Biopower and Smoking: Why It Matters

For those of you not aware of the work of Michel Foucault*, allow me to introduce the concept of Biopower. What's Biopower, you may be asking? Surely not something to do with the environment? Nope, it is about control:

For Foucault, biopower, is a technology of power, which is a way of managing people as a group. The distinctive quality of this political technology is that it allows for the control of entire populations. It is thus essential to the emergence of the modern nation state, modern capitalism, etc. Biopower is literally having power over other bodies, "an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations" [2]. It relates to the government's concern with fostering the life of the population, and centers on the poles of discipline ("an anatomo-politics of the human body") and regulatory controls ("a biopolitics of the population").

And why mention this today? Well:

Smoking should be banned in all cars as well as in public places where young people congregate, doctors are urging.

The Royal College of Physicians wants England's imminent review of anti-smoking laws to consider such measures to protect the young.

See, some will look at the decision to advocate the banning of smoking in cars and wonder what all the fuss is about. After all, if it helps da kids be healthy, who could possibly object? Of course, that is precisely what the government wants you to think. It is why children are mentioned in the article. It becomes difficult for people to argue against it, and those who do can be painted as people who don't mind da kids getting hurt.

But this isn't about passive smoking; it is about control and compliance. The incumbent government have decided that smoking is A Bad Thing. No, more than that - they have decided that smoking does not fit in with their worldview in any way whatsoever. And as such, smokers are Bad People and their habit needs to be eradicated. We've already seen a man go to prison over the smoking ban in pubs; the message that is sent out now is that smoking is criminal.

Yet why does this matter if you don't smoke? Because the government has an idea of a perfect person in their dystopian brave new world, and that person doesn't just not smoke. He or she also doesn't drink. They don't eat fatty foods. Hell, their BMI is perfect at all times. They comply with a government diktat on what it is to be healthy; they don't think for themselves, or challenge those rules. Just as they don't challenge other things, such as the erosion of the right to protest. Nor do they challenge the behaviour of their troughing political class. Or the erosion of both liberalism and democracy in what purports to be a liberal democracy.

And now someone has gone to prison in relation to smoking, the precedent has been set. Others can go to prison for the same thing. Given long enough, the stage will be set for withholding medical treatment from those who smoke and have smoking related illnesses (despite the fact that smokers are forced to contribute to the healthcare system whether they like it or not). And once that has happened, the same fate can be bestowed on the fatties and the boozehounds. Until we end up in the distressing position where those who do not conform to the government's view of how someone should live is dismissed as less than human.

I don't smoke, but I'll stand with the smoker when the government comes to control them. Because the government isn't just seeking compliance from those who wish to spark up in the car - they are seeking compliance from everyone.

*And his work is well worth reading, even if you don't end up agreeing with him on everything or, indeed, pretty much anything.