Our Modern Glut of Choice

Critics at Large | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Society & Culture

4.4 • 679 Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For many of us, daily life is defined by a near-constant stream of decisions, from what to buy on Amazon to what to watch on Netflix. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider how we came to see endless selection as a fundamental right. The hosts discuss “The Age of Choice,” a new book by the historian Sophia Rosenfeld, which traces how our fixation with the freedom to choose has evolved over the centuries. Today, an abundance of choice in one sphere often masks a lack of choice in others—and, with so much focus on individual rather than collective decision-making, the glut of options can contribute to a profound sense of alienation. “When all you do is choose, choose, choose, what you do is end up by yourself,” Cunningham says. “Putting yourself with people seems to be one of the salves.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Could Anyone Keep Track of This Year’s Microtrends?” by Danielle Cohen (The Cut)
“The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life,” by Sophia Rosenfeld
“The Federalist Papers,” by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay
“What Does It Take to Quit Shopping? Mute, Delete and Unsubscribe,” by Jordyn Holman and Aimee Ortiz (The New York Times)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Critics at Large, a podcast from the New Yorker.
0:09.2	I'm Vincent Cunningham.
0:10.4	I'm Nomi Fry.
0:11.4	And I'm Alex Schwartz.
0:13.5	Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here.
0:18.6	Hello, critics.
0:19.7	Hello.
0:24.5	Okay. I have a series of words. I would like to just run by you. I want you to tell me if you know
0:32.3	what these things have in common. Okay. Here we go. Are you ready? This is like, yeah, this is like
0:38.2	the SATs or something? Is it like one of the scary things? It's not about you. It's about them.
0:42.7	Do you know what I mean? It doesn't reflect on you. Okay, thank God. Let's just begin with that.
0:46.8	So it. Weave it. Pointing. Slipper satin. Dimity. Oh.
1:12.1	Are, that's it? I'll go on. Oh. Wimborn White. Oh. James White. White tie. Lime white. Oh, these paint colors? Are these swatches? Is this pants? Swatches. Swatches. Vincent Cunningham. It took me a while. At first I thought it was like something to do with lingerie.
1:13.4	Oh, I was a bit tricky about it. Yeah, yeah, it were a bit tricky.
1:14.9	These are all different shades of white by the luxury paint company, Farrow and Ball.
1:22.6	These are all shades of white.
1:24.2	I have lovingly poured over in swatch form an array of choices that my feeble
1:31.3	mortal mind simply cannot sort through or understand how to preference one white over the other.
1:38.0	Maybe by the end of my days I will have figured it out, but I simply don't know.
1:41.8	And I'm bringing this up right now because choice is something that's been much on my mind. It is so woven into the experience of being alive right now in all realms. You want to paint a room? Good luck to you. You know, you go and weave it or you go in Wimbor and White. Or are you even going with Farrow and Ball? My lord, Have you seen the Benjamin Moore selections? What about Dimity?
2:01.6	Dimit. Don't even get me started. Dimity. So, on the one hand, all of us are living more luxuriously than ever before. You know, the idea that I would go to my Sheddle ancestors and talk about dimity. It's an insult. Yeah. Insult. You know, what did they have? If they didn't have a thousand shades of this and that, that we can just be serious.
2:20.8	It's true.
	...

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