I really hate it when people respond to the news that my friend has lung cancer with an eager and hopeful, “Does he smoke?” This is such a pathetic attempt to exorcise the fear of cancer through a pitiful exhibition of “I’m a good boy / girl! I don’t smoke! This won’t happen to me! Please, pretty please, soothe my anxiety and tell me this won’t happen to me!”
I understand that cancer is scary but I wish people would spare me these displays of emotional neediness.
And by the way, the type of cancer my friend has is not related to smoking. Which I’m getting tired of saying to people and seeing their hopeful faces crumble as they realize that this particular ill person can’t be used to soothe their anxiety.
Clarissa's Blog 
It’s the just world fallacy. Whenever bad things happen, people are desperate to find some way — any way — for the bad thing that happened to be the fault of the person it happened to. Then the world is a just world, and those are bad people, who made bad decisions, and they can control their lives by being good people who make good decisions: not smoking, working hard, brushing their teeth, saving money, whatever.
I saw it when I got cancer. The kind I had, thyroid cancer, could not have been caused by anything I did, so people desperately tried to find some other way it was my fault — had I waited a long time to go to the doctor? Did I eat a lot of junk food? Did I fail to get health insurance? Maybe deciding to be born in Louisiana caused my cancer!
As you note, they’re just trying to find some way to believe they’re safe. But it’s a very mean-spirited way to go about it, if they would think it through.
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“Whenever bad things happen, people are desperate to find some way — any way — for the bad thing that happened to be the fault of the person it happened to. Then the world is a just world, and those are bad people, who made bad decisions, and they can control their lives by being good people who make good decisions: not smoking, working hard, brushing their teeth, saving money, whatever.”
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People like this make me want to hit something. Because people who do smoke somehow deserve to get lung cancer? My grandfather smoked. He had lung cancer. But he was also a carpenter, and he was exposed to asbestos fibers. The cancer he had didn’t come from his smoking — it came from the asbestos. Yet because he smoked, people will automatically assume that he must have deserved it because he smoked. The ultimate “it could have been me — oh, wait, no it couldn’t.”
I’m very sorry to hear about your friend. I wish them the best of luck.
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Thank you!
Even if he did smoke and the cancer were caused by smoking – so what? All of our illnesses will be caused by the process of living, what we eat, where we live, where we work, how we spend our free time, etc. Nobody is going to avoid dying eventually. Why not just face it and stop escaping from this sad truth into a fantasy?
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Excellent post, excellent points; thank you. Very sorry about your friend.
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I think people hyper focus on personal choices and under focus on collective choices when it comes to “lifestyle illnesses”
Worldwide, expect to see lots of lung cancer in China and India which people will attribute to smoking but will somehow avoid assigning primary responsibility to air pollution.
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