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Author Topic: "Why making choices is so hard"
Storm Saxon
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http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/story.html?id=502

Once a year he does this. This essay is why I suffer through 51 weeks of ranting OSC. It's thought provoking, nuanced, and engaged in examining the idea rather than casting blame. Great stuff and I fully agree with most of his conclusions.

I particularly liked his thoughts on why those within cultures where divorce is not an option are often 'happier' within their marriages. Spot on and, further, demonstrates why all these silly efforts to encourage a certain kind of marriage through legislation are doomed to not have any effect. The idea of absolute monogamy in marriage is dependent on not just the idea within the person but the context of that person's life, the community that they live in, the belief system that they have freely chosen, the physical terrain that surrounds them that makes those choices seem logical. Legislation does not, and cannot, create any of those things. It attempts to make through brute force what can only be achieved through free choice and love and wisdom of living.

Please do not think that I am saying that one way of thinking is 'better' than another. While those who grow up and live within cultures with known rules and roles for its members may be 'happier' in one sense because they have achieved the goals their culture has set for them, we who do not live in those kinds of societies can have our own joys and triumphs. Even though there is no destination, the journey is fruitful in and of itself. Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven.

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Lady Jane
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This is an excellent column. I liked this quote especially:
quote:
That’s how we can talk ourselves into a choice that is contrary to our gut feeling. At the time we choose, we believe our self-explanations; but over time, that temporary self-persuasion fades, and only the original gut-feeling remains. We wind up disappointed with our choice. We would have been better off, in such cases, if we had simply followed the impulse.

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Irami Osei-Frimpong
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I agree the spirit of this column. I do worry that he didn't make enough distinctions. I get nervous when people say that they choose their religions. If something like that is a matter of choice, like ice cream, or a matter or decision, like marriage, then I don't know.

[ February 28, 2005, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]

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Storm Saxon
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Some people do choose their religions?
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Irami Osei-Frimpong
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And I think that's inappropriate.

He says:

quote:
They’re choices that have become part of who I am. And my religion didn’t force those choices on me; I chose to be part of that religion and chose those rules as part of my identity. It’s as comfortable a fit as an extra-large cotton sweater.
I've written this before. Choices are appropriate for a matter of taste. Decisions are a cutting down of ones options. And religion, well, that's neither. That's not up to you. There is something about individual arrogance that makes people believe that it is, but ones religion is not a matter of choice, it's only a decision in that one can neglect the ties of religion, but most importantly, the mandates of religion are not up to one to choose or decide, only to uncover, follow or neglect.

[ February 28, 2005, 06:38 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]

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Storm Saxon
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I've written before on this forum that there is nothing that everyone can agree on that is 'religion', that the word is meaningless and, therefore, can be made to mean whatever one wants. So, I'm not going to argue with you on this matter since, to me, it is a waste of time to insist one person's definition is better than another's. [Smile]

I am way too tired to get into any kind of serious discussion right now, too. [Wink]

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rivka
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I don't usually read OSC's columns, even when they're linked to here. So thanks for the heads-up, Stormie. [Smile] This one is great!

My favorite line:
quote:
We need to be free to choose; we need to be free of endless choosing.
I need to go send links to this to people. *wanders off*
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Mabus
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There's a sense in which I agree with what you say, Irami, but I don't know if it's the sense in which you mean it.

I believe that there is really only one truth, and the only decision involved is to accept or reject it. But in practice there are all sorts of belief systems out there and it is far from easy to tell which one really is that one truth. Conversely, I don't think religion is something particularly "personal" in the sense that it's determined by something inside us that can be different from one individual to another. If I did believe that, I wouldn't belong to the faith I do, which chafes plenty around the edges at times.

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Gambusi
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Hi. I'm new to the community so I'll try not to be too annoying (though I tend to think saying I'll try not to be annoying is somewhat annoying).

I was wandering if you could expand on the idea that people don't choose their religions? Or, if it is discussed in a previous thread could I get a link (I did a quick search, but didn't find relevant discussion on religion - though there was so much it could have been in there).

I ask this because I think that religions, at least today, are very much 'objects' of choice. I have a rather clear idea of how I think my religion works and I *believe* that it was a choice I made. Granted I did not come from a religious family. My mother is Anglican, my dad grew up in the Church of Christ (though the most he talks about religion now is how the New Testament got it all wrong with 'turn the other cheek') and my sister just got confirmed catholic.

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Mabus
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Gambusi, mind if I ask what religion you hold to?
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Gambusi
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Yeah. Well. I don't really consider myself to believe in a particular organized religion (writing "organized religion" doesn't make me pretentious, does it?). Without going into too much detail about it: I believe that there is a 'supreme power.' I also have a healthy enough sized ego to believe that when I die I'm not going to stop existing. Oh, and that if we aren't nice to other people, tolerant (and in many cases accepting) of them then we'll probably be punished in some form or another.

Basically, while I'm sure my personal, spiritual beliefs could fit into any number of religions, I don't see that they would be specifically enhancing to me in any way - which I suppose makes me somewhat selfish.

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Mabus
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Ah. Okay...thanks, Gambusi.

Like your father in years past, I belong to the Church of Christ. I've noticed that some attitudes which are not "official doctrine" are nonetheless common, and it occurred to me that the idea of religion being a choice might be one of them. So that was a "maybe" vote, I guess.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled discussion.

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Kwea
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G, are you a psudonym of a long time poster?

I know you did an introduction post, but I have my reasons for wondering.

I disagree with the statement that religion isn't a choice. Most of the religions I know of make sure that people know it IS one, and that making the wrong choice can have repercussions.

Also, let me guess....any religion other than yours is wrong, so should not be a choice...rather it is a failing, in that they weren't your religion in the first place?

If I am reading you wrong on this please let me know...but if that is what you meant, you are being far more than arrogant this time for choosing to denigrate others religious choices.

Even converting to your religion from another would be a choice....that is what free will is about, the right to make choices for oneself.

[ February 28, 2005, 09:38 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]

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Irami Osei-Frimpong
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Gambusi,

This is what happens when economics becomes the Queen of the sciences instead of metaphysics, everyone thinks that they should have it their way.

You are going to hear a lot of religion means this, and religion means that. But here is the deal, the word "means" is from the german "mein," with the sense of "My." When people say that blank means blank, they are really "mying" it. Playing at controlling it, rather than paying attention to what it is.

religion: re- is from the latin preposition with the sense of concerning or again.

Ligere is latin for bind or tie. Religion concerns the ties between us as people. These ties aren't a matter of choice, any more than Adam had a choice or Abraham had a choice. Either they acted properly or they negated it, or were neg-ligere, now the word exists as negligent.

We don't understand this now. For my money, the bulk of western society hasn't understood it for a few hundred years. And that's fine. Back when people lived in honest fear and awe of trespassing against religion, it was matter of choice, it was a matter of a sincere faith in God and concern for everything that was at stake.

It's easy to blame the Protestants, but it's not their fault. If anyone understood religion, it was Martin Luther. If you are itching to blame someone, maybe King Henry is a good candidate for killing Christendom and religion, as the two concepts were born together, but it's dead. King Henry was probably just as sign of times, anyway. It's a corpse. We just don't think that way anymore, not en masse. It's evident in a lot of ways, one of them is that there is so much noise in church. No time in history has there been so much racket in the face of God. People were stunned silent and humble. There is so much music because music is holy and instructive, but the Christian God's gone.

Religion was a function of the make up of the world, not something that was chosen. Religion was revealed, not created.

So now on to the big question? What's left? Life. Life teaches life. That's why there is music in the place of God. Life, the contradictions, excesses, sublimity, and rapture harnessed in a form-- lest it destroy everything-- is what's life. Music is an amplifier of life. Art amplifies life. It shows man all that as right and wrong and proper and improper in the world. Art, fiction, and music reveal the higher law that used to be the mandate of God. This is still a revelation, not something that's created, and not something of ones choosing, and it is not a matter of Faith. To tell the truth, this revealing is the only thing that makes art, fiction, and music important. The thing is, it's the reason why those three are the most important, but I'm starting to ramble.
______

As an aside, I get mad at people who think that Faith is going to save the inner cities. I don't know if they are removed from the people, or they are not taking the problem seriously, but kids aren't buying religion, and to tell the truth, we can't expect them to. And adults shouldn't be selling it as an instrument to make them behave. It degrades life.

[ February 28, 2005, 09:49 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]

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Gambusi
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No, I am a first time poster.

edit:

So, Irami, are you essentially saying that, to you, religion is concerned with the connections between individuals? That religion dictates human interaction and serves no other purpose?

I apologize if I am completely off track, but I'm reaching high above my head trying to grab what you wrote.

[ February 28, 2005, 09:52 PM: Message edited by: Gambusi ]

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Irami Osei-Frimpong
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quote:
So, Irami, are you essentially saying that, to you, religion is concerned with the connections between individuals? That religion dictates human interaction and serves no other purpose?
What I'm saying is that, if we understand religion as a matter of "to you," than we don't understand religion.

I'm going to run an end around. The greeks didn't have religion. They had dike and moira. Dike is mistranslated everywhere as justice. But our idea of justice didn't come around until the later with Latin when justice was the Law of God. Now we understand justice as the law of a few hundred guys in Washington, so we don't even know what Justice is anymore. But the greek Dike comes from the verb for "to show."

Dike is also a Greek God, but that's shouldn't surprise you because everything worth anything is a greek God in Ancient Greece. Stay with me, this is all relevant because there is a sense in which we are all greeks, and learning this will reveal who we are. We use their words and think their thoughts, even if we don't use their words or think their thoughts very well.

Dike is that virtue by which man is shown his place in the totality of beings. You see your place in the web of the world, thereby revealing your destiny and the moral law.

Have you ever played a ball sport? All ball sports are pretty much the same, and if you play one for a while, you kind of get a feeling for where all of the players are on the field. Even while everyone is moving, in the middle of the game, you can kind of sense where everyone is. You know where you are supposed to move, and where the passing lanes are, and when you get good, you kind of know where they are before they happen. You know when you should have moved, but you didn't.

Dike is kind of like that. Except with life, not just ball sports. I figured that being a woodwind player in an orchestra would be the closest I came to knowing my place in the totality of beings, but I swear, when I'm doing Capoeria, I can see the future. There is something about the singing and concentration and dancing, but I'm digressing. Art is supposed to do the same thing, situated man in the totality of beings, disclosing his destiny. That's the work of myth and parables.

[ February 28, 2005, 10:13 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]

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Gambusi
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Alright. I think I get most of what you're saying. Though what you're saying seems to run parallel to the idea of "we must assume we cannot assume." Or, rather, that the idea of religion is so individualized that we cannot have a discussion on what it is.

On a side note, I most certainly do not think that justice is what a bunch of people in Washington say it is. That's far too close to the notion of justice being "the advantage of the strong."

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mothertree
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What religion are you, Irami, and what word would you prefer for how someone ends up in a religion? Possibly that it chooses me? I think I'm in my religion because we were right for each other (I'm in the same relgion as OSC, as far as I'm aware.)

I feel like I have a choice to become a Jehovah's Witness, or Catholic or Presbyterian. But I couldn't choose any of those and still feel like me. Is that what you mean, that I don't really choose?

When it comes to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in particular, though many people are raised in that church, everyone who remains in it as an adult pretty much has a point where they have to choose it, because the belief system seems to require so much. All the people who convert to it, reason would suggest, chose it.

But in the Church we hold free will and agency to be sacred, so saying it is a choice does not sound whimsical to us. It is saying that our choice of the church constitutes our covenant with God, literally our choice to "go with" Him.

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MrSquicky
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I have to say, I was underwelmed by OSC's column, but it got me to check out Barry Schwartz's work and that's pretty interesting so far. I'd recommend checking him out. Here's his homepage and two provided publications that are about this are here and here. From OSC's description, it sounded like Schwartz was offering up a game theory retread of Erich Fromm's classic Escape from Freedom (which I highly recommend), but his work shows much more than that.

The central problem I had with what OSC described was that he seemed to be presenting "too many" choices as the mechanistic cause of unhappiness and anxiety.

Consider the idea that a person would be unable to enjoy their vacation because he had a bunch of attractive options to choose from and any one he decided on would leave them regreting the ones he didn't choose. That person is sick, not necessarily mentally, but definitely existentially.

Both Fromm and Schwartz have a great deal to say about this existential illness that makes freedom a negative, anxiety causing thing, but they also present evidence that people can and do handle freedom in a very positive way.

I'm not well-versed enough in Schwartz to talk about his stuff (I've only read the two things I linked) but Fromm was pretty clear that one of the central things was understanding the differences and interplay between freedom from and freedom to. People in our culture tend pretty strongly to strive for freedom from things, but often give little concern to the ideas and responsibilities incumbent in freedom to.

When you are concerned primarily with getting away from things, you miss the incredibly important construction of identity and meaning. It's not enough to not be things. You have to step up and be something as well. In Fromm's conceptiong, people who confront a world where the externally imposed scripts are resisted but who haven't built up this coherent sense of meaning quickly become desparate to escape from this unstable world. Thus, they turn to things that allow them to disolve their sense of self, such as a cult of personality, sado-masoschism, or the combination of these, authoritarianism. They give up their freedom (and thus this terrible scary world), but because they choose to do so, it's not an insult to their sense of agency.

That's why I disagree with the impression I got from OSC's description and that's why I disagree with Irami's descritpion of religion. They seem to me to cast humans as primarily reactive rather than creative agents. For me the central task of being a free human is to create this identity and meaning (with plenty of input from reality, but with the person's creative nature as the central agent).

The bad responses to freedom and choice are more a symptom of the underlying problem of people's alienation from who they are and what they want and enjoy than a problem in and of itself, which is particularly ironic because it is, in my opinion, caused by the drives towards individualism and narcissism that are so prevelant in our culture. It's like the ads tell you, "Be yourself. Buy our product. Worship this celebrity. Don't do anything that other people might thing is weird and be obsessively concerned with how you look and how other people see you."

Happiness is not (assuming that you're not deprived of things you need) based on material things, nor is it a static state that can be achieved. It's a process, a way of seeing life and of living it. This creative process is the same union with the universe that Irami was talking about. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi had made studying this thing his life's work and he's published an excellent book dealing with this phenomenom, which he calls Flow.

In a society where it is impossible or very difficult to leave a marriage, marriage often takes on a pretty unpleasant aspect, where many people stay together in large part because they have to. In a society such as our current climate where people are forced to stay together and are unable to form healthy attachments, you get marriage turing into almost a joke. A true marriage is one where the two people choose, of their own free will, to stay together because they are engaged in a collaborative project of creating meaning together. To my mind, no other relationship really deserves the name.

I've got quite a bit more to say, but I think I passed the length limit a little while ago, so I'll stop this now.

[ March 01, 2005, 12:31 AM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]

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Audeo
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Irami, if you're going to use etymology as the basis for an argument, you ought to research it a little more carefully. A quick look at any modern dictionary including Dictionary.com, and the webster I have on my desk, show that 'mean, meant' comes from the old english verb 'to tell' which is similar to the german meinen 'to have in mind, to have as opinion.' So when people say what religion means to them they are indeed saying what their opinion of religion is.

Furthermore, your analysis of the Latin is rather imprecise to say the least. To begin 're, res' is the latin word for 'thing' example re publica 'the public thing.' Ligo, ligare, is the verb meaning to tie, and there is a latin word religo, meaning to bind or fasten. However, there is a different word, religio (notice the extra i) which would be translated as conscientiousness, sense of right, moral obligation, and duty in its broadest sense and has been used by other authors to mean specifically religious sanction, duty to the gods, pledge of faith, etc. Cicero cites the etymology of religio from relego, which means to seclude, separate from the public sphere, or to set apart. You are correct in that some other etymologers such as Vergil claim that it originally came from ligo, to bind, but I think it's safe to say that the meaning of the word changed sufficiently since the original that it is no longer applicable. (If you're interested in sources here is a link to Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary entry for Religio, religionis

However if I were to do an analysis similar to the one you did, I'd have to say that the words 'meaning' and 'religion' used together in their original senses would have implied choosing what sort of thing to tie oneself to. Not so very different from many modern views of religion. I'd write more but it's late, and I've class in the morning.

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MrSquicky
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Incidentally, I was actually thinking about starting a thread on happiness and how it is obtained before I came to this thread. sndrake's recent stuff reminded me of the quality of life stuff of the handicapped from a little while ago and there was that poor guy who is embarrassed about his beautiful chair dancing to that romanian techo song because people told him he should be. Oh, and I remembered Ralphie's Chicken thread from some time ago, which I've subsequently bumped.
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beverly
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Just wanna say that I like what Trisha(mothertree) had to say. Not too surprising, I guess. [Smile]
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mothertree
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quote:
The central problem I had with what OSC described was that he seemed to be presenting "too many" choices as the mechanistic cause of unhappiness and anxiety.

I didn't get that from the reading, though it is not unrelated to the Maximizer's angst. It was more the metacognitive state of the Maximizer as opposed to... the other one. Satisficer?

I'll look more into your links when I'm not past due for bed or working. But I think a Maximizer is one who hyperadapts. The thing they obtain to becomes their status quo and they seek for something new to obtain quite quickly. The satisficer rather accepts the change that a choice brings into their state of being.

I've actually gone through the transition from Maximizer to Satisficer in a major segment of my life (marriage) in the last couple of years. I'd call it a maturation process. I went through the same transition with respect to religion about 5 years ago. I think the terms Maximizer and satisficer are meant to be value neutral.

I agree that people will ideally be creative, but it seems to me that many are reactive, or resistant. I'm sure I still have many important areas of my life where I am resistant.

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beverly
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quote:
Interestingly, Schwartz discovers that the traditional list of pros and cons is not terribly helpful. Instead of clarifying our thinking, it can muddy our choice and lead us astray.
Argh! I experience this! I thought I was the only one....

I really did like the tone of this article. It isn't as heavy-handed as many of the others. Like his fiction, he presents ideas and lets you take them in and take away from it what is right for you at that time. Or, at least more so than some of the other articles. I like that. I hope he does more of it. [Smile]

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beverly
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quote:

I've actually gone through the transition from Maximizer to Satisficer in a major segment of my life (marriage) in the last couple of years. I'd call it a maturation process.

I have experienced a similar process in my marriage.
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Irami Osei-Frimpong
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Mothertree,

quote:
What religion are you, Irami, and what word would you prefer for how someone ends up in a religion? Possibly that it chooses me? I think I'm in my religion because we were right for each other (I'm in the same relgion as OSC, as far as I'm aware.)
Religion was originally a function of how the world was and not a matter of shoe shopping. It's part of our constitution of our situation on earth. The great problem is that the world reveals itself differently depending upon ones place in it, so a different understanding of religion is appropriate, as long as it's honest, but that condition is not a loop hole from which to do what you please. If you are asking me about Faith. I don't have one, and I'm not going to fake it, and I have too much respect for life to just create one. If the honestly opens to you as one contain the Christian God, good for you. I see the dignity in honest believe. I just don't see a whole lot of honest Faith. I do see a lot of crappy half-assed instrumental Faith that has been corrupted-- by the market institutions of all things!-- to cover all manners of wicked behavior.

quote:
I feel like I have a choice to become a Jehovah's Witness, or Catholic or Presbyterian. But I couldn't choose any of those and still feel like me. Is that what you mean, that I don't really choose?
Pretty much. [Smile]

Audeo,

I'm wary of dictionary.com.

I use the O.E.D. and Martin Heidegger. Remember, reload, reconcile, and I think in revolution and revelation, the sense is again or concerning, kind of like the re in your e-mail box. The Res as in "thing" sense does come out in the word reify, but in the case of religion, the sense seems to be the sense as the first set of words. I'm kind of sure I'm right about this, we can box if you want to, but [Dont Know]

______
quote:

Schwartz discovers that the traditional list of pros and cons is not terribly helpful.

Schwartz discovered that kind of like Columbus discovered America. Plato, Aristotle, and Kant said the exact same thing. Maybe the reminder(there is another one audeo) is good to mitigate our culture's push towards a cost/benefit analysis way of living.

[ March 01, 2005, 02:58 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]

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Mabus
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I guess my understanding of religion and yours don't have that much in common, Irami, except for the very limited agreement I expressed before.

Something that seems to me to be implicit in my church is that there really isn't a single "place we're supposed to be". There are roles that need filling, and people who have or don't have the skills needed to fill them--and which role you fill is up to you, so long as you fill one that you can perform well.

You don't sound like you'd be interested in a Scriptural discussion, though I could probably work one up, so perhaps a modern example is in order. When I first started learning about church history, one of the first things I heard was, "Alexander Campbell restored the church." But as I studied more I found that Campbell was just one of a sizable group of movement leaders. If for some reason he had died young or gone into politics or whatever, a dozen or more people were standing in the wings ready to fill his shoes. Who actually did the work really didn't matter, so long as they were competent.

So far as I can tell, life in general is like that. There's not just one place I'm "meant to be". I don't have just one destiny that can be worked out in advance. The world just doesn't work that way. To quote James Cameron--"The future isn't written. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves."

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Dagonee
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MrSquicky, this is an observation, not an attack, because we're talking about mutual impressions and intepretation. But I got the exact opposite impression from OSC's article than you did:

quote:
The central problem I had with what OSC described was that he seemed to be presenting "too many" choices as the mechanistic cause of unhappiness and anxiety.

Consider the idea that a person would be unable to enjoy their vacation because he had a bunch of attractive options to choose from and any one he decided on would leave them regreting the ones he didn't choose. That person is sick, not necessarily mentally, but definitely existentially.

Both Fromm and Schwartz have a great deal to say about this existential illness that makes freedom a negative, anxiety causing thing, but they also present evidence that people can and do handle freedom in a very positive way.

When I read the article, the bold portion was the main point I extracted from OSC's article. It was a two part process: 1.) Excess choice can lead to unhappiness in X way; and 2) Handling excess choice in manner Y will reduce that unhappiness. In this analysis, excess choice is a source of unhappiness only if not handled correctly by the person facing the choices. He dedicates more than 3/4 of the article to explaining the difference in the way people handle large number of choices (which he does call excessive), and advocating that one method results in more happiness.

It's interesting. I'm betting the difference is how the marriage example was interpreted, although I don't know that for sure. I interpreted as an example where excess choice could lead to a specific "bad" outcome and one particular means of avoiding that specific outcome.

Just an observation on the different ways we view the world.

Dagonee

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Olivetta
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I really enjoyed that piece. Me, I can spend 20 minutes agonizing in the shampoo isle, but I'm happily monogamous in a 12 year and counting marriage. I think I swaet the small stuff too much.
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MrSquicky
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Dag,
THe impression I got from OSC's column was that he was saying that the way to handle a whole bunch of choics was to choose to limit your choices. He says so here:
quote:
But it isn’t the choices themselves that matter. It’s the sense of control of our own lives. And, paradoxically, we often get far more of a sense of control – of autonomy – by voluntarily limiting our own choices than we get by leaving all our options open, all the time.
here:
quote:
What Schwartz has discovered is that sometimes, what we need in order to be happy is to limit our choices. We want to be free to make some choices; but we want to be free of the regretful burden of making others.
and here:
quote:
We need to be free to choose; we need to be free of endless choosing.

The trick is to find the balance. To teach ourselves to live as satisficers, not filling our lives with meaningless regret over “lost” opportunities. To find good ways to limit our own choices in ways that will leave us free to make the ones that remain to us.

Interestingly enough, it's in one of the bits about marriage that he came closest to what I'm sort of getting at:
quote:
The same thing applies with other matters. I accept the consequences of having embarked on a committed, no-fault marriage – the opposite of a no-fault divorce. It means constant effort to know what the other person’s happiness requires and to try to provide it; it means many sacrifices as the needs of wife and children require me to give up choices that might otherwise be mine.

But within that marriage and family, I have opportunities that simply aren’t available to those whose relationships are more tentative.

Depth, engagement, and commitment can actually give you more freedom, freedom to in exhange for accepting limits in your freedom from.

but overall, OSC seems to me to be saying that human beings just can't deal with a whole lot of choices and therefore the hea;thy way to deal with this is to voluntarily limit your options. I think this demostrates OSC's conservative bent.

I tend much more towards a progressive one. For me, it's not choices that are the problem, but rather a lack of meaning and focus and the inability to accept that your control over the world can be very limited at times and that you need to accept what comes. People who have these things, can, in my opinion, handle all the choices you throw at them.

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Lady Jane
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I do not agree with your intrepretation of what OSC said at all. He spent a great deal of time talking about the different personality types and how they handle choices, and he specifically said he was grateful for the wide range of choices available to him.
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Lady Jane
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Irami is operating under a different definition of religion than the one usually understood.
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dkw
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Definitions like Irami's (and some other attempts to define religion in the general sense) are what led some early 20th century Christian theologians to argue that Christianity is not a religion.
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beverly
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Mr. Squicky, you say that sometimes committing ourselves to something (choosing to restrict ourselves) can lead to greater freedom. Didn't OSC say exactly that in his essay with regards to committing himself to marriage specifically?
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skillery
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Here's where I agree with OSC:

quote:
I have more freedom, I think; not less.

But within that marriage and family, I have opportunities that simply aren’t available to those whose relationships are more tentative.

But I don't think my personal decision-making rules fit within Schwartz' four types.

I see life as being comprised of both "game" and "non-game" choices. How you move the pieces on the chess board affect the outcome of the game; your choice of what you sit on, what you drink, what kind of soap you use, and what you wear during the game do not affect the outcome of the game.

Non-game choices affect your comfort; game choices affect your happiness.

Of course it is possible to value comfort to the degree that you cannot be happy without comfort (and I think that is where our real problem in Western society lies).

There are two winning choice-making strategies in the game of chess: one is to calculate your current move with the objective of limiting your opponent's next move; the second is to calculate your current move with the objective of increasing the number of possibilities on your next move.

If we were to play life like a game of chess, and since we may or may not have an opponent in life, it would probably be best to play the game by making our immediate choices with the objective of increasing the number of choices in our futures.

You can choose to stay home from school today, but that may limit your college and career possibilities in the future. You can choose not to spend your money on bubble gum today and hopefully be able to afford a big-ticket item like a bicycle tomorrow. You can choose to get pregnant while in high school and possibly never have a chance to go on to college. You can choose to do crime and possibly end up in jail.

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MrSquicky
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Yes bev, but we frame it very differently. The main thrust of OSC's thought seems to me to be that we should choose to limit our choices. So the thing about marriage is that you choose not to consider other attractions.

My main point is that the inability to deal with choice is a symptom of a wider problem and that a true marriage is one that builds meaning between the two people. It's possible that this could involve an "open" marriage. I really don't know, although my gut feeling is that it probably wouldn't. The measurement for me is the meaning, not the exclusivity. Exclusive relationships can have the same problem in regards to lack of meaning.

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Dagonee
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Hmm. I interpreted it as the "limiting your own choices" really being an interim step in the process, a process which depends on the identification of what's important to the chooser. That is, limiting choices is really an effect of something else.

His talk about being a satisficer entails the ability to identify what's important and spend little effort on aspects of decisions that aren't important.

The sweater example is key - he doesn't really limit his choices (except for the rash thing); instead, he stops when certain standards are achieved in the sweater search.

Again, I'm more interested in the different ways we interpreted it rather than the actual content of the article.

Dagonee

[ March 01, 2005, 02:14 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]

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beverly
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Mr. Squicky, do you mean that you don't think that the exclusivity part of marriage is important? Or that it is optional?

It is pretty important to me. The "meaning" part is important too. But the exclusivity adds to the meaning, for me. Not everyone looks at things like I do, though. [Dont Know]

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MrSquicky
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Dag,
I don't see that as limitng choices at all. If you know what's important to you, you're not limiting your choices. You're making the best choice based on what you want. Part of this is the recognition of how much efffort needs to be put into a decision.

The Maximizer/Satificer breakdown seemed to me to be more about dealing with regret (potential before the choice and actual afterwards) so didn't speak directly to the concept of the number of choices. That is, a Satisficer makes a choice. It may not be the best choice, but they don't really care. It's the one they made and it's good enough, so they're not going to ruminate about how things might be better if they had taken another choice (which would have entailed spending a lot more time making that decision). The Maximizers, on the other hand, are caught up in what might have been and when they should be focusing on getting the best out of the choice they made (or actually making a choice instead of spending an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what the exact best choice would be), they are instead thinking about how things might have been better if they did something else. This isn't so much a question of the number of choices as it is the way that people approach choosing.

It's like the quality of life issue or the comparaitve self-esteem. When you spend your time thinking about how your life would be better instead of living within the life you have, your life is going to be miserable. There's not really a secret to being happy. Life imposes certain things on you. If they make you unhappy, you can either change them or change yourself.

People in our society are unhappy because they don't realize this and because they are alienated from who they actually are and the things that actually make them happy. They don't know how to be happy and so they pursue things that are never going to get them there. The person who can't choose between a bunch of attractive vacation offers doesn't realize that the prime determiner of how much enjoyment he's going to get is himself, not the activity he chooses.

The main problem I had with OSC's take was that I feel that he was presenting the symptoms of a deeper problem as a problem in and of itself and that his proffered solution dealt with some of the symptoms without touching the underlying issue.

Dedication and meaning oftentime necessitate restricting your choices, but that doesn't mean that the solution to the absence of dedication and meaning is to restrict your choices. It's a side-effect, not a goal in and of itself. Likewise, to a person who possesses dedication and meaning, a whole plethora of choices is not really all that anxiety producing, although it can sometimes make things cluttered and more time consuming than they would otherwise be.

edit: bev, that last paragraph explains the marriage thing a little more. Also, by your religion, marriage is not necessarily detracted from by non-exclusivity (on the part of the husband anyway). If the polgyamous marriages of past LDS are meaningful, then it's obvious that one-to-one exlcusivity and settling on one person and not looking for others can't destroy meaning in the marriage relationship.

[ March 01, 2005, 02:40 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]

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Dagonee
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As I said, it's limiting choices as an interim step. Choosing not to investigate further choices when a satisfactory but not ideal solution is found certainly limits ones choices.

In this case, it's knowing what is enough to satisfy and being confident enough to not investigate all choices is the behavior that brings about the beneficial effects of being a satsificer. In the interim, this limits your choices. BUT, it limits them in ways that don't matter.

quote:
Dedication and meaning oftentime necessitate restricting your choices, but that doesn't mean that the solution to the absence of dedication and meaning is to restrict your choices. It's a side-effect, not a goal in and of itself.
I thought this was implicit (and explicit at two points) in the article.

Dagonee

[ March 01, 2005, 02:38 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]

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beverly
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quote:
Dedication and meaning oftentime necessitate restricting your choices, but that doesn't mean that the solution to the absence of dedication and meaning is to restrict your choices. It's a side-effect, not a goal in and of itself.
But did he imply that it was the goal? The goal is happiness. He implied that the way to avoid unnecessary regret, which ruins happiness, is in how we deal with choices. I think the whole message can be summed up in "Quit worrying about where the pastures might be greener and be grateful for what you have." And he implied that part of the way we do this is to not consider the choices that lead us to those apparently greener pastures by abandoning what we already have.

He never says don't abandon an abusive marriage or use your willpower to try to get out of a bad situation. He is saying if your situation is good, don't worry about how it isn't something completely different.

Basically, gratitude for what you have can lead to increased happiness while worrying about what you don't have can make you miserable. That's what I got out of the article, anyway.

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MrSquicky
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Bev,
I edited the end of may last post to dirctly adress you. Just a headsup.

Dag,
OSC starts off with this:
quote:
Why is it that even though we live in the richest country in the world and have an enormous number of choices we can make every day, we Americans show signs of being unhappier than we were 30 or 50 years ago?

Why are so many people so much more depressed?

Why are people who have everything so dissatisfied?

In the book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, Barry Schwartz takes a serious scientific and logical look at why it might be that Americans feel so oppressed in the midst of freedom, so unhappy in the midst of plenty.

His theory?

Too many choices.

I don't think he deviates from this theme of the number of choices in the article. The places where he says something more seem to me to come out the groundwork of number of choices and not (as I would have it) the other way around. I looked up Schwartz work expecting it to be pop-psych, easy explanation stuff, because that's the way it came across to me from what OSC wrote. It sounded like me that what he got out of what Schwartz wrote was that people are unhappy because they have too many choices and that the way to deal with this is to choose to limit your choices. as I've said, my own take on the issue is that there is a much deeper problem of people being alienated from themselves and lacking meaing and identity that makes it so they can't deal with many choices. For people with these things, the number of choice problem doesn't really exist, just like, contrary to OSC's assertion, people in a meaningful collaborative relationship are not threatened when other people get a divorce (or when two gay people marry).

edit: To put it another way, OSC seemed to me to be talking about a way to not be as sick, whereas I'm tlaking about a way to be healthy.

[ March 01, 2005, 02:53 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]

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Lady Jane
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I don't see it that way at all. OSC's theory wasn't too many choices - he reports that it was the other guy's theory. He does eloborate and expand on that theory.

[ March 01, 2005, 02:55 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]

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beverly
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quote:
Also, by your religion, marriage is not necessarily detracted from by non-exclusivity (on the part of the husband anyway). If the polgyamous marriages of past LDS are meaningful, then it's obvious that one-to-one exlcusivity and settling on one person and not looking for others can't destroy meaning in the marriage relationship.

This may, in actuality, be true, but believe me when I say it is very, very difficult for me to comprehend. [Smile]

I repeat, for *me* the exclusivity definitely adds to the meaning. [Smile]

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MrSquicky
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kat,
Where do you see him elaborating and expanding on it? From what I see, he is firmly within the theory the entire column. Also, as I've found when I read Schwartz's work, what I saw OSC saying doesn't adequately reflect the depth of Schwartz's thought. What OSC describes isn't actually Schwartz' theory.

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Lady Jane
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quote:
Even though having too many choices is the cause of a lot of misery, the solution is not to eliminate choices. A few months ago, in the former East Germany, we were talking to a German who said, “I just don’t understand why you need so many kinds of soap. In the old days, we went to the store and bought soap. It was so simple.”

Well, I don’t want that system. I like having choices. I wish we had more of them. Or at least I wish that they wouldn’t keep taking choices away.

But it isn’t the choices themselves that matter. It’s the sense of control of our own lives. And, paradoxically, we often get far more of a sense of control – of autonomy – by voluntarily limiting our own choices than we get by leaving all our options open, all the time.

I’ve had people say, when they learned that I don’t take illegal drugs or drink alcohol or use tobacco, “How do you live with limits like that?” They are especially critical when they realize that it’s part of my religion.

But to me, they aren’t limits. They’re choices that have become part of who I am. And my religion didn’t force those choices on me; I chose to be part of that religion and chose those rules as part of my identity. It’s as comfortable a fit as an extra-large cotton sweater.

I have more freedom, I think; not less.

The same thing applies with other matters. I accept the consequences of having embarked on a committed, no-fault marriage – the opposite of a no-fault divorce. It means constant effort to know what the other person’s happiness requires and to try to provide it; it means many sacrifices as the needs of wife and children require me to give up choices that might otherwise be mine.

But within that marriage and family, I have opportunities that simply aren’t available to those whose relationships are more tentative.

He doesn't do a book report of Schwartz's theory, but instead uses it as a launching pad for his own thoughts and theory.
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Dagonee
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quote:
I don't think he deviates from this theme of the number of choices in the article. The places where he says something more seem to me to come out the groundwork of number of choices and not (as I would have it) the other way around.
I think this is a common theme in the differences in how we interpret OSC's work. As I read him, OSC usually reveals a simplified statement and adds nuance. Usually, the amount of nuance is such that the actual point is not the one summarized by the earlier thesis statement or section. His writing to me is such that no one sentence contains even a subset of his meaning - it builds together. The same kind of thing happened in the last article we discussed, I think, although the order was a little different.

I think much of this derives from his focus on fiction, where directly stating the idea is pretty much out of the question. I think OSC relies heavily on the "connections" or relationships between what he states to convey a large percentage of the meaning.

Dagonee

[ March 01, 2005, 03:07 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]

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MrSquicky
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Yeah, kat, maybe you should read the articles of Schwartz's that I linked.

Oh, and I don't think it would be an OSC column if he didn't make an unwarrented shot at some group he doesn't like. So, let me go on record saying that when I was at Penn, I was actually taught by and worked under the best professors, such as Briton Chance, Ivar Berg, and Robert Rescorla (who had a weekly public lunch that he invited students to come to). I never did take a class with Martin Seligman, but a friend of mine did and she ended up working on his projects. The description of Ivy League universities as places where the best professors don't teach the students is ridiculous slander by a man who doens't know what he's talking about. The professors I knew were eager to work with the students as these students are the very best and brightest in the country.

[ March 01, 2005, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]

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Dagonee
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quote:
Yeah, maybe you should read the articles of Schwart'z that I linked,
Who is this in response to?
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Lady Jane
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It wouldn't be an OSC column if Squicky didn't post about how much smarter he is.

Squick, you get ruder every time you post. Don't condescend to me.

[ March 01, 2005, 03:12 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]

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