Hoje em dia s pessoas so confrontadas com mltiplas escolhas o que pode causar certa ansiedade na procura daquilo que

elas realmente querem. Por outro lado, as pessoas podem ficar paralisadas perante as incertezas que suscitam as mltiplas escolhas que lhes se oferecem. O que est a acontecer a nvel da sociedade quando temos uma ideologia que domina a ideia de escolha em todos os nveis da nossa vida? Por exemplo, a questo para os meus pais de terem filhos ou no, no uma questo. Eles apenas tiveram-no. Se no quisesses t-los, no os tinha. Eu demorei 10 anos para decidir ter um filho. O que que as mulheres Porque que passamos muito tempo a reinvetar ns prprios? I need to re-invent myself. I need start to The perfect choice they have made: The best school Wonderful job The exercise Have a good partner

A ideia de escolha uma ideia importante no capitalism. Na concepo de vida. A ideia de escolha est presente no apenas nos pases desenvolvidos do ocidente, mas tambm nos pases mais pobres, especialmente na classe mdia. Sobretudo na sociedades socialistas a ideia de escolha particularmente anxigena.

Quando dizemos que as pessoas podem se rir de ns ao observar as nossas escolhas, ..

As escolhas so suscpetveis de causar ansiedade por alguns motivos: - we never made simple individual choice, itos not simple us individuals outside society making choices, but ofte we choose what other people is choosing, - we try to make an ideal choice . choice always envolves loss. When I choice one direction in life I loose the possibility in another. And dealing with the loss is highly anxiety provoqing.

Society of Choice

Renata Salecl Postindustrial society thrives on the idea of choice. The individual is not only perceived as able to choose among various consumer objects; he or she is also taken as someone who can choose his or her identity, sexual orientation, body shape, and so on. In the ideology of postindustrial capitalism, one's life isperceived as a work of art and as a particular kind of enterprise. The overemphasis of choice, however, does not seem to bring contentment to the individual, but rather increases feelings of anxiety and insecurity. In order to appease feelings of anxiety, people often resort to following random advice on how to fashiontheir lives. Psychoanalysis questions how the malaise of civilization affects the malaise of the individual and vice versa. A pessimistic conclusion about the changes in today's society holds that the increase of psychosis and of anxiety are related in a particular way to the ideology of choice. Psychoanalysis, however, hasalways understood choice in a complex way. Instead of perceiving the act of choosing as a purely rational gesture, psychoanalysis understands choice as linked to the unconscious. Since choice always involves a loss, it is per se anxiety provoking. Today's society has problems precisely with the idea of loss, which is why we see the emergence of options promising to impose control on what is often uncontrollable.

We are all faced with a dazzling array of choices throughout our daily lives. Every aspect of our existence - from work, relationships and child-rearing, to cheese, politicians, coffins and water companies - is characterised by the freedom to choose, and the vastness of available options is indicative of the high level of freedom our society has attained. More than this, we can choose who we are, our very identities: not only our careers, but even our sexuality, gender and class. As rational beings, our role is to weigh up the choices available, and choose in accordance with our needs, wants and desires. If we do so correctly, there is no end to what we can achieve. Or so we are told. In this thoughtful and entertaining account, the philosopher Renata Salecl begs to differ. For her, this ideology - the "tyranny of choice" as she calls it - is actually founded on a series of lies. Firstly, our individual choices are rarely rational and are more likely to be chosen according to our unconscious (and ultimately insatiable) desires. Acting according to these, often irrational, desires is far from likely to bring us greater happiness. Secondly, an overload of choice is leading more to greater anxiety than to greater freedom, not least as a result of speculating on the social

opprobrium that can result from making the wrong choice. Salecl provides a vivid example from her own country, Slovenia. In the days of socialism, when organising a funeral, you only had one choice to make - did you want a big coffin, or a small one? Now, one is confronted with a whole plethora of not only coffins, but urns for scattering the ashes and so on as well. Although they will only be used for a few hours before being burnt, buried or discarded, the customer is made to feel that anything but the most expensive option is somehow disrespectful to their dead relative, and will be seen as such by the others in attendance. Thus is it is that a seemingly wide range of choice can actually be no real choice at all. Perturbed by these anxieties brought on by endless choice, many are turning to `expert advice' in the form of self-help books; suggesting that rather than craving choice, we are in fact "eager to have the burden of choice taken away from us". Indeed, the popularity of books on Feng Shui, for example, suggest that even the decision of where to place one's own furniture is too much for some to cope with. Yet by perpetuating the ideology of choice, Salecl argues, self-help books actually serve to perpetuate these anxieties. If the power to change your life is in your hands (as these books suggest), and yet your life remains essentially unchanged, then it must be your fault - and you should feel guilty. Thatcher's view that "there is no such thing as society" has "permeated every level of contemporary society. The feeling of shame for being poor and of guilt for not getting further up the ladder of economic success has replaced the fight against social injustice." Salecl also notes how the consumer-choice model has insidiously ingrained itself into our view of relationships: "Sometimes the search for love follows the same pattern as the search for a phone service provider: constant switching, followed by the feeling that you may have missed a better deal once you've made your choice". Finally, for Salecl, the really fundamental choices are actually beyond our control as individuals: not least the choice to reject the consumerist, individualist model altogether. Salecl also sees a large swathe of the apparent `alternatives' to this model as mere variations of the same consumerist ideology: "Not surprisingly, the ideology of choice goes hand in hand with the New Age ideology that promotes living in the moment and accepting things as they are." Likewise, she sees lifestyle politics, such as the choice of some amongst the affluent middle classes to `downsize' their spending, in the same vein: "Since a huge part of the world's population is offered very few choices and has to endure terrible poverty every day, the Western movement to simplify one's life (along with other attempts to glorify poverty) seems a rather hypocritical way for essentially well-off people to address class divisions obliquely". Salecl is well-placed to analyse the ideological mechanisms of modern capitalism. Those of us who have only ever known one system tend too

readily to view it the natural order of things; having grown up in socialist Yugoslavia, this is not a problem Salecl has. Indeed, it is precisely this choice - the only choice we are not presented with, the choice of our economic and political system - that is the one we most urgently have to make.