"40 reasons why Germany is slipping" - The fish stick effect: we lack the joy of prohibitions
This text is from the book "We can't stir things up anymore! 40 reasons why Germany is being smothered" by Marcus Werner
How do you find restrictions? In general? One could say: They make life easier. For if one is allowed to do less, one decides more quickly what one can do with what is left. My personal favorite restrictions are those that limit others for my benefit. And according to anecdotal evidence (I love this new category of proof in the pandemic), so according to anecdotal evidence, I claim: We all love restrictions that benefit us, because others can't do it.
The simplest example: "You're not allowed to finish eating the fish skewer completely. You're two siblings. You used to have seven. But there are 15 in the package. So one will be divided." If you get an extra half fish skewer thanks to this announcement, then this fish skewer prohibition comes to your benefit. You are a profiteer of restrictions. And depending on your life phase, this half fish skewer means the whole world to you.
Let's just see ourselves as profiteers of restrictions
Most restrictions make life beautiful. One just has to see oneself as a profiteer of restrictions. Following this logic, restrictions would be even more beautiful if they limited the limited even more. We should really get used to thinking this way, for fun, if you will. But for us Germans, it's a cultural thing, I assume.
And that's how it is with smoking. And it's a little more complicated with smoking than with packaged herring. In other countries, there's no mercy when it comes to this topic: Guests in restaurants and cafes are no longer allowed to smoke outside. Does that fit Germany? Let's think about the tolerance for drug addiction here together (smokers, please excuse me, you may want to cover your ears).
Let's think about drug addiction tolerance together
So:
- If we waited for the streetcar with a passerby and, without great effort to ask for permission, shoved a half banana into their mouth against their will, we would probably stand alone on a wider berth, if it was about enjoying the food. The vast majority of affected parties would rightly ask: "What's going on with you?" Bananas are actually healthy (potassium). Forcing other people against their will with deadly substances in the form of smoke into their airways is, according to this logic, not nice (tar).
- There must be reasons why one can say: "These are good." Is the urge to suppress one's own nicotine cravings a good enough reason? In what other cases would it be acceptable to endanger others' health during one's drug consumption? Children, it would be too harsh if there was an example. But even the foam from an unintentionally opened beer bottle that spills on an uninvolved neighbor's shirt would be an unwelcome imposition. This incident would be completely harmless health-wise (except for certain types of neurodermatitis combined with a hop allergy).
- Different from the habit of introducing half a banana orally (through the teeth into the cheek) to others, the administration of carcinogenic substances pulmonally (lungs) has a tradition. Again, something Cultural.
- The question is: Can we ban lethal traditions? I know only two groups against it: Nicotine addicts and those who want to make a fool of themselves by being nice to nicotine addicts.
- "But the smoke disappears outside right away." One summer evening, I sat in a Tapas restaurant in Berlin on the terrace. It was around 28 degrees, and it was windless, which is why other guests sat for minutes in the lung content of smokers after each cigarette. I heard a man, who might have been a student, take a deep breath and approach one of the two ladies at the neighboring table (both around 52 years old), forcing a cavalier laugh: "Why? Why do you have to keep your shitty cigarettes so far away from your friend when I can have the ash right in my eyes?" The response of the ladies: "Why? We're sitting outside."
There is no compelling argument for tolerable passive smoking
This argument might be valid if it weren't so flawed. Let's not make our hearts into murderers' dens: There is no single compelling argument speaking for the acceptability of passive smoking outside. Besides the German argument: "Do you have a problem with me? Then get lost and don't bother me."
Bielefeld, same summer, Italian restaurant, surrounded by four smokers at two tables to the right and left of us. I politely asked the waiter if perhaps there was a table somewhere else. The waiter's response: "Well, you'll probably still be allowed to smoke outside." I, amused but with a rising pulse: "I was just asking for another table."
Do you hear the latent police state accusation from the waiter as well? This "you'll probably still"? Those who don't want to be disturbed disturb. For whatever cultural reasons.
Therefore, bans bring relief
Exactly for this reason, bans are wonderfully liberating. I call this phenomenon the "Fishbone Effect." Because the freedom of the one protected by the ban is greater. Isn't that great? Bans are self-affirmation tools for others. Such bans bring freedom. To the majority. Marvelous. We just need to change our attitude without appearing ridiculous.
In my Cologne fitness studio, smoking was allowed in the gastronomy area inside. The smoke wafted onto the training floor. No joke – training in poisoned air.
Me: "Can't that be changed?"
Trainer: "Well, I guess so..."
A quarter of a year later, it was all legally banned. My chest puffed out without any cushions. In a society where mutual consideration is often seen as weak, it only works with democratically legitimized laws. Fortunately, that works sometimes.
What I really want to say: Prohibitions for some mean less freedom for many. Actually, a good thing. The biggest mistake of the Greens is that they can't seem to convert their colorful prohibition ideas into offers for more freedom. Habeck could then come by and pull out the heating below, and everyone would be happily crying and offering him a coffee upstairs.
So, let's get going, people! But the Greens apparently don't eat fish sticks.
- In the same vein as smoking restrictions in restaurants being accepted for the benefit of non-smokers, it might be proposed that a similar restriction should be enforced for those who insist on smoking outside a restaurant, given the deprivation of liberty and health hazards experienced by those forced to inhale secondhand smoke.
- As the author argues for the appropriateness of restrictions that benefit the majority, it could be argued that the deprivation of liberty for an individual who engages in destructive or harmful behaviors, such as smoking in a non-designated area, is justified for the benefit of the larger community.
