Consumer Vertigo

A new wave of social critics claim that freedom's just another word for way too much to choose. Here's why they're wrong.

Virginia Postrel from the June 2005 issue

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"Social ties actually decrease freedom, choice, and autonomy," he writes. "Marriage, for example, is a commitment to a particular other person that curtails freedom of choice in sexual and even emotional partners." So gays who cannot legally marry their partners are somehow freer than heterosexuals who can? There's something deeply wrong with this understanding of choice. Freedom to choose must include the freedom to commit.

Ultimately, the debate about choice is not about markets but about character. Liberty and responsibility really do go together; it's not just a platitude. The more freedom we have to control our lives, the more responsibility we have for how they turn out. In a world of constraints, learning to be happy with what you're given is a virtue. In a world of choices, virtue comes from learning to make commitments without regrets. And commitment, in turn, requires self-confidence and self-knowledge.

"We are free to be the authors of our lives," says Schwartz, "but we don't know exactly what kind of lives we want to 'write.'" Maturity lies in deciding just that.�