Bad as it is, smoking is still widely popular among people of all ages and nationalities. Although more and more smokers give up this nasty habit, undaunted millions remain faithful to Oscar Wilde's words that “a cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure.” All this fuss is about one substance: nicotine.
One man, Jean Nicot (1530-1600) is solely responsible for millions of nicotine victims. This French diplomat discovered tobacco in Portugal while negotiating a marriage between a six-year-old French princess and a Portuguese prince one year her junior. As cigarettes were unknown in Europe (unlike in South America), Nicot and other fashionable aristocrats snuffed tobacco powder rather than smoke it. The habit quickly caught on in France and from there moved rapidly east and south, reaching the frontiers of Russia and Turkey.
Because Jean Nicot popularized tobacco in Europe, the curious plant earned his name. Its Latin form – herba nicotiana – was coined circa 1600, and could be translated as Nicot's herb. Now by “Nicotiana” we mean “any of various flowering annual or perennial herbs of the genus Nicotiana, native to the Americas and including the tobacco plant and ornamental species with fragrant flowers” (the American Heritage Dictionary Fourth Edition). It is worth mentioning that the word “tobacco” dates back to 1588 and is of Indian origin.
On the other hand, the word “nicotine” made its way to the English language only in 1819. To quote the same source, nicotine is “a colorless, poisonous alkaloid, derived from the tobacco plant and used as insecticide. It is the substance in tobacco to which smokers can become addicted.” A pair of German chemists, Posselt and Reimann, who first isolated nicotine in 1828, gave it a less appealing name – C10H14N2 .
Why is nicotine so dangerous? “Nicotine in high doses acts as an effective nerve poison and can have a number of potentially harmful side effects,” writes Wise Geek, a website which provides “clear answers for common questions.” In other words, the substance works like a drug that enslaves people who, in order to satisfy their nicotine hunger, need it in bigger and bigger quantities. Moreover, nicotine – apart from cigarettes' other ingredients – increases the chance of developing cancer. The same applies to various nicotine patches and gums, advertised as safe alternatives to smoking.
Women are especially prone to nicotine addiction. In 2005, the New York Times published a scientific research that found female smokers less successful “with nicotine replacement therapy and are more affected by 'cues' that set off a desire to smoke.” If this does not sound convincing enough, many women will shiver at the thought that one of nicotine's effects is “to make women's brains work more like men's.”
It was never Jean Nicot's dream to go down in history as the name-bearer of an addictive drug. The French diplomat died 40 years after first snuffing tobacco and there is little prove that his habit rendered his health. But contemporary statistics do not lie: nicotine claims hundreds of thousands of people every year all over the world.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Machiavellian
Politics is a dirty world. Lies and machinations belong to the arsenal of every ambitious statesman who should stop at nothing to gain power. Politicians come and go, but this brutal vision of state affairs painted by Niccolo Machiavelli has remained constant.
For Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), politics was his whole life. Born to a noble Florentine family, Machiavelli began his public service as a diplomat in 1498 only to become a defense minister eight years later. Soon his name opened many doors to Europe's royal courts; among his acquaintances were kings, emperors, and popes. Machiavelli's brilliant career ended abruptly in 1512, when Florence turned from a republic into an authoritarian state. He withdrew to his country estate where he devoted his time to writing treatises that completely changed the way people perceived politics.
His most famous work, The Prince, was published in 1532. In it, Machiavelli advised future statesmen to abandon any moral scruples as they could only block their ascension to power. Instead, a good politician should be ready to employ every strategy – no matter how wicked and vicious – to achieve his goals. No one judges the winners, said Machiavelli. Although to admit to reading Machiavelli is a serious faux pas in the contemporary world of politics, his works continuously remain bestsellers.
The coinage of the adjective “Machiavellian” is dated to the year 1568. The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the word appeared even before The Prince and other major works were translated into English. The explanation is simple: Machiavelli became famous when France and the Catholic Church publicly chastised his philosophy and indexed his books. Defined as “cunning, deceitful, unscrupulous,” the eponym made a career of its own in the English world where there was no better encouragement than France's disapproval.
Just like in the 16th century, also now the eponym has negative connotations. Writing on George H.W. Bush's tenure as a US envoy to China, Michael Abramowitz of the Washington Post reported on the future president's uneasiness about then National Security Adviser Henry “Kissinger's secretive and Machiavellian ways.” The same tones strike novelist James Hawes who in his My Little Armalite complains about “Machiavellian Presidents who called themselves socialists but had collaborated with the Nazis.”
But “Machiavellian” is by no means restricted to politicians. Recent examples show that writers often use it to denounce people who play dirty or like secrecy. The latter appears to be the reason why a New York Times journalist wrote this line about Cardinal Spellman: “His polar personalities shifted from guileless to Machiavellian.” This rather gloomy picture is supported by John Cooney, the cardinal's biographer, who says: “Spellman held his tongue in Rome, where it would be unwise to be indiscreet about the new pope [John XXIII]. But when he returned home, the Cardinal announced his disdain.”
In the words of columnist Irving Kristol, Niccolo Machiavelli was “one of the most wicked men who ever lived.” But whatever his faults, Machiavelli only publicized what everyone knew: that politics is a game with no rules.
For Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), politics was his whole life. Born to a noble Florentine family, Machiavelli began his public service as a diplomat in 1498 only to become a defense minister eight years later. Soon his name opened many doors to Europe's royal courts; among his acquaintances were kings, emperors, and popes. Machiavelli's brilliant career ended abruptly in 1512, when Florence turned from a republic into an authoritarian state. He withdrew to his country estate where he devoted his time to writing treatises that completely changed the way people perceived politics.
His most famous work, The Prince, was published in 1532. In it, Machiavelli advised future statesmen to abandon any moral scruples as they could only block their ascension to power. Instead, a good politician should be ready to employ every strategy – no matter how wicked and vicious – to achieve his goals. No one judges the winners, said Machiavelli. Although to admit to reading Machiavelli is a serious faux pas in the contemporary world of politics, his works continuously remain bestsellers.
The coinage of the adjective “Machiavellian” is dated to the year 1568. The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the word appeared even before The Prince and other major works were translated into English. The explanation is simple: Machiavelli became famous when France and the Catholic Church publicly chastised his philosophy and indexed his books. Defined as “cunning, deceitful, unscrupulous,” the eponym made a career of its own in the English world where there was no better encouragement than France's disapproval.
Just like in the 16th century, also now the eponym has negative connotations. Writing on George H.W. Bush's tenure as a US envoy to China, Michael Abramowitz of the Washington Post reported on the future president's uneasiness about then National Security Adviser Henry “Kissinger's secretive and Machiavellian ways.” The same tones strike novelist James Hawes who in his My Little Armalite complains about “Machiavellian Presidents who called themselves socialists but had collaborated with the Nazis.”
But “Machiavellian” is by no means restricted to politicians. Recent examples show that writers often use it to denounce people who play dirty or like secrecy. The latter appears to be the reason why a New York Times journalist wrote this line about Cardinal Spellman: “His polar personalities shifted from guileless to Machiavellian.” This rather gloomy picture is supported by John Cooney, the cardinal's biographer, who says: “Spellman held his tongue in Rome, where it would be unwise to be indiscreet about the new pope [John XXIII]. But when he returned home, the Cardinal announced his disdain.”
In the words of columnist Irving Kristol, Niccolo Machiavelli was “one of the most wicked men who ever lived.” But whatever his faults, Machiavelli only publicized what everyone knew: that politics is a game with no rules.
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