The Tyranny of Choice

Everywhere you go these days you hear politicians using the ‘c’ word. They seem to talk about hardly anything else when it comes to public services, it’s ‘c’ this and ‘c’ that, one wonders how we managed in the days before “choice”. Choice in education, choice in healthcare, choice to gamble or drink ourselves stupid 24 hours a day, choice is a central pillar of every parties manifesto in the bright and shiny 21st century.

Choice is good, we live in a democracy and that's something even the Luddite doesn't want to change. But whether it’s what phone company we use, who supplies our electricity or whatever, everything is our choice, because we are consumers and people tell us that's what we want. But they’re lying, and your powers of choice would be best employed by ‘choosing’ to hit these 'people' over the head with a blunt instrument. The government likes choice, because it helps them to abdicate responsibility. But choice is a fiction here, why should I need to choose? I might want to decide what to have for dinner, but if my dinner subsequently poisons me I should be able to go to whatever hospital is nearest. Equally I shouldn’t have to move house to be able to choose a decent school for my kids. They should ALL be good, that’s the governments job – not offering choice!

It is not choice to allow us to decide between the lesser of two evils, it is our right to expect everything to be of a uniformly high standard. Instead we are bamboozled with reports and gradings and league tables and all the other crap which proves how well things are going. Psychologists have shown that too much choice is bad for you, increasing anxiety and uncertainty in a world already blighted with it’s fair share of both.

Get on with it and stop telling me I have the choice of ten buses which are late, when I only want one that runs on time. Politicians need to start singing a different song because we're being palmed off with poor public services through spurious 'choices' which fail to address the root cause. Luckily we still have the choice to vote at the next election. But as with the decision between several germ ridden local hospitals, what choice do we really have?

Stating the Bleeding Obvious

I see there is a gent called Neil Boorman doing the rounds at the moment, he’s got a book out and he’s going to try and make a few quid out of it. Having burnt all his expensive designer togs he has spent a year buying no branded merchandise at all, from his clothes to his food he has avoided everything – although apparently he has had some issues with toilet paper, he should have used leaves, newspaper or copies of his book perhaps. The luddite should be pleased at someone taking a step back from today’s rampant consumerism, but frankly, he’s annoyed. Why? Because this is the latest in a long line of publicity seeking idiots who have decided to make money out of stating the bleeding obvious to open mouthed, brainless ‘right-on’ liberals.

Remember Morgan Spurlock and his “Supersize Me” movie, wasn’t that clever and insightful? Yeah he made a stack of cash telling us that if we ate nothing but McDonalds for a month we’d probably look a bit pasty by the end of it. Really? Bloody hell, what an incredible revelation that was. This new fella is letting us know that in a society of rampant consumerism it can be a bit tricky getting about the place if you’re hell bent on avoiding all brands, even crap ones like Kwiksave and Amstrad. If you want to find out more you’ll need to buy his book which he’s published through a branded publishing house rather than typing each copy out personally and selling it on street corners, which would perhaps be more in keeping with his big point. The man is an idiot and one assumes a recently graduated art student.

Do these people think we’re stupid? Do they think we don’t see through their hollow gestures straight to the bottom line? Yes they do, and they’re right because we seem to lap up this crap. Michael Moore has made a career out of it, guns are bad, the US made a mistake going to Iraq etc, it’s all delivered with the same hyperbole and one-sidedness that they condemn the perpetrators for using and it’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer between the eyes. By reducing these complex arguments to black and white polemics they add nothing to the debate and simply make all the detractors look like fools. You need to make the audience think if you want them to react, not simply beat them over the head like it's an Oliver Stone movie.

Me I’m off to make a new documentary on the dangers of the motor car. I’m going to lie in the road in an effort to prove that cars can kill you if you’re not careful, I will be shocked, stunned and quite possibly slaughtered when I find out that these machines we drive around in everyday have the power to kill unsuspecting pedestrians. I’m expecting to make a posthumous fortune out of it.