Consumer: A person who is capable of choosing a president but incapable of choosing a bicycle without help from a government agency.
Interpretation
This quote criticizes the irony of consumers being empowered to make significant choices, like voting, yet needing assistance for everyday decisions.
Herbert Stein's quote highlights a paradox in modern society where individuals are thought to have the freedom and capability to make substantial decisions, such as choosing political leaders, but are often confused or overwhelmed when it comes to making simpler, more personal choices. It reflects on the complexities and dependencies that have emerged in consumer culture, suggesting that while we may possess the right to choose, the actual ability to make informed choices on everyday matters is diminished, often requiring external guidance.
In practice
During a discussion about voter apathy, I found this quote by Herbert Stein to illustrate the irony of choice.
The greatest security we can have in this world that we are in the grace of God, does not consist in the feelings that we have of love to Him, but rather in an irrevocable abandonment of our whole being into His hands, and in a firm resolution never to consent to any sin great or small.
And perhaps beyond those shrouded swells another man did walk with another child on the dead gray sands. Slept but a sea apart on another beach among the bitter ashes of the world or stood in their rags lost to the same indifferent sun.
What a tragedy is help where it harms what it supports!
The Way is basically perfect. It doesn't require perfecting.
Each generation has its own rendezvous with the land, for despite our fee titles and claims of ownership, we are all brief tenants on this planet. By choice, or by default, we will carve out a land legacy for our heirs.
Tis' better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else's perfectly.
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