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.
Eating, bathing, going to the toilet, talking, thinking, and many other activities related to the body are all work. How is it that the performance of one particular act is alone (considered) work? To be still is to be always engaged in work. To be silent is to be always talking.
If you're going to have a story, have a big story, or none at all.
EACH DAY OF HUMAN life contains joy and anger, pain and pleasure, darkness and light, growth and decay. Each moment is etched with nature’s grand design-do not try to deny or oppose the cosmic order of things.
Our identities really are a constant negotiation between the story we tell about ourselves and the narrative our societies like to recite.
If good things lasted forever, would we appreciate how precious they are?
Has God decreed all things that come to pass? Then there is nothing that falls out by chance, nor are we to ascribe what we meet with either to good or ill luck and fortune. There are many events in the world which men look upon as mere accidents, yet all these come by the counsel and appointment of Heaven.
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