Tobacco and Alcohol E-Book

John Fiske

• Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

In "Tobacco and Alcohol," John Fiske provides an incisive exploration of the social, economic, and moral implications of tobacco and alcohol consumption in the late 19th century America. Employing a nuanced literary style that combines both empirical evidence and philosophical inquiry, Fiske deftly critiques the cultural attitudes prevalent at the time, emphasizing how these substances shaped societal norms and public health. This book serves not only as an informative discourse on substance use but also as a historical artifact reflecting the complexities of American life amid burgeoning industrialization and social change. John Fiske, a prominent American historian and philosopher, was deeply engaged with the socio-political landscape of his time. His works often reflect his commitment to social reform and scientific inquiry, which is evident in In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.

Leseprobe

John Fiske

Tobacco and Alcohol

Enriched edition. I. It Does Pay to Smoke. II. The Coming Man Will Drink Wine

In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience.

Introduction, Studies and Commentaries by Dorian Ellsworth

Edited and published by Good Press, 2022

[email protected]

EAN 4064066155995

Table of Contents

Introduction

Synopsis

Historical Context

Tobacco and Alcohol

Analysis

Reflection

Memorable Quotes

Notes

Introduction

Table of Contents

How do two ordinary indulgences exert extraordinary power over bodies, minds, and the social order? In Tobacco and Alcohol, John Fiske enters a contentious conversation that stretches from parlors to lecture halls, weighing custom against inquiry and pleasure against prudence. Approaching his subjects as problems for reason rather than mere censure, he treats everyday habits as gateways into the ethics and physiology of modern life. The result is a work that regards consumption not as a private quirk but as a public question intertwined with character, health, and culture. Without sensationalism, Fiske asks what we can truly know about these substances—and what responsible action looks like when knowledge itself is contested.

Fiske’s book is a work of nonfiction, a compact essay in the tradition of nineteenth-century public science writing, composed in the United States during the late nineteenth century. Its author, an American historian and philosopher widely associated with the popularization of evolutionary ideas, writes for an educated general audience rather than specialists. The piece bears the hallmarks of its era: confidence in empirical reasoning, interest in social reform, and attention to civic debate. Yet it avoids sectarian temper, preferring careful exposition to denunciation. In this sense, it belongs as much to intellectual history as to the history of public health.

At its core, the book considers two ubiquitous stimulants and the claims made about them: their effects on the body, their influence on conduct, and their role in society’s norms. The reading experience is that of a sustained argument built from patient distinctions, plain analogies, and unhurried prose. Fiske moves deliberately, seeking to clarify rather than overwhelm, and inviting readers to compare opinion with evidence. The mood is analytical and civil, tempered by a quiet urgency about consequences. Readers encounter an author who values fair-minded synthesis—assembling observations, physiological reasoning, and cultural context—while leaving space for the reader’s own deliberation.

Several themes guide the inquiry. First is the relationship between scientific evidence and moral judgment: how far claims about harm or benefit should govern personal choice and public policy. Second is the boundary between use and misuse, and the vexed question of habit—how routine behavior can harden into compulsion, and what personal responsibility can mean in that transition. Equally important is the tension between individual liberty and collective welfare, particularly when private acts carry social costs. Running through the argument is a meditation on modernity itself: the promises and perils of comfort, stimulus, discipline, and self-mastery.

These preoccupations resonate with contemporary readers who confront new forms of old dilemmas. Today’s debates over risk communication, harm reduction, regulation, and personal autonomy echo the concerns that frame Fiske’s analysis. By examining how claims are justified, how fear and fashion can distort judgment, and how communities weigh competing goods, the book offers tools rather than prescriptions. It models a way of thinking that prizes clarity and proportion, reminding us that social controversies rarely yield to slogans. In that sense, the work remains pertinent to discussions of substance use, public health messaging, and the ethics of persuasion.

Stylistically, the book exemplifies a lucid, Victorian expository manner: measured sentences, steady transitions, and a preference for cumulative reasoning over rhetorical flourish. Its method is synthetic, bringing together then-current scientific discourse with observations drawn from common experience and civic life. Fiske organizes his treatment around the two titular subjects, permitting comparison without collapsing differences. He is attentive to definitions and to the pitfalls of overgeneralization, repeatedly returning to gradations of effect, circumstance, and intent. The voice is authoritative without being imperious, aiming to educate as much as to persuade, and to elevate debate by sharpening terms and evidence.

Approached in this spirit, Tobacco and Alcohol offers both a window onto the moral-intellectual climate of the late nineteenth century and a mirror for our present anxieties. Readers interested in intellectual history, science communication, public health, or the ethics of everyday life will find in it a concise, provocative companion for reflection. It rewards careful, sequential reading, not for sweeping pronouncements but for the discipline of thinking well about contested facts and fraught choices. By situating private habits within public reason, Fiske’s book invites a patient reconsideration of how we argue, decide, and live with the consequences.

Synopsis

Table of Contents

John Fiske’s Tobacco and Alcohol is a brief, two-part work that examines two widespread habits through the lenses of physiology, economics, and social practice. Framed as a practical inquiry rather than a moral exhortation, it asks what these substances do to the body and mind, and whether the outcomes justify their use. Drawing on the scientific understanding of his day and comparative observation of national customs, Fiske advances clear conclusions about tobacco and alcohol separately. His method is to synthesize medical findings, everyday experience, and cost–benefit reasoning, guiding readers toward choices that promote sustained health, efficiency, and social well-being.

The first essay, devoted to tobacco, opens by acknowledging the habit’s prevalence and the common claims in its favor: comfort, composure, and assistance to thought. Fiske recasts the question in pragmatic terms—does the practice pay?—and introduces the idea that nervous energy is a finite resource. On this view, transient stimulation is often followed by compensatory depression, suggesting that the apparent gain may conceal a net loss. He proposes to test popular perceptions against physiological evidence, emphasizing the distinction between immediate sensation and long-term effect, with particular attention to those whose work depends on reliable, sustained mental performance.

Surveying contemporary physiology, Fiske points to nicotine’s potency and the measurable effects of tobacco on circulation, respiration, and digestion. He reports that habitual use tends to lower vitality, reduce appetite, and impair the steadiness of the heart, especially in those with developing or sensitive systems. The discussion highlights risks to youth and students whose nervous systems are still maturing. While conceding that individuals vary, he treats these regularities as warnings about cumulative strain. The central claim is that tobacco’s action, though subtle in the moment, often translates into diminished endurance and resilience when measured across the demands of ordinary life.

Turning to mental work, Fiske addresses the belief that smoking calms and clears the mind. He argues that much of the perceived benefit reflects the relief of a craving created by prior use, not an independent increase in capacity. In this account, the habit yields a cycle of excitation and subsequent slackening, with temporary composure purchased at the cost of reduced steady attention and memory. He assembles reports from study and professional practice indicating that, over time, reliance on tobacco may undermine the very alertness and balance it promises. The overarching concern is net efficiency rather than momentary comfort or mood.

Fiske then weighs the economic and social costs. He notes the direct expense of tobacco and the indirect costs in time and diminished productive power. For wage earners and households alike, the sums and lost efficiency accumulate. Extending the calculation to society, he links habitual smoking to a diffuse burden through sickness and lowered work output. The essay’s conclusion follows its premise: by physiological, mental, and economic measures, tobacco does not pay, especially for the young and for those engaged in sustained intellectual labor. The recommendation is abstinence, not as punishment, but as the most favorable balance of gains and losses.

The second essay addresses alcohol, distinguishing carefully between kinds of drink and modes of use. Fiske condemns drunkenness and the social harms bound up with distilled spirits, yet he questions whether all alcoholic beverages warrant the same judgment. He contrasts spirit-drinking nations, where intoxication is frequent, with wine-drinking societies, where alcohol is integrated with meals and public disorder appears less common. The inquiry again proceeds pragmatically: what do different forms of alcohol do in practice, and under what conditions might their use align with health and good order rather than undermine them?

Physiologically, Fiske considers whether alcohol functions as food or stimulant, concluding that in small quantities it may act as a mild excitant that can aid digestion and circulation without producing the violent perturbations attributed to spirits. The context of use is central: wine or beer, diluted and taken with meals, differs substantially from undiluted spirits consumed for rapid effect. He emphasizes moderation, regular habits, and the social setting as determinants of outcome. The guiding idea is that not all alcohol use is equivalent, and careful selection and restraint can mitigate risks while preserving limited, practical benefits.

From this analysis Fiske turns to policy and custom. He views absolute prohibition as both impractical and likely to provoke evasion, and instead favors altering taste and supply toward lighter fermented beverages. Encouraging a domestic wine culture, reshaping norms around mealtime drinking, and discouraging spirits are presented as steps that align personal incentive with public welfare. He supports this program with examples from countries where wine is common and riotous drunkenness relatively rare. The essay’s forecast, summed up in its title, is that as manners refine, the coming citizen will drink wine temperately rather than spirits intemperately.

The work closes by restating its central message in balanced terms. Tobacco, on Fiske’s account, yields no durable advantage and drains the very resources that steady work and health require; it should be avoided, especially by the young and by mental workers. Alcohol, considered discriminatingly, may find a limited place when confined to lighter beverages, small quantities, and sociable, mealtime contexts, while distilled liquors and excess deserve firm discouragement. Tobacco and Alcohol thus offers a compact program of personal conduct and social reform grounded in physiology and practical experience, aiming at a future of greater health, efficiency, and temperate custom.

Historical Context

Table of Contents

Published in 1872, Tobacco and Alcohol emerged from the postbellum intellectual life of Cambridge and Boston, where John Fiske lectured on science and philosophy amid Reconstruction politics and accelerating industrialization. The United States was redefining citizenship after 1865 while urban centers confronted saloon culture, immigrant political machines, and shifting public morals. Periodicals and lyceum circuits amplified debates over temperance, sanitation, and the authority of experimental science. In Massachusetts, recent reversals of statewide prohibition in the 1860s yielded contentious local licensing battles. Transatlantic exchanges with Britain, where licensing reform was intensifying, further shaped the climate in which Fiske framed intoxicants as problems for physiology, social order, and policy.

The Anglo-American tobacco economy began with John Rolfe’s 1612 adaptation of Nicotiana tabacum at Jamestown, Virginia, creating an export staple that defined Chesapeake society through the seventeenth century. The 1619 Virginia Assembly, Navigation Acts from 1651, and plantation labor regimes, including enslaved Africans first recorded in Virginia in 1619, embedded tobacco in imperial finance and social hierarchy. European debates were old: King James I denounced tobacco in 1604, even as royal revenues from duties grew. Fiske’s tract invokes this long chronology implicitly, treating tobacco not as a novelty but as a centuries-entrenched habit whose cultural authority often outpaced medical scrutiny and whose economic weight complicated reform.

The early United States experienced the so-called Alcoholic Republic, with per capita consumption peaking around 1830 before temperance mobilization curbed it. The American Temperance Society (founded 1826) and the Washingtonian movement (1840) advanced abstinence and public pledges, while the Maine Law of 1851, championed by Neal Dow, inaugurated statewide prohibition and inspired copycat statutes in the 1850s. Enforcement flashpoints, including anti-license riots and court challenges, revealed fractures between evangelical reformers, laborers, and immigrant communities. Fiske wrote as this tradition matured, recasting its moral claims in physiological terms. His book engages the temperance legacy by shifting the ground of argument from revivalist exhortation to evidence-based assessments of harm.

Mid-century immigration and the lager beer revolution altered drinking patterns and politics. German newcomers after 1848 built breweries in Milwaukee (Pabst, 1844), Cincinnati, and St. Louis, where Eberhard Anheuser took control of a brewery in 1860 that later became Anheuser-Busch. Lager’s lower alcohol and the rise of refrigerated storage, rail distribution, and urban saloons connected alcohol to ward politics, Sunday closing laws, and clashes such as Chicago’s Lager Beer Riot of 1855. Fiske’s analysis resonates with these shifts by distinguishing between beverages, settings, and doses, and by considering how convivial, commercialized drinking environments magnified public health and social discipline concerns beyond the solitary vice model of earlier tracts.

The Civil War transformed alcohol and tobacco into fiscal pillars. The Internal Revenue Act of 1862 created the Bureau of Internal Revenue and imposed federal excises on distilled spirits, beer, and manufactured tobacco; rates were raised in 1864 to fund the Union war effort. By the mid-1860s, internal taxes on spirits and tobacco accounted for a substantial share of federal receipts, embedding intoxicants in statecraft and enforcement. Britain simultaneously pursued administrative reform, culminating in the Licensing Act of 1872 that tightened hours and penalties. Fiske’s book sits within these policy debates, probing whether taxation and licensing could mitigate harms or merely entangle the polity with industries profiting from addiction.

Advances in experimental medicine reframed intoxicants as physiological problems. The American Medical Association (1847) professionalized standards; in Europe, Louis Pasteur’s fermentation studies (1857–1863) and Joseph Lister’s antisepsis (1867) elevated laboratory method. Nicotine was isolated in 1828 by Posselt and Reimann, and nineteenth-century journals reported cardiovascular and neurotoxic effects at varying doses. Claude Bernard’s 1865 treatise on experimental method legitimized controlled investigation of nerve action and toxins, shaping how physicians measured dose-response and tolerance. Fiske foregrounds this medical literature, describing alcohol and tobacco as agents acting on the brain, heart, and metabolism, and urging that public judgment rest on reproducible findings rather than custom or anecdote.