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| http://scent-smart.ca/ |
I vehemently disagree that people should have the right the poison everyone around them. It is one thing to choose to poison yourself in the comfort of your own home and it is quite another thing to contaminate public air.
It is ASSAULTING!
It has already been proven that "fragrance" is toxic and is hazardous to health. We don't let people SMOKE in public space anymore. Why? Because it is toxic and hazardous to health. Perfume and fragrance is just as toxic as second hand smoke. And your "right" to personal agency ends when it impacts the health of others and assaults the people around you.
CLICK CITATION FOR PDF - Fragrance in the Workplace is the New Second Hand Smoke.
DeVader, C.L. & Barker, P. (2011). Fragrance in the Workplace is the New Second Hand Smoke. American Society of Business and Behavioral Science Annual Conference: Las Vegas.
I think the reason why most people refuse to change their habits regarding scented products is because they do indeed believe that it is a freedom they enjoy and don't want to give up. As you say, it only seems reasonable that once a freedom causes harm to someone else, we ought to restrict it somehow as a society. What you do not consider is how complicated this really becomes. I'm not pointing any fingers here, I’m just trying to form an analogy that expresses why this is a bigger issue than simply forcing people not to wear scented products. Do you drive a car? Do you participate in any practice, at least indirectly, that results in air pollution? I'm willing to bet you do because almost everybody in the entire world does. If you do, then you are doing the same thing as someone polluting the air with their scented products. We know this, yet nobody is passing any laws to outlaw cars. Why is that?
ReplyDeleteWell, a probable answer is that there is big business in cars, and similarly there is big business in scented products. Another reason is that people really like driving and it is faster than other alternatives. It is a freedom we are used to and don't want to give up. We don't NEED cars, we just want them. We want to be able to travel quickly. We want a greater range for employment opportunities. We want to be able to go pick up any item we need whenever we want. We know it is unhealthy but we keep doing it.
We have to ask ourselves, is it really the fault of individuals, or the fault of the industries that produce this stuff and profit off of it? I think the real solution is going after the corporations. If most of the cars on the lot are gas powered then I feel as if driving one is condoned by society, and if most of the products in my local drug store are scented then I feel as if society is condoning it. It isn't my place as an individual citizen to be playing scientist. If something has been deemed unhealthy and it can be proven, then it should be illegal to produce and sell. It is a huge disruption to my personal agency and pursuit of a decent life to have to be figuring all this stuff out for myself. The purpose of the government is to do this for us. You might disagree, but I am telling you that for most people, their mentality is that if stores are selling it legally then it is okay, and nobody can tell me it isn't okay. I think it is an unreasonable onus to be putting on regular citizens to figure out which of all the legal products and services we can buy is actually okay and which is not. I'm not a scientist but I can only assume based on all the arguments for scent free environments that there must be some sort of proof out there that there is a direct causal link between scented products and physical health problems. If this is the case, and I don't doubt that it is, then why can't this information just be taken to the government so that they can make the production of these products illegal?
Another issue regarding the whole sensitivities debate is that sensitivities are inherently subjective. It is difficult for someone who has no sensitivity to smells to understand how it could bother someone. Now in answer to that, we might be tempted to say, well it doesn't matter if everybody understands it, if this person is saying it bothers them then we should just take their word for it and accommodate them. I tend to agree with this mentality, but it really opens up quite a slippery slope which makes the whole thing problematic. What if we work together and your favourite colour is bright orange and 90% of your clothing is bright orange, and even your skin is bright orange because you tan a lot at those tanning salons. And what if the sight of this colour legitimately gives me headaches and disorients me? There are people with real light sensitivities out there and I happen to actually be one of them (although the orange thing is just made up for the example). Would I then have the right to demand that you can no longer wear this colour and must change your skin to suite my sensitivity? Let's say you answer yes. Well then I could come up with an even more absurd hypothetical scenario, etc. until we get to a situation in which the sensitivity is so particular that suddenly it seems reasonable to put the onus on the person with the sensitivity to do something about it instead of everybody else accommodating them.
ReplyDeleteI am not saying that scent sensitivity is like that. I am just saying that the whole issue of sensitivities is actually quite complicated because as a society we need to agree on what things should be straight banned, what things should be available but controlled, and what things shouldn't be controlled at all. Further, for each issue of sensitivity, we need to determine if it is better for society as a whole to have everybody accommodate the people with the sensitivity, or for the people with the sensitivity to accommodate the rest of the world.
I suspect one of those hypothetical examples I mentioned might be in order here to drive the point home. What if we proved scientifically that one in every 100 million people had a certain health condition such that they were allergic to sound of any kind. If these people heard any sound they would become violently ill, including the human voice. In this case we would be inclined to say that it is too great of an infringement of freedom to force everybody in the world to no longer produce sounds, to no longer talk and sing and do other activities that produce sound. We would probably end up saying tough luck to those very few people in the world who were highly allergic to sound. We would make them deal with it somehow, by making them wear some sort of instrument to block out sound or give them surgery to stop them from hearing. Sure, the example seems silly because nobody really has this allergy, but there are people who have highly sensitive hearing. My girlfriend is one of them and even the sound the bus makes when someone pulls the stop is deafening to her. Can she demand that nobody ever make a loud sound?
At what point do we decide it is too much of a disruption to society to accommodate something like that? Maybe scent allergies and sensitivities are worth forcing people to accommodate. I am not sure. I do know that it is much much more complicated than you or other advocates are making it out to be. If you want to help your cause you need to be aware of these complications instead of just blowing off the concern for issues of personal freedoms.