FREEDDOM OF CHOICE

I went to the grocery store last week for my weekly perusal of the myriad of new products that are introduced on a weekly basis by such grand company’s like Proctor and Gamble, Bristol Myers Squibb, and others along those lines. I usually try to buy enough food to last at least a week. I cannot remember how long the mass proliferation of corporate product branding has gone, but it has invaded every aspect of our modern lives. For instance, buying salsa has become a chore since there are at least eight different brands and each of those brands there are several different flavors or styles. It would be easy if only one feature of salsa was of interest to me. If I were a frugal consumer - I would buy the cheapest. However, like most people, I am concerned with price and quality. You know that elusive combination marketing and sales managers are always trying to capture; price and quality, for the consumer of course. With all these different brands and styles the simple task of choosing a salsa has become yet another decision I need to make in my already choice-heavy day. I guess giving the consumer what he or she wants creates a by-product that all post-modern humans must now endure, CHOICE. The media, culture, and other unfaltering institutions want the masses to agree that choice is good; we should welcome it with open arms. I believe the concept of choice has changed as the proverbial times have changed. It has transformed over the years, I will explain briefly the perception of choice in the context of each significant and relevant time period. Prehistoric time: Choice was forced upon the early homo-sapiens (Hunt and gather or die) Colonial time (Pre-revolutionary America) The only real choice; sovereign state or muddle in serfdom to an imperialistic big brother. Industrial –boom; Work at the mill for 12 hours a day for 14 days straight or take a stab at farming and become dependent upon entities you could not control: an unstable market, less-than-desirable weather forecasts, and archaic farming techniques. Post Modern Life. Do not get me wrong choice is good in some aspects of daily life, in some cases required. We cannot all be preprogrammed androids that go through the day without having to make some choices. In Post Modern America “choices” enable us the following: 1. Give citizens the chance to exercise their inherent right to feel like they are free to choose. This is a perception and can be seen different ways through different sets of eyes. Example: An affluent individual has the choice between buying a Mercedes or a Lexus. In comparison to an individual living in the inner city that is choosing if he or she wants to live the rest of their life. Option One: a life of thuggery and drug pushing in which he or she may become wealthy and face the very real possibility of dying or being incarcerated. Option Two: Stay in school, perhaps graduate with a good enough GPA to get into a “decent” university (or not) and find a “decent” job and live and dwell somewhere in the “middle.” 2. Choice, in a pure utilitarian sense of the word is meant to make our lives better, whether it is less expensive, more efficient, and/or faster. Choice is your friend if some options are in some way “better” than the rest. And of course you have the power to make that choice. (Believe it or not people you don’t even know you are making decisions about your future/fate – but that is a whole other topic). As with number one; the consequences of the choice are very different and are dictated by one’s circumstances and worldview. Choices are their individual succinctness means very different things to each person. As with the plight of Achilles, his choice was similar to example #1; live a long ordinary life, or live a short existence packed full of notoriety and fame. Achilles choice had greater consequences than my salsa dilemma, but he choose swiftly. It was a difficult choice by today’s standards, and he lived a short, but storied life. Perhaps if he did not choose this way I would not be typing these last sentences. In post-modern life, forces we cannot or would not control are providing an illusion of a multitude of options, when in truth few really exist. Take for example, that large color box that sits in your living room. Full of choices, but nothing is really on. Cable and satellite TV make you pay a premium for choice. This is just one example; we are bombarded with a copious amount of choices that are more illusionary than utilitarian. Here are some examples: paper or plastic David Lee or Sammy tanning bed or that spray shit peppermint or spearmint black or brown shoes Grey Goose or Ketel One beef or chicken Merlot or Shiraz XM or Sirius Snowcaps or Goobers Ben or Matt Wal-Mart or Target “The ordinary man believes he is free when he is permitted to act arbitrarily, but in this very arbitrariness lies the fact that he is unfree,” GWF Hegel. I believe Hegel was referring to those who have a deep and intimate fear of choosing (fear of consequences known or unknown) and those who have no choice at all. Take for example my fiancé and I, every time we decide to go to out to dinner it turns into a conversation such as this; Me: “I don’t care where, where do you want to go?” Her: “I don’t care.” Me: “No, I think it’s your turn to choose.” Her: “Whatever.” You see how this causes distress on both parties. However in the back of my mind I have two or three choices, but being sensitive to my partner’s feelings I don’t want to upset her. She is thinking the same thing; either of us wants to make a choice, thinking the other will not be happy. We would rather have no choice to make or some outside force make the arbitrary choice on deciding on a restaurant. As with most choices there is also a fear that the given choice not chosen would be better than what we chose. This presents a whole new stress of the decision making process. I suppose for any choice, restaurants included, the decision-maker strives to maximize the benefits of the choice made. As we all know there are pros and cons to every decision make there is that fear that the decision we make (right or wrong, good or bad) will plague us with the underlying fear that we made the wrong decisions, no matter how beneficial the decision we made was. Choice has been with us since the first synapse fired in pre-nethertdal man/woman. Choice is life; life is choice, they are intertwined and connected in all of us. Every being, it is not a matter of society, culture, race, or class – decisions and choice can keep us together. It is an individual’s choice, do you rule choice, or does choice rule you. ___________________________________________________________________________