Why I choose to have less choice

Shopping around is the mantra of the modern era. But who really benefits from our befuddlement?

Tim Lott in The Guardian

Once, when I was suffering a fit of depression, I walked into a supermarket to buy a packet of washing powder. Confronted by a shelf full of different possibilities, I stood there for 15 minutes staring at them, then walked out without buying any washing powder at all.

I still feel echoes of that sensation of helplessness. If I just want to buy one item but discover that if I buy three of the items I will save myself half the item price, I find myself assailed by choice paralysis.

The only thing worse than never having a choice is always having to choose

Oliver Burkeman

 

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I hate making consumer choices at the best of times, because I have this uncomfortable suspicion that big companies are trying to gull me out of as much money as possible, using sophisticated techniques designed by people who are smarter than I am.

For instance, when I buy an insurance product, how can I decide whether I should just buy the cheapest, or the best? The best is the one most likely to pay out without penalty or fuss, but that information is much harder to find out than factors such as cost, extent of cover, etc. It’s complicated. So I often try not to make choices – by just putting my payments for insurance with my usual insurers on direct debit, for example, which means I don’t have to think about shopping around.

This issue of choice and complexity lies at the heart of the experience of being modern. It penetrates commerce, politics and our personal lives. It may even be connected to the fact that there are higher levels of depression in society than ever before.

This idea was suggested by Barry Schwartz in his book The Paradox of Choice. Choice oppresses us. Why? Because there are too many choices and they are often too complex for us to be confident that we are making the right one.

When you might have 200 potential choices to make of a particular style of camera, it is difficult to feel sure you have chosen the right one – even if you spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make a rational decision. Or you may see the same model two weeks after you’ve bought it being sold more cheaply. When there was less choice and fewer types of camera, this kind of experience was rare. Our capacity for hindsight has become a means of punishing ourselves.

Complexity is not entirely accidental. Late capitalism solves the dilemma of competition (for the producer) through complexity. To try to choose a mortgage, or a pension, or a computer, requires a tremendous amount of application, so we become relatively easy to gull. Whether it is a power company or a loan company, we struggle to understand tariffs, terms and the small print. Exhausted, we just take a stab and hope for the best, or we succumb to inertia; choose what we have always chosen. Consumers are thrown back on simple cues that are advantageous to the producers, such as brand recognition.

Accept complexity – which means accepting that you can never be sure you made the right choice

Complexity also impacts on politics. Once it was pretty clear who to vote for – your class position, on the whole, made it a simple matter of self-interest for most voters. Now we have become closer to what is ironically the democratic ideal – ie choice-making actors – voting is more of a challenge than it once was. Do you really have a good enough grasp of economic theory to judge whether it is best to spend or save in a recession? Do you understand the complexities of private provision in the NHS enough to rule it out? Do you know enough about international affairs to support a reduction in defence spending, or a retreat from the EU? Most people don’t – so, again, they make snap judgments based on loyalty and sentiment.

This problem of choice and complexity is ubiquitous. It applies in medicine. If I am ill and asked to make a choice about treatment, I would often rather leave the choice to the doctor, if only because if the wrong choice is made, I am not going to feel nearly so bad about it. I had a prostate cancer scare recently, and I just wanted to be told what to do – not decide whether, say, I should choose an operation that would guarantee impotency in order to stave off a 5% chance of cancer. The burden of choice was too big.

In the field of education a similar dilemma applies. Once your child went to the local primary or secondary. Now you have to decide from a bewildering number of types of school. In the personal realm, once, you stayed married for life. Now, if you are in an unhappy marriage you have to decide whether to stay or not. These may be all positive developments, but they come at a cost – the potential for regret.

So how should one react to complexity? Schwartz suggests we should limit choice, not extend it. If you are shopping for food, go to supermarkets that are priced simply with a limited range, such as Aldi and Lidl. Recognise and accept complexity – which means accepting that you can never be sure that you’ve made the right choice.

Above all, don’t fall for the old trope of only wanting “the best”. Schwartz calls such people “maximisers” – people who are never happy, because they have expectations that can never be met, since in a world of complexity and unlimited choice there is always a better option. Be a “satisficer” instead – people who are happy to say “that’s good enough”, or “it’ll do”.

This may not work in politics – saying the Conservatives “will do” when you wanted the Green party is not very satisfactory – but as a consumer, and in life generally, it’s a pretty good formula. It’ll do, anyway.

Immigrants - Confusion of Unknown Origins

Interview with Tahir Gora on his book Rangmahal - a story of confusion among the Indian diaspora

Arming people and bombing them at the same time: that’s some strategy

By Mark Steel in The Independent

At last the West has developed a coherent strategy for Iraq. It goes, “No, hang on, maybe if we arm THESE blokes on the backs of trucks, make up THESE stories and bomb everyone on THIS side of the mountain, maybe THAT will work.”

There can’t be many people in the Middle East who haven’t been bombed by America for using the weapons given to them by America. Millions of people out there must be psychological wrecks, not because of shell shock but because when a Western army arrives, they don’t know if they’re going to be tortured with garden shears or given a palace and told they’re the new king.

The poor sods who ruled Iran must all need counselling, telling a therapist, “America kept saying it wanted to bomb me, now it says that when it told me I was a rabid, lying, filthy piece of squalid medieval vermin building nuclear weapons so I could destroy the universe and make flowers wear burkas, it was only being ironic. And if we really haven’t got any nuclear weapons they’ll lend us a couple, as long as we use them against the Islamic State people. I’m so confused I’ve started barking like a dog.”

We support anti-Assad forces in Syria, but some of them support Isis, who now call themselves Islamic State, so now we want to arm them and bomb them at the same time. If we can supply them with rocket launchers that they fire against Assad in the morning, then in the afternoon use them to blow themselves up, maybe that will keep everyone content. 

With similar skill we armed Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein, and Colonel Gadaffi, and there must have been times when we’ve swapped sides during an air strike, between a bomb being launched and when it landed, so we’ve had to try and get all the armies on the ground to move round as we’re now on the side of the militia we were about to wipe out.

Former US presidential candidate John McCain is a master at this art. Since losing the election McCain has called for so many wars he’s been like those people who try to visit every football ground in the league,  aiming to call for every single country in the world to be bombed, ticking each one off as he goes. Eventually he’ll call for air strikes on Liechtenstein and the occupation of Barbados and he’ll be finished. 

In May of this year McCain went to Syria to pose for photographs with Syrian rebels who he insisted we supply with weapons. But the rebels he befriended are now part of Isis. This is a slightly unexpected turn for the right wing of the Republican Party – that it now supports holy jihad and the destruction of the West – but it’s a shrewd politician who knows how to move with the times.

It makes you realise if they hadn’t hanged Saddam and shot Bin Laden, they’d probably both be back on our side by now, and occasionally reviewing the papers on the BBC News Channel. There certainly seems to be nostalgia for Bin Laden, as politicians and commentators have insisted the current enemy is “far worse than al-Qa’ida. Because say what you will about the fundamentalist rascals, at least they were gentlemen, and the basements they made their videos in were always impeccably tidy, not like this lot you get these days”.

So a more efficient method of arranging our Middle Eastern wars might be to line everyone up when we get there, and pick sides, like with football teams at school. A general and a jihadist can take turns to select soldiers until there are only the useless ones left, then each side can wear yellow bibs so everyone knows who to fire at and who to call despicable savages that have to be stopped as we can’t stand by and do nothing.

To be fair there are some areas in which we’ve tried a more stable approach. For example, Saudi Arabia is always seen as a friend, and we’ve just agreed to sell them another £1.6bn worth of arms. But that can’t do any harm because at least they’re a modern nation with decent liberal values, like a little bit of Brighton in the desert. 

And Israel is always a close ally, with £3bn of arms a year from America, which goes to show if a country keeps its nose clean and doesn’t behave unpleasantly in any way it will be rewarded now and then with little treats.

That’s why one of the most confusing aspects of all is those people most keen to start another military campaign in Iraq, seem to dismiss the idea that the current mess has anything to do with the last military campaign in Iraq. And they may be right, because although we invaded the place on the insistence that there were weapons that didn’t exist, killing so many people we somehow made things even worse than they’d been under Saddam, we left there 18 months ago so I don’t suppose anyone still remembers that now.

So politicians will explain that we have to send our armies again, because these people are “pure distilled evil, the most appalling creatures, far worse than Satan”, before it’s pointed out to them that six months ago they invited them all to the White House for a barbecue and as a present gave them a flamethrower and a tank.

The masks we wear

Often what we see of cricketers on the field is not their real selves. It's just a facade that hides the confusion that resides within

Martin Crowe

November 28, 2013

 

	It's a time for Jonathan Trott to seek clarity © Getty Images  Enlarge

I admire the quote from Mark Twain where he said, "The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why."

It's a deep, thought-provoking observation. Why are we here and who are we?

The more fortunate ones have an inbuilt belief as to why they exist. They flow through life. Then there are the masses who ebb and flow, searching and evolving. There are also many who discover that for much of their lives they are unsure. Then one day they realise that, in fact, who they are is masked. They reach the point when enough frustration is enough. Only at that point does the real truth surface; the mask must be removed.

Jonathan Trott has reached a point. This is the point or the day he will find out why he was born, what his life is truly about. When I heard the news I felt I knew where he was in his mind. I have been in similar territory too. Many times.

If you are to choose one word to describe what he is feeling it is "confusion". Confusion is the opposite of clarity. The mind, and thoughts that come thick and fast at you, are muddled, twisted and distorted. You search for clues as to how to go forward at any moment, and as you decipher it all, you can become untrusting, unsure, and uncertain as to the clues you find. The higher the expectation of life, the harder it is to work out. Confusion is a killer.

Where does the core of this confusion grow? My feeling is that it grows in the first decade or so of your life. Then it becomes cemented between the ages of 15 to 20. From there you learn ways to wear the mask. As your body and mind reach maturity you realise the mask is necessary. The higher you expose your confusion, the more the mask becomes permanent.

My mask was firmly in position by the age of 22. I had tasted Test cricket for two years, played 13 Tests, averaging 21. I was supposed to be one of the best young players in the world. Expectations were high and I wasn't meeting them. I cried a lot, moods ebbed and flowed, emotions ran hot. My dream as a boy of scoring a hundred at Lord's was fading fast.

Then I found a mask, and I began to fake it until I made it. Part of the mask was to copy great players to hide my own inadequacies. The other part was: I was created from a fast-tracking system and had no emotional stability, so I had to make up time fast. As time went by I completely lost touch with that warm-hearted kid from Titirangi. Instead I became an aloof, intense, moody son of a bitch from New Zealand. Darth Vader, playing top-level cricket.

I made it, just. I scored the hundred at Lord's, I notched up hundreds around the world as my dream world wanted me to. I loved batting. But I grew to hate myself and the mask I wore. Off the field I was totally lost. As the expectations of a nation climbed, I knew the mask was not going anywhere. It had to stay on until the job was done.

	England need to see Australia for who they are as a team and a nation right now: fully masked and in stage mode, well prepared and united

Then the body started to bend and break. The feet stopped moving smoothly. The failures arrived. In my last seven Tests I averaged 19. I broke down completely and retired depressed. To get back up on my feet the mask remained on, for television. Last year, when cancer knocked loudly, I had no choice anymore but to face the truth and start again. I unmasked in public and I surrendered to help. It was the only way.

Today, while some confusion exists, the mask has gone and I am happy to look at the real me for the first time in a long time. I accept who I am. When folks ask me what the meaning of success is, I reply that it's accepting who you are.

At this difficult moment in his life, Jonathan Trott is a very important story. It is about the courage and honesty that are driving his desire to remove the confusion and frustration and find his true fulfilment. And he will, slowly, he will. He has shown his resilience at certain points as a batsman, and he will do so again as he identifies that beyond the often boring expectations of being an international sportsman, he is an authentic, loving man.

On the other side of the pitch, wearing another mask, is David Warner. His recent behaviour of lashing out at people tells the story of a man also confused and frustrated, despite his talent. And he continues to lash out, with bat and mouth. That he wears the macho bravado mask, the loud arrogance that is more ego-driven, there is no doubt. His batting has hit a golden run and it's actually pleasant to watch. It's what he is good at. Yet his story has only just begun. Hopefully he will see that life isn't about beating up others but about accepting who you are. I'm sure deep down in Warner there is a genuine spirit.

Which makes me consider the Ashes. While one or two masks are being shed, there is no doubt that the gloves are off for Australia. Failure has forced them to secure the mask once and for all until the last ball is bowled; no drinks with the opposition, no warmth shared, and only a minimum respect. Australia have donned battle garb, to mask their frailties, and it has surprisingly caught England off guard.

Alas, it is not real. If we are honest, it's just a façade. It's not really Michael Clarke's true self, or Darren Lehmann's. Clarke, up until five minutes to go in the Brisbane Test, displayed a real face and spirit to the challenge in front of him. Then, on the stroke of the kill, his face changed and the mask was there for all to see, ugly and not authentic.

	James Anderson would be better off focusing on hitting the top of off stump © Getty Images  Enlarge

The finger-pointing rant was a performance to lead into the next battle in Adelaide. He did not need to act the way he did. That he did is indeed the Australian way, given they have been humiliated so much recently and had smelled blood. At this point, for such a proud cricketing nation, failure is not an option.

It's all put on to frighten away the demons of the last three series. That is what the Ashes has become, a gladiator sport, fuelled by drama and controversy. As cricket entertainment goes, it's riveting and compelling. After it is done, they will all go home, try and take off the false ego, and try and be human again, especially in front of family and friends. The lucky ones will take the masks off easily, knowing they are fake, while for those who conceal it, confusion will continue to hit bumps in the road.

England need to see Australia for who they are as a team and a nation right now; fully masked and in stage mode, well prepared and united. Even sections of the media are on show, as the Broad ban showed. Nevertheless, if England see through the acting and ignore it, and instead focus on the energy, and on being true to themselves, then they can and will compete closely.

If Jimmy Anderson can pull his head in and concentrate on late swing, he will be doing his job for his country. He is not getting better as his body slows down, especially while acting a clown, so his efforts should be on hitting the top of off stump. Additionally KP and Prior could do with simply playing straight as a button for a while.

Whether they are good enough across the park right now in these "rather hot" foreign conditions, is another matter. What they must insist upon and lay down as their true intent is that they will not be fooled into noticing the act. Cook is the perfect man to lead this honest endeavour. He is truly grounded and real, with the fortitude to grind down the macho manoeuvring.