Barry Schwartz insists that the overwhelming number of choices that our modern society offers paralyzes people and results in them being less satisfied than if there were fewer options. This completely contradicts the western society dogma that an increase in choice leads to an increase of personal freedom and therefore personal welfare.
Many points Schwartz makes make perfect sense. Too many choices lead one to believe that there is a perfect option, so if one is less than thrilled with the decision he makes, there is regret and self-blame for not picking a better one, even when the choice made was still a good one. Too many options also leads to paralysis. When faced with too many choices, some people opt to not even make a decision rather than go through all the effort of picking an option. I would be shocked if anyone hadn't had personal experience that supported this theory: trying to pick a brand of bread at the store, buying a pair of sunglasses, walking into the UConn Study Abroad Fair and quickly walking out because there're just too many options, half of which overlap with other choices represented (yes, you might guess that one is a personal experience). In some cases, there are too many choices.
However, Schwartz brought up a few situations with which I did not agree. He said in this day and age, we are offered so much personal freedom for identity that every morning we wake up and have to decide who we want to be today. Although he may have been exaggerating a bit, this statement is a little extreme. Personal identity is not so much a decision as a state molded by one's personality and personal experience. If you're reinventing yourself every day, you're just not being honest with yourself. Schwartz also said that, as a professor, he assigns 20% less work to his students now than he did years ago because now their minds are occupied with such questions as when and who to marry, whether or not they should have kids before they start their career, etc. But as a college student, I disagree that these ponderings actually occupy a significant amount of time. If there are students sitting in their dorms right now wondering whether or not they should get married to their current significant other or wait a while, incapacitated from doing any other work at the same time, then I am quite ignorant. Sure, these are things people my age consider, but they're thoughts that occupy the free time sitting on the bus or at the dining hall table. I don't think anyone is spending so much actual time thinking about their future that they are unable to do as much work as any other student from years ago.
I would also like to hope that Schwartz is being a bit cynical when he says that our expectations are so high that we can no longer be pleasantly surprised. Just because there are more choices and opportunities now than there used to be does not mean we expect every single one of them to apply to us. Sure, if someone has the highest possible expectation for every situation they encounter, they are going to be disappointed a lot, but that applies to someone with the same mindset living 50 years ago. Having so many choices even makes it harder to predict what's going to happen in some ways, making a small surprise or bit of excitement here and there more likely.
I cannot help but disagree with Schwartz's key to happiness either. He said, perhaps a bit sarcastically, that low expectations are the secret to happiness. However, if one consistently has low expectations, including of themselves, they never have the ambition to do anything better than average, and then there is no satisfaction from obtaining a worthy goal. A life of low expectations is one of resignment and mediocrity, not happiness.
Perhaps the real key to happiness is a better method of organization for all of these options. Because it's true that with so many options, one of them is bound to be a very good fit for you specifically. It's simply a matter of finding it. For example, you will never hear me complain about having too many options for clothes, but I still much prefer online shopping to in-store shopping because of a lovely little tool the web offers: search filters. If you know what you're looking for, it's not that hard to find it. The more specific you are about what you want, the fewer options you have, and the easier it is to make a satisfying choice. Perhaps people need to implement such "search filters" of their own in real life. Walk into a situation already having a solid idea of what you want in order to quickly narrow down your options and make a more satisfying decision. If I went into that Study Abroad Fair with a better idea of where and when I wanted to go, I could have walked right up to the appropriate tables and gotten exactly the relevant information I needed. Learning from that experience, I now know to do some digging on the UConn study abroad website - which has many specific categories that make it easy to navigate - in order to find what I want to do before going to the next such fair. Then I'll be much more prepared to take advantage of that awesome resource. Yes, modern society offers a lot of choices, to the point that it can be overwhelming, but proper management of these options can lead to making some very satisfying decisions.
This blog is based on a TED Talk by Barry Schwartz: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Dan Barber: How I Fell in Love with a Fish
Dan Barber is a foodie who believes the current American agribusiness model for producing food is outdated, inefficient, and wasteful. First we over-fished the sea, and now man-made fish farms are highly polluting, have inefficient protein return ratios, and result in poor tasting fish. The best fish this man has ever tasted - the fish he fell in love with - comes from a ecologically based fish farm in Veta la Palma, Spain. Quite contrary to traditional American fish farms, this one actually purifies the water that comes through it and is completely self sustaining. The ecosystem within it has thrived to the point that it's become one of Europe's largest bird sanctuaries, and the owner doesn't even mind that they're eating some of his fish. Barber would urge America to adopt a similarly ecologically friendly agricultural system.
But is this a reasonable request? The land that this Spanish fish farm is based on was a marshland before it was further flooded. Its conditions were already conducive to that of a wetland. Presumably the algae and some of the other important aquatic lifeforms were already somewhat established before it was transformed into a fish farm. How many other examples of farms like this exist in Europe? Is it fair to say that Miguel, the Spanish fish farmer, is an ingenious biologist with a greater ability than any other to create a self-sustaining farm, or did he just know how to recognize an ecosystem simply begging to thrive when he saw it? How many regions in America have the capability to thrive to the same extent with such little maintenance? I would venture a guess that most facilities trying to replicate Miguel's farm would need a little more spoon-feeding.
Fish farming is also very different from many other kinds of farming. Take cattle farming for example. In order to have a cattle farm as ecologically friendly and self-sustaining as Miguel's farm, even a small herd of cattle would require a large plot of land to freely graze. If we stopped grain-feeding cattle as well, each cow would not produce nearly as much meat as does the current mass-produced albeit unhealthy and mistreated cow. Reducing population density of animals on farms would also require more time and effort to collect the fewer resources (milk, eggs, the animals themselves, whatever), making all food even more expensive than it already is.
But all of this is not to say that I disagree with Barber. The current industrialized form of agriculture which the United States adheres to is a disgusting example of waste, pollution, and mistreatment of animals. I recently did a relatively extensive research paper on factory farming to build an argument for vegetarianism, and I learned more about it than I would have liked to. Without going into too much detail, I'll just toss out a few facts: factory farms produce the equivalent of 5 tons of waste for every American per year; livestock in this country produces 130 times more waste than the entire human population of the United States; livestock consumes 20 millions tons of protein every year but yields significantly less; 10's of 1,000's of chickens are housed on each factory farm, giving less than 1 square foot of space to each bird; every second in the U.S., 287 chickens, 3.68 pigs, and 1.12 cows are slaughtered. But that's enough rambling on (and I didn't even horrify you with any details of the slaughter process). My point is, I agree with Barber on the point that industrialized farming is wasteful and inefficient. Furthermore, I believe it to be a violation of basic ethics. Smaller, more ethically friendly farms would not only be healthier for the environment for also for the animals and, in turn, the people eating them. I support small farms 100%. I even worked on one for the last four years. But taking better care of livestock means a significantly greater investment of time and results in a more expensive product. Would people be willing to make this compromise? Would we even be able to sustain the entire population with such a radically different system? As lovely as this idea is of every farm being like Miguel's, how realistic is it? Would it even be possible? Or would we quickly fall back down the track of attempting to make it more efficient through industrialization of agriculture? The chickens vote small farms, but no one wants to listen to them.
This blog is based on a TED Talk by Dan Barber: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_a_fish.html
But is this a reasonable request? The land that this Spanish fish farm is based on was a marshland before it was further flooded. Its conditions were already conducive to that of a wetland. Presumably the algae and some of the other important aquatic lifeforms were already somewhat established before it was transformed into a fish farm. How many other examples of farms like this exist in Europe? Is it fair to say that Miguel, the Spanish fish farmer, is an ingenious biologist with a greater ability than any other to create a self-sustaining farm, or did he just know how to recognize an ecosystem simply begging to thrive when he saw it? How many regions in America have the capability to thrive to the same extent with such little maintenance? I would venture a guess that most facilities trying to replicate Miguel's farm would need a little more spoon-feeding.
Fish farming is also very different from many other kinds of farming. Take cattle farming for example. In order to have a cattle farm as ecologically friendly and self-sustaining as Miguel's farm, even a small herd of cattle would require a large plot of land to freely graze. If we stopped grain-feeding cattle as well, each cow would not produce nearly as much meat as does the current mass-produced albeit unhealthy and mistreated cow. Reducing population density of animals on farms would also require more time and effort to collect the fewer resources (milk, eggs, the animals themselves, whatever), making all food even more expensive than it already is.
But all of this is not to say that I disagree with Barber. The current industrialized form of agriculture which the United States adheres to is a disgusting example of waste, pollution, and mistreatment of animals. I recently did a relatively extensive research paper on factory farming to build an argument for vegetarianism, and I learned more about it than I would have liked to. Without going into too much detail, I'll just toss out a few facts: factory farms produce the equivalent of 5 tons of waste for every American per year; livestock in this country produces 130 times more waste than the entire human population of the United States; livestock consumes 20 millions tons of protein every year but yields significantly less; 10's of 1,000's of chickens are housed on each factory farm, giving less than 1 square foot of space to each bird; every second in the U.S., 287 chickens, 3.68 pigs, and 1.12 cows are slaughtered. But that's enough rambling on (and I didn't even horrify you with any details of the slaughter process). My point is, I agree with Barber on the point that industrialized farming is wasteful and inefficient. Furthermore, I believe it to be a violation of basic ethics. Smaller, more ethically friendly farms would not only be healthier for the environment for also for the animals and, in turn, the people eating them. I support small farms 100%. I even worked on one for the last four years. But taking better care of livestock means a significantly greater investment of time and results in a more expensive product. Would people be willing to make this compromise? Would we even be able to sustain the entire population with such a radically different system? As lovely as this idea is of every farm being like Miguel's, how realistic is it? Would it even be possible? Or would we quickly fall back down the track of attempting to make it more efficient through industrialization of agriculture? The chickens vote small farms, but no one wants to listen to them.
This blog is based on a TED Talk by Dan Barber: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_a_fish.html
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