How to Choose?? Die Qual der Wahl

Die Qual der Wahl [1] – it’s a catchy German phrase that captures so much of our Zeitgeist. Have you walked into a store, taken one look, and walked back out, overwhelmed by the number of shampoos on offer – and no earthly idea about what actually distinguishes one from the other, with no soul in sight to give you any insights? Or do you live on Amazon, so you can select from zillions of doormats and backpacks to find just the right size, style, and motif? Or maybe you subscribe to the Wirecutter, [2] so the vast array of beds and bikes is reduced to just one high-cost and one low-cost best option, comfortingly vetted by rigorous testing. This is modern-day consumer capitalism.

A recent book, The Age of Choice by Sophia Rosenfeld, [3] unpacks this for us by tracing the historical arc of how choice evolved in Western society. Her first section on the widening choice in goods (followed by sections on choice in ideas, marriage, and democracy) immediately reminded me of Sayyida Salme’s experience in Germany, part of her 19th-century culture shock in confronting the West. Here is one passage that spells this out:

You have absolutely no idea what all it takes to furnish a European household. As we were setting up our living quarters, there was no end to the incoming stream of hundreds of things. I was above all astonished by the sight of the vast quantities of kitchen utensils that are required here. I could not help but think of the mass feedings in our house, where at least ten kinds of baked goods and other kinds of sweets had to be prepared daily, and yet it was all done with so few instruments. (Letters, p. 13)

When I first read, and then translated, this description, I smiled and thought of my own kitchen. So true! This may be a particularly American thing, but it seems we are all consumed by our consumption. What was an emerging Western trait back then is now the norm worldwide. Barely surviving and yet thriving on endless choice, it is a huge part of who we are. What percentage of your time do you spend on choosing? Which daily rotation of clothes to wear or aisles and aisles of food to buy? Which GPS-offered traffic route to take or never-ending emails to read? Everywhere we turn, there are choices to be made. Or perhaps you have found refuge in routine, a sure way to eliminate choice and triage the daily experience, whether we succeed in streamlining our lives or end up in a rut.

Rosenfeld points out that choice became synonymous with freedom – freedom begets choice, choice begets freedom – through gradual shifts over the past three centuries. To be truly free, we automatically think we want and need that choice. But with more and more choice, we may actually be getting less choice. In terms of what we buy, for example, we have more cheap choice, but not necessarily quality choice. Where are those long-lasting, high-quality shoes and sweaters? And we also have less need to choose If AI does the shopping for us (and already knows our preferences better than we do). [5] We are also headed to less choice in ideas in this brave new world, where AI regurgitates prior human thought as data points, and social media steers our current thinking with obscure algorithms.

As much as we might like or insist upon choice, too much choice may even have pushed us to pine for less choice. As in: I give up, I’m done! According to Gal Beckerman in The Atlantic’s review of Rosenfeld’s book: “Among President Donald Trump’s lizard-brain intuitions is that Americans are overwhelmed by choice. This exhaustion is a strangely underexplored reason for his appeal; it may even help explain why his heavy use of executive power (verging on what some experts have no problem calling authoritarianism) is often met with shrugs and blank stares.” [4] This is likely not only an American phenomenon.

Beckerman asks what replaces a world that is weary of choice – less consumerism for a healthier planet, less individualism for more common good, that sounds promising.  But less autonomy for greater subjugation, more deference to dominating powers and corporate forces, not so much. Per Beckerman, “[t]he cruelty of this vision almost demands a reinvigoration of choice, an effort to salvage what had made this human impulse so liberating to begin with.” Or else, as Rosenfeld points out from others, “the sum of our choices may well be a world no one would actually choose.” (Age of Choice, p. 19)

The obvious subtext is that this is about much more than choosing. The range of options reflect not only the available resources or candidates to choose from, but the values framing the scope of choice. Rosenfeld closes her book with a request: “I thus leave you as a reader [with] the invitation to make choice a problem to be wrestled with before it becomes a default solution. Rather than continually asking how we might choose more and better, let’s start wondering, without prejudgment, if choice as we know it is really what freedom should be all about.” (Age of Choice, p. 366)

To put it another way, the age of choice came about because of choices that were made. A close look at history and culture reveals that none of this was pre-ordained. We can start by recognizing that lack of choice is constraining, and curated choice can be disempowering, while having choices can come at a cost, and unfettered choice has consequences. Then we can seek to be more discerning - more mindful and more intentional - in how we frame our choices and understand our freedoms going forward.

Let history surprise you, let her story inspire you – let her authentic voice speak to you.

Andrea Emily Stumpf, October 30, 2025

Photo credit:  Andrea E. Stumpf, of the local CVS, October 2025.

[1] Pronounced dee kwahl dare vahl. Literally the agony of choice, it refers to an overabundance of choice.

[2] Wirecutter: New Product Reviews, Deals, and Buying Advice Or how about Costco lovers in the United States, who not only want discounted prices, but also value the curated selection of quality goods (this is not a Costco ad!). There are many ways we delegate choice to the “experts” or rely on the experience of others, whether by word-of-mouth, community listservs, or posted ratings and reviews – at least until we realize that they, too, may be engineered and manipulated.

[3] S. Rosenfeld, The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life (2025).

[4] “Americans Are Tired of Choice,” by Gal Beckerman in The Atlantic (June 23, 2025).

[5] See “Shopping in ‘God Mode’ with AI,” by Daisy Zhao and Bryan Kim in Andreessen Horowitz (March 28, 2025).