. After all, setting liberalism as absolutely correct in the movie has violated the core principle of liberal moral relativism, hahahaha.
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