The art of choosing

This is an interesting TED video by Sheena Iyengar about how cultures differ in their assessment personal choice. One quote:

…The assumption, then, that we do best when the individual self chooses only holds when that self is clearly divided from others. When in contrast two or more individuals see their choices as and their outcomes as infinitely connected, then they may amplify one another’s success by turning choosing into a collective act. To insist that they choose independently might actually compromise their performance and  their relationships.

Yet that is exactly what the American paradigm demands. It leaves little room for interdependence or individual fallibility. It requires that everyone treat choice as a private and self-defining act. …


Comments

One response to “The art of choosing”

  1. codepoke Avatar
    codepoke

    Provocative.
    I recently lived her object lesson regarding the decision to pull the tubes on a living person. Her conclusion is justifiable. If a doctor makes that decision, the survivor surely will experience less remorse. Beyond her conclusion is the simple fact the doctor makes the choice to intubate in the first place, largely without consulting the eventual survivor. There’s a double bind in which the eventual survivor is passive in the choice to prolong life, but active in the choice to end it.
    And yet, the centralization of choice in a bureaucracy is a terrifying thing. The histories of France and Japan both include reigns of terror impossible in the free society America once was.
    Distributing choice within the safe bounds of family and community (especially small-group church) sounds beautiful and helpful to me. Moving choice from a solitary thing to a thing in healthy relationship is a step in the right direction. Centralizing choice in the hands of an elected or appointed bureaucracy, though, is far worse than the chaos and burden that brought us here today.

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