The Age Of Choice

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The Age Of Choice
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Author : Sophia Rosenfeld
language : en
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Release Date : 2025-02-04
The Age Of Choice written by Sophia Rosenfeld and has been published by Princeton University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2025-02-04 with History categories.
"Today choice is often taken to be a synonym for freedom. In much of the world, but especially in the United States, having both more occasions to make choices and more options to choose from are familiar political, personal, and economic goals. We are urged to consider our preferences and then to select from menus of options covering almost every element of our lives, including what to buy, where to live, whom to love, what profession to practice, and even what to believe. We like to think that when we determine our preferences among them, we are engaged in the business of self-realization. And yet, everybody from marketing gurus to psychologists to philosophers has also been warning us about the many negative consequences stemming from our obsession with individualized choice-making. Not only are we not very good at realizing our personal desires, but we are also overwhelmed with too many possibilities, anxious about what best to pick and seemingly unable to muster the same enthusiasm for collective decision making as we do for choices about ourselves. Further, our relentless focus on the responsibility for making good ones has stigmatized those without many options, mainly the poor. How did this happen? Drawing on sources as varied as novels, questionnaires, and restaurant menus, The Choice is Yours tells the long history of the invention of choice as the modern form of freedom. Sophia Rosenfeld pays particular attention to women and the halting emergence of feminism in order to demonstrate how choice was, from the start, stigmatized and turned into a horizon for liberty. Thus, this is also a story about constraints, from formal laws to social customs, that have always worked to limit choice-who gets to do it, when and how they do so, what the choices are-in ways that are often invisible and yet central to the role that choice plays in the modern world. Rosenfeld begins in the early modern Western world, with the contemporaneous invention of shopping as an activity focused on the selection of goods and of religious freedom, in addition to freedom of expression as a matter of being able to pick one's convictions. Moving into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, she explores choice in romantic life, choice in politics, and sciences of choice. She takes up the work of contemporary psychologists, economists, and other theorists and offers a new perspective on how to think about choice now-based on a new reading of the past. An epilogue centers on the rise of reproductive choice and its consequences since the 1970s. Ultimately, The Choice is Yours is an argument for the necessity of rethinking the meaning of choice today, including its promise and its limitations, within the contours of modern liberalism"--
Changing Minds Or Changing Channels
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Author : Kevin Arceneaux
language : en
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Release Date : 2013-08-27
Changing Minds Or Changing Channels written by Kevin Arceneaux and has been published by University of Chicago Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2013-08-27 with Political Science categories.
We live in an age of media saturation, where with a few clicks of the remote—or mouse—we can tune in to programming where the facts fit our ideological predispositions. But what are the political consequences of this vast landscape of media choice? Partisan news has been roundly castigated for reinforcing prior beliefs and contributing to the highly polarized political environment we have today, but there is little evidence to support this claim, and much of what we know about the impact of news media come from studies that were conducted at a time when viewers chose from among six channels rather than scores. Through a series of innovative experiments, Kevin Arceneaux and Martin Johnson show that such criticism is unfounded. Americans who watch cable news are already polarized, and their exposure to partisan programming of their choice has little influence on their political positions. In fact, the opposite is true: viewers become more polarized when forced to watch programming that opposes their beliefs. A much more troubling consequence of the ever-expanding media environment, the authors show, is that it has allowed people to tune out the news: the four top-rated partisan news programs draw a mere three percent of the total number of people watching television. Overturning much of the conventional wisdom, Changing Minds or Changing Channels? demonstrate that the strong effects of media exposure found in past research are simply not applicable in today’s more saturated media landscape.
Democracy And Truth
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Author : Sophia Rosenfeld
language : en
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Release Date : 2018-11-26
Democracy And Truth written by Sophia Rosenfeld and has been published by University of Pennsylvania Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2018-11-26 with History categories.
"Fake news," wild conspiracy theories, misleading claims, doctored photos, lies peddled as facts, facts dismissed as lies—citizens of democracies increasingly inhabit a public sphere teeming with competing claims and counterclaims, with no institution or person possessing the authority to settle basic disputes in a definitive way. The problem may be novel in some of its details—including the role of today's political leaders, along with broadcast and digital media, in intensifying the epistemic anarchy—but the challenge of determining truth in a democratic world has a backstory. In this lively and illuminating book, historian Sophia Rosenfeld explores a longstanding and largely unspoken tension at the heart of democracy between the supposed wisdom of the crowd and the need for information to be vetted and evaluated by a learned elite made up of trusted experts. What we are witnessing now is the unraveling of the détente between these competing aspects of democratic culture. In four bracing chapters, Rosenfeld substantiates her claim by tracing the history of the vexed relationship between democracy and truth. She begins with an examination of the period prior to the eighteenth-century Age of Revolutions, where she uncovers the political and epistemological foundations of our democratic world. Subsequent chapters move from the Enlightenment to the rise of both populist and technocratic notions of democracy between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the troubling trends—including the collapse of social trust—that have led to the rise of our "post-truth" public life. Rosenfeld concludes by offering suggestions for how to defend the idea of truth against the forces that would undermine it.
The Family In The Modern Age
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Author : Brigitte Berger
language : en
Publisher: Routledge
Release Date : 2002
The Family In The Modern Age written by Brigitte Berger and has been published by Routledge this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2002 with Family & Relationships categories.
Third, Berger investigates the degree to which currently identified problems may endanger the modern family's vital individual and social functions. And finally, she develops reasonable projections of the future of the family that will be core elements contributing to the creation of a politically democratic and economically prosperous world."--BOOK JACKET.
You May Also Like
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Author : Tom Vanderbilt
language : en
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date : 2016-05-10
You May Also Like written by Tom Vanderbilt and has been published by Vintage this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016-05-10 with Social Science categories.
Why do we get so embarrassed when a colleague wears the same shirt? Why do we eat the same thing for breakfast every day, but seek out novelty at lunch and dinner? How has streaming changed the way Netflix makes recommendations? Why do people think the music of their youth is the best? How can you spot a fake review on Yelp? Our preferences and opinions are constantly being shaped by countless forces – especially in the digital age with its nonstop procession of “thumbs up” and “likes” and “stars.” Tom Vanderbilt, bestselling author of Traffic, explains why we like the things we like, why we hate the things we hate, and what all this tell us about ourselves. With a voracious curiosity, Vanderbilt stalks the elusive beast of taste, probing research in psychology, marketing, and neuroscience to answer myriad complex and fascinating questions. If you’ve ever wondered how Netflix recommends movies or why books often see a sudden decline in Amazon ratings after they win a major prize, Tom Vanderbilt has answers to these questions and many more that you’ve probably never thought to ask.
Common Sense
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Author : Sophia Rosenfeld
language : en
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Release Date : 2011-05-02
Common Sense written by Sophia Rosenfeld and has been published by Harvard University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011-05-02 with Biography & Autobiography categories.
Common sense has always been a cornerstone of American politics. In 1776, Tom Paine’s vital pamphlet with that title sparked the American Revolution. And today, common sense—the wisdom of ordinary people, knowledge so self-evident that it is beyond debate—remains a powerful political ideal, utilized alike by George W. Bush’s aw-shucks articulations and Barack Obama’s down-to-earth reasonableness. But far from self-evident is where our faith in common sense comes from and how its populist logic has shaped modern democracy. Common Sense: A Political History is the first book to explore this essential political phenomenon. The story begins in the aftermath of England’s Glorious Revolution, when common sense first became a political ideal worth struggling over. Sophia Rosenfeld’s accessible and insightful account then wends its way across two continents and multiple centuries, revealing the remarkable individuals who appropriated the old, seemingly universal idea of common sense and the new strategic uses they made of it. Paine may have boasted that common sense is always on the side of the people and opposed to the rule of kings, but Rosenfeld demonstrates that common sense has been used to foster demagoguery and exclusivity as well as popular sovereignty. She provides a new account of the transatlantic Enlightenment and the Age of Revolutions, and offers a fresh reading on what the eighteenth century bequeathed to the political ferment of our own time. Far from commonsensical, the history of common sense turns out to be rife with paradox and surprise.
Rethinking The Age Of Revolutions
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Author : David A. Bell
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date : 2018-09-04
Rethinking The Age Of Revolutions written by David A. Bell and has been published by Oxford University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2018-09-04 with History categories.
Much of the historiography on the age of democratic revolutions has seemed to come to a halt until recent years. Historians of this period have tried to develop new explanatory paradigms but there are few that have had a lasting impact. David A. Bell and Yair Mintzker seek to break through the narrow views of this period with research that reaches beyond the traditional geographical and chronological boundaries of the subject. Rethinking the Age of Revolutions brings together some of the most exciting and important research now being done on the French Revolutionary era, by prominent historians from North America and France. Adopting a variety of approaches, and tackling a wide variety of subjects, such as natural rights in the early modern world, the birth of celebrity culture and the phenomenon of modern political charisma, among others, this collection shows the continuing vitality and importance of the field. This is an important book not only for specialists, but for anyone interested in the origins of some of the most important issues in the politics and culture of the modern West.
The Age Of Questions
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Author : Holly Case
language : en
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Release Date : 2020-08-04
The Age Of Questions written by Holly Case and has been published by Princeton University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2020-08-04 with History categories.
A groundbreaking history of the Big Questions that dominated the nineteenth century In the early nineteenth century, a new age began: the age of questions. In the Eastern and Belgian questions, as much as in the slavery, worker, social, woman, and Jewish questions, contemporaries saw not interrogatives to be answered but problems to be solved. Alexis de Tocqueville, Victor Hugo, Karl Marx, Frederick Douglass, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Rosa Luxemburg, and Adolf Hitler were among the many who put their pens to the task. The Age of Questions asks how the question form arose, what trajectory it followed, and why it provoked such feverish excitement for over a century. Was there a family resemblance between questions? Have they disappeared, or are they on the rise again in our time? In this pioneering book, Holly Case undertakes a stunningly original analysis, presenting, chapter by chapter, seven distinct arguments and frameworks for understanding the age. She considers whether it was marked by a progressive quest for emancipation (of women, slaves, Jews, laborers, and others); a steady, inexorable march toward genocide and the "Final Solution"; or a movement toward federation and the dissolution of boundaries. Or was it simply a farce, a false frenzy dreamed up by publicists eager to sell subscriptions? As the arguments clash, patterns emerge and sharpen until the age reveals its full and peculiar nature. Turning convention on its head with meticulous and astonishingly broad scholarship, The Age of Questions illuminates how patterns of thinking move history.
The Age Of Rand
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Author : Frederick Cookinham
language : en
Publisher: iUniverse
Release Date : 2005-06-02
The Age Of Rand written by Frederick Cookinham and has been published by iUniverse this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2005-06-02 with Philosophy categories.
"Do I think that Objectivism will be the philosophy of the future? I would say yes, but "-Ayn Rand to Playboy Magazine, 1964. "My views will probably be the norm in the future, but not right now."-Ayn Rand to Johnny Carson, 1967. Will they? The Age of Rand describes what Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, will mean in practice-for good and ill. Rand expressed her controversial ideas in her best-selling novels, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Every year, more commentators debate those ideas, often heatedly. Frederick Cookinham asks questions no author has asked before: Would Objectivists destroy the environment in favor of rampant development? Why will Objectivist civilization be built on the oceans and in space? Is Objectivism a "Nietzschean Superman" philosophy? Ayn Rand often said, "Check your premises, and watch your implications!" Explore, in The Age of Rand, the astounding implications of this fast-growing and provocative new system of ideas. Some philosophy will dominate this new century-be prepared if it turns out to be Ayn Rand's. "Frederick Cookinham has written something of great worth to thousands who have been affected by Rand's work."-Andrea Millen Rich, Laissez Faire Books.
The Paradox Of Choice
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Author : Barry Schwartz
language : en
Publisher: Harper Collins
Release Date : 2009-10-13
The Paradox Of Choice written by Barry Schwartz and has been published by Harper Collins this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2009-10-13 with Psychology categories.
Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.