Are too many choices overwhelming?

Another quote from McCraken's book, Plenitude:

Plato's theory of plenitude fits our social world. All that can be imagined must be. No genuine potentiality of being can remain unfulfilled. The body politic fizzes with innovation. Kinds of gender and age multiply. Terrifying creatures multiply almost as fast as good ones. Categories of time and life-style multiply. Categories of the state, the workplace and the family emerge constantly. We are busting out all over.

For some reason, I couldn't get Transformation to download, but this paragraph in the conclusion of Plenitude fits what most of us feel about all the choices--we like them, we are used to them, we worry about where it all will lead.

One of the main points is that we must embrace the choices and all the differences without dismissing our solid values. What I didn't find, which is probably in Transformation, is how to do this without becoming so diluted in our thinking that we lose the capacity to be discriminating.

Society has to adapt to these changes, for they aren't going away. Does society simply adjust without most of us being aware of the change?

Appears to me that a major change of choices not often thought of is PEOPLE, until post WW II our range of meeting others was very limited geographically/socially. Where there once were handfulls of possible significant others, there now thre are 1,000's.

Dys, interesting point. Plentitude of choices and tough decisions. Don't you think that, when faced with so many choices, we tend to want to experiment? It can be as simple as when I go to the drug store and wind up buying two lipsticks instead of one or as complex, with lasting consequences, as choosing another partner.
Are people divorcing more and more because they are finding that monogamy is unrealistic, or because there are so many more choices, or both? No matter the situation, serious or innocent, when faced with choices, we do want to try, or experiment, with as many as possible. Some people do that with other people.

Yes, we have immence choice in nearly everything, from breakfast cerial to cars to houses. Money permitting.

Diane I was born in a 1942 and London was not only devoid of choice but also of quantity. Everything was rationed and it was not for several years after the war ended that all rationing finished.
I don't feel I was deprived as such. As I grew older things steadily improved and on all levels. When I see the huge number of cars, pooters, Multi Channel TVs on sale and when I go to the supermarket and see the vast choice and range of food stuff from all corners of the world, I think I'm going crazy. Particularly when I see on the news how the Iragis are suffering with shortages. Anyone can politiscise these situations but can I justify buying a whole wild salmon when some people in many 3rd world countries can't afford to buy a can of sardines. I guess I can, my country, my income and my supermarket say it's ok. So do I do it and turn a blind eye to those worse off than us ?

John, that's the question, isn't it? T'was ever thus and always will be as long as there is plenty and human nature doesn't take a 180% turn.
I love the choices, I love nice things and usually get them within my budget, but the guilt is always in the back of my mind. Should it be? Not sure.

accidents of birth

And that's another option for a little ever-present guilt, senseless as it may be.
It's also too late for me to rely on the proper working of my brain.
Goodnight, all.

I enjoy having a lot of choices, the problem I have is that the majority of the selections are not choices, they are clones of each other. Very few offer true variety, innovation or improvement and when one of these is offered they are soon buried in an avalanche of cheaper copies that don't quite equal the original.

Having choices forces/allows people to become savvy consumers. Having the ability to comparison shop helps keep the manufacturers from ripping us off too badly. These days people have substituted convenience for quality and they're getting exactly what they're willing to pay for.

It's a plastic world with plastic money and plastic taste.

Butrflynet, that is where education comes in when we raise our children. So much is dependent on marketing, not quality, that we need to learn how to distinguish what is well made and what is junk.
Pretty packaging and clever phrasing that seems to include you in a desirable group make a seductive combination for a teenager.

A teenager?! It's a seductive combination for all of us!

You're right about educating the next generation. (And this said by one who has made a fair living from advertising/marketing, btw...) I have always taught my son to look past the packaging.

As of course we all know Diane, choice in our Western Powerhouses is paramount to our economic system. Then when I see on TV those pitiful pictures of people who for one reason or another are dying, either because of war, famine or natural disasters, it sends an almighty shudder right through me. Sorrow, guilt, and many more questions as to WHY IT KEEPS HAPPENING. The big question is why are we, with so much national wealth in our collective hands, so backwards in coming forwards. The politics fights the aid workers who fight the local system. Often we hear people say, "if only we did this or knew that, it would of been better". Hindsight is a wonderfull science but a lousy reconciler.
I am so very glad that I live where I do, in a country with a stable government and society plus an equitable climate and not in some God forsaken hell hole where life is often cheaper than a row of beans

Absolutely. The truth is in most places even locally grown fruit and veg is no longer fresh by the time you buy it, it is just not rotten. Test this by planting a small garden or picking a piece of fresh fruit straight from the tree, you will be amazed.
There is an illusion of choice in our supermarkets but so much of it is product differentiation rather than actual difference.
I was once in a brewery bottling plant when the brand of beer suddenly changed from A to B, B being A's major competitor. Two brands gain more market share.

Welcome, gozmo! Excellent point and another reason for educating ourselves and our children. It is encouraging to see more organic produce in the supermarkets; however, there was recent legislation weakening the strict rules applied to the term organic. Naturally (senior moment), I can't remember what it was--I think something to do with the use of pesticides or fertilizer. I'll try to find out on google.

Viz, so right about adults needing education as well as children. I've done plenty of impulse buying, to my regret.

Oak, I couldn't agree more about being thankful to live in a country with stability and wealth. It just doesn't seem as stable as it used to be and our ways of doing business with third world countries makes it difficult to see all those choices without a certain feeling of ill-gotten gains.

Found it! This is from Rep. Farr:
With the onset of a new year, the organic industry suffered a setback in the form of the 2003 Omnibus Appropriations bill. Section 771 in the Omnibus passed by Congress allows certified "organic" livestock to feed on conventional instead of organic grains. According to this provision, the federal government cannot appropriate any money to enforce the organic standard as it applies to organic feedstock if a USDA study finds that the cost of organic feed is more than twice that of conventional feed, undermining the National Organic Standard that was established last October.

Following...

All I know is that since getting digital cable, I have the choice of 200+ channels of crap....

Is the issue one of having too many choices or not having the reasoning skills and attitudes for sorting through the choices?

Too many choices can be a problem.

Jeff, are you a daddy ?

Mapleleaf,

that sounds a tad testy, what criteria do you suggest, other than cheapest of course.