Tobacco Article

Tobacco Article Detail
The current brouhaha over smoking has made everyone painfully aware of tobacco's effects on the body, but it has also obscured a more profound reason for smoking's popularity: its relation to the soul. As the heyday of smoking passes into the ashheap of history, it is meet that we reflect on this connection.
The soul, of course, is a complex thing. Long ago Plato suggested that we consider it as divided into three parts—the appetitive, spirited, and rational—that correspond to the three basic kinds of human desires: the desire to satisfy physical appetites, the desire for recognition, and the desire for truth. Once this tripartite division is recalled, tobacco's relation to the soul becomes clear: the three prevalent types of smoking tobacco—cigarettes, cigars, and pipes—correspond to the three parts of the soul.
Cigarettes correspond to the appetitive part of the soul, a fact that explains their association with both food and sex. The connection with the latter is particularly obvious: think of the proverbial postcoital cigarette, or of the ubiquity of cigarettes at singles bars. People with strong physical desires demand instant gratification, and they try to make what they desire as much a part of their own bodies as possible: hunger demands eating, thirst drinking, and lust making the body of one's lover a part of one's own.

Tobacco Article

Tobacco Article

Tobacco Article

Tobacco Article

Tobacco Article

Tobacco Article

Tobacco Article

Tobacco Article

Tobacco Article

Tobacco Article

Tobacco Article

Tobacco Article