The Era of Choice: The Ability to Choose and Its Transformation of Contemporary Life

by Edward C. Rosenthal

How today's cornucopia of choices has transformed our lives and our culture, from the foundations of scientific theory to the anxiety of everyday decisions. Today most of us are awash with choices. The cornucopia of material goods available to those of us in the developed world can turn each of us into a kid in a candy store; but our delight at picking the prize is undercut by our regret at lost opportunities. And what's the criterion for choosing anything--material, spiritual, the path taken or not taken--when we have lost our faith in everything? In The Era of Choice Edward Rosenthal argues that choice, and having to make choices, has become the most important influence in both our personal lives and our cultural expression. Choice, he claims, has transformed how we live, how we think, and who we are. This transformation began in the nineteenth century, catalyzed by the growing prosperity of the Industrial Age and a diminishing faith in moral and scientific absolutes. The multiplicity of choices forces us to form oppositions; this, says Rosenthal, has spawned a keen interest in dualism, dilemmas, contradictions, and paradoxes. In response, we have developed mechanisms to hedge, compromise, and to synthesize. Rosenthal looks at the scientific and philosophical theories and cultural movements that choice has influenced--from physics (for example, Niels Bohr's theory that light is both particle and wave) to postmodernism, from Disney trailers to multiculturalism. He also reveals the effect of choice on the personal level, where we grapple with decisions that range from which wine to have with dinner to whether to marry or divorce, as we hurtle through lives of instant gratification, accelerated consumption, trend, change, and speed. But we have discovered, writes Rosenthal, that sometimes, we can have our cake and eat it, too.

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

First published September 1, 2005

Reviews

[Chris]

a good book for the postmodernist wondering how we got to this mad, mad world. a good book for anyone who has ever felt confused by the seemingly unlimited choices available in life. a book for all the hamlets who think more than they act. if you've ever felt that making up your mind is difficult, it's true. but take your time. rosenthal explains why:

"We are not merely placed in the world. Our existence is finite. We are free. Free to make choices, although we realize that our boundedness spurs us to make these choices count. To do this, we have to consider our personal and unique relationship and discourse with the larger world. In carrying out our lives, we can trivialize this relationship by either going through the motions or conforming socially. That is, we can live inauthentically. Or, we can take care as to how we confront our choices in relating to the world. We can strive for understanding and create our own opinions and solutions; that is, we can live authentically.

To live authentically is to make oneself vulnerable, to accept the angst that permeates us. In our acceptance of inevitable death, in the suffusion of our being with nothingness, our actions, which allow us to take our fate into our own hands as individuals, are what enable us to transcend the void and create a life worth living."

[Peter]

The only thing more disappointing than me choosing to finish this book was Ed Rosenthal's choice to write it. Or perhaps the truly bad choice was MIT Press's choice not to edit it. Whatever the lapse, this is a truly terrible book (with an admittedly great cover). Imagine the worst TED talk ever, recapped by David Brooks on a bad day, with research assistance from Malcolm Gladwell -- that's how "The Era of Choice" reads. It's all dressed up as a bold statement on our contemporary experience but it's essentially a hackneyed skimming of the last, oh, forty years of cultural criticism. The book has literally nothing new to say, and in fact badly mangles most of its sources. Worst of all is that Rosenthal doesn't even manage to say much about "choice," his proposed unified field theory of our times. He never really defines it, never supports his contention that "we" have more choice now than ever, and never explores the different choices available to different groups. It fails on its own terms, its style is rambling and maddening (lots of "as we shall sees" and "as we have seens"), and its arguments uniformly unsupported. Choose not to read it.

[Mistypane611]

I read this after seeing it mentioned in 'The Tyranny of Choice' Renata Salecl and I'm really pleased I did. A great trawl through the growing influence of choice on many aspects of life and a brilliant last chapter about possible ways of dealing with choice.

My favourite quote:
"As long as our hearts beat fast and our pupils dilate and we shed tears, our feelings will not be subordinated to some numerical scale"