Since when was giving people a choice a good idea?
The coalition\’s obsession with self-determination, whether on schools or GPs, penalises the least able
In short, no one should have choice because some are too ignorant to make use of it.
If uncertainty about preserves is a problem one can probably live with, or possibly enjoy, a similar helplessness in the face of big, irreversible decisions is, to judge by a new study, State of Confusion by Professor Harriet Bradley of Bristol University, something that should worry a government that advertises choice as an unmitigated good…….After surveying 3,000 people on their attitudes to choice, Bradley says: \”I believe most people want the state to make these big decisions for them.\” This is not only because, in many cases, consumers are well aware that the choice of, say, school or hospital is – unlike a commercial selection of jams or phones or holidays – an utter fiction. The process of choosing is itself oppressive when the issues are life-changing, relating to health, money or careers.
An obvious question presents itself. Did Professor Harriet Bradley choose to become an academic? Work, strive, to become a Professor? Decide to write a book?
Wouldn\’t she be happier stacking shelves in the supermarket if that\’s where the State would place her to relieve her of the anguish of having to make a decision?
And if not, why not?
Is there perhaps some special class of people who both should decide for themselves and also decide for the peons? Those special enough to cope with the difficulty of choice and to alleviate others of it?
Because if that is the argument then they can all go fuck themselves quite frankly.
No-one wants choice, which is why parents often spend a fortune on moving to a house on the outskirts of a school catchment area to get away from having to go to the terrible school.
“In short, no one should have choice because some are too ignorant to make use of it.”
The progressive philosophy in a nutshell.
“I believe most people want the state to make these big decisions for them.”
That statement encapsulates so succinctly the extremely damaging effects of the 13-year New Labour project on the British population.
There are some people who dislike choice. They don’t want to make the effort to find out which alternative is the optimum for their needs. Such people really ought to have no problem, simply choose the cheapest, or a random selection, or the most familiar brand. But there’s a snag.
Overheard in a supermarket recently:
“I don’t know which of these blimmin coffees to get, Kenyan, Dow Egberts (whatever that means). It shouldn’t be allowed, all this many.”
“Well Mother just get Nescafe, you know you like that, and you don’t need a special thingy to make it in.
“Aye, but what if there’s something a lot better, and everybody knows about it except me!”
—
There lies her problem. Choice means that someone else might get something better. The all-consuming fear that the next man’s plate might be more appetising than our own.
“I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” –Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820.
Catherine Bennett is John Humphry’s “partner”.
That figures.
I had a vigourous debate around this recently – it was in relation to the choice that Free Schools offer and the argument put against it was thus “If you have choice then those best able to choose will get a better education than those who don’t care about their kids. Why should kids whose parents don’t care about them have a worse education?” Mediocrity for all is “fair”?
Monty,
There lies her problem. Choice means that someone else might get something better. The all-consuming fear that the next man’s plate might be more appetising than our own.
The thing is that even the tiny number of people who don’t want to choose get a better deal, because the market evolves anyway. Take airlines: even if someone just stuck with what they knew (BA), by now, they’d find themselves with cheaper tickets than 15 or 20 years ago because BA had to lower their prices to compete with the likes of Easyjet and Ryanair. Their local Co-op has a lot more interesting lines than it had in the 70s and stays open later because of the competition from Tesco and Asda.
She refers to the jam study – where sales fell when more jam was offered. But apparently that experiment has not been replicable. No one has spotted a flaw in either the old experiments or the new ones that tried to replicate them, apparently they just get different results now, for some reason.
See http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9cebd444-cd9c-11de-8162-00144feabdc0.html
Charlie, some parents don’t even let their kids go to school, and that isn’t always because they are being home-schooled.
So that argument you mentioned, would also apply in these cases. “Why should kids who go to school get any education, when there are kids who are kept at home who don’t?”
On that basis, we would close all the schools and colleges, and outlaw parents who teach their own kids to read and write.
Monty!! don’t give them ideas.
One day, when the bloke from the council arrives to cut your hair (whether you want it or not), and they are sending the sniffer dogs in to see if you’ve got a hidden stash of beer, you will know we have finally succumbed to socialism. Personally, I am going to do a bunk. I’ve decided to go into hiding in a cave as soon as they come up with a pretext for rationing chips. By the time the knicker inspections start, I will be gone and forgotten.
So this particular leftist isn’t pro-choice?