{"id":46,"date":"2021-11-15T21:51:18","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T21:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/bigquestions\/?post_type=chapter&p=46"},"modified":"2024-08-17T16:19:29","modified_gmt":"2024-08-17T16:19:29","slug":"choices","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/bigquestions\/chapter\/choices\/","title":{"rendered":"Choices"},"content":{"raw":"

The Ninth Chapter,<\/strong>\r\nIn which you ask yourself again:<\/strong>\r\nWhat\u2019s Keeping Me Here?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/h3>\r\n

Preparation<\/h3>\r\n

Required Reading: Quarmby, \"Impostors<\/a>\" (Aeon<\/em>)<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Optional Reading: Schechter, \"What We Can Learn About Respect and Identity from 'Plurals'<\/a>\" (Aeon<\/em>)<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Writing:<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \r\n \t
  1. Quarmby talks about \"passing.\" What is it? Answer with paraphrase, not quotation.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
  2. An argument is a\u00a0thesis <\/i>supported by one or more reasons. <\/i>What is Quarmby's thesis? What reason(s) does he provide in support of his thesis? Paraphrase or quote briefly.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
  3. What is your immediate reaction to Quarmby's argument? Agreement, disagreement, or something else?<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
  4. Respond to the following question by writing at least one paragraph:\u00a0If people should be able to change gender, should they also be able to change race? Should they be able to voluntarily amputate limbs in order to change from \"abled\" to \"disabled\"? Why or why not?<\/em><\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n\r\n
    \r\n\r\n

    Introduction<\/h3>\r\n

    The Matrix ends by leaving the choice of \u201cwhere we go from here\u201d up to you. Neo doesn\u2019t know where we go from here, but he knows it\u2019s a world where people choose where they go, instead of a world where people live under the illusion that this is all there is, that there\u2019s nowhere else to go. The world outside the cave is a free world, and freedom means freedom from limits on what we can choose.<\/p>\r\n

    What does philosophy do for you? Does it dissolve all the artificial limits placed on your choices, and increase your negative freedom, like Neo promises? Or does it discover the natural limits, the limits that secure your positive freedom? Or does it do both of those things \u2014 distinguish the artificial from the natural limits, and work to replace the one kind with the other, so that we are less and less constrained by \u201csociety,\u201d while society is more and more guided by \u201cnature\u201d? What does it look like outside the cave? Is it a place of total freedom from social pressure, or is it a place where the social pressure makes us free?<\/p>\r\n

    And what is the role of choice itself? How important is it that you make the choice?<\/p>\r\n

    Think about that question as you listen to Masha Gessen's talk, \"Stories of a Life.\" After you listen, read the rest of the chapter.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

    \r\n\r\n[embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nkJS9n-i1iU[\/embed]\r\n

    <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

    \r\n\r\n

    Discussion<\/h3>\r\n

    Imagine you are Masha Gessen: imagine that these are not the stories of a life, but the stories of your life. And imagine that they are stories that tell you something about the philosophical life.<\/p>\r\n

    Your story starts with an \u201capplication for an exit visa.\u201d You are trying to get out. Normal World (Russia) can\u2019t be your home anymore. You don\u2019t fit in. You have to go somewhere else. But you don\u2019t know where you\u2019re going. You have a name for the undiscovered country, the unfamiliar city: \u201cAmerica.\u201d America is outside your cave. But it\u2019s only \u201can outline on a map.\u201d You\u2019re excited to explore it and fill in that map, but you\u2019re nervous about what you might discover. You don\u2019t know whether it will actually be better than Normal World, or whether it will ever feel like home. Still, you have no choice. So you strike out for the unknown.<\/p>\r\n

    What do you leave behind? Not just the place. You leave behind your sense of who you are, which is your sense of where you belong. You can remember what it felt like to fit in in Normal World, what it felt like to rest on all the common assumptions, to take for granted what everyone else took for granted. \u201cEverything about it seemed self-evident: once you knew what you were, you would just be it.\u201d And you would belong with all the other people who were the same as you. In The Matrix<\/em>, what\u2019s written above the Oracle\u2019s door? \u201cKnow thyself.\u201d Know who you are, and feel at home. But now that you\u2019ve left where you were, you no longer know who you are. There\u2019s been a break in the story of your life. Before the break, it was about knowing who you are. After the break, because of the break, you become aware that \u201cwho you are\u201d can change. So now, it\u2019s not about who you are. It\u2019s about who you\u2019re becoming. And you don\u2019t know who you\u2019re becoming. The meaning shifts. \u201cKnow thyself\u201d now means \u201cknow that you don\u2019t know\u201d yourself.<\/p>\r\n

    And isn\u2019t that the beginning of philosophy? Socrates was always going around saying he knew nothing, that he had no answers, only questions. He said wisdom wasn\u2019t in knowing, but in knowing that you don\u2019t know. Socrates had an oracle, too: the Oracle of Delphi. Once, she told him he was the wisest person in his city. He didn\u2019t believe her, because he knew that he knew nothing. And then he realized: that\u2019s exactly what she meant. That\u2019s why he was the wisest: because he knew he was ignorant. Everyone else lived in a daydream in which they knew everything already. He alone lived in the truth, which was that he knew nothing. To really know yourself is to know that you know nothing about yourself. You don\u2019t know where your story will take you. You don\u2019t even know where you want your story to take you. You have to become something that is only \u201can outline on a map.\u201d You can\u2019t fill in the map before you get there.<\/p>\r\n

    This is the difference between \u201cdiscovering who you are and discovering who you could be.\u201d You learn the difference in a \u201cmoment of choice,\u201d a fork in the road, where you could go one way or another, and you don\u2019t know which way is better, but you know you can choose. And that is the key thing about this moment. It\u2019s not just a moment in which you can choose. It\u2019s a moment in which you become aware that you can choose. Because \u2014 if you think about it \u2014 there are many many moments in your life where you could choose. Moments where there are actually different paths, different ways to react to the situations you encounter, different answers to the questions you face. But in most of these moments you aren\u2019t aware that there\u2019s ore than one way to go. You\u2019re not aware that you\u2019re choosing. It\u2019s easier to forget that you\u2019ve made a choice, that you\u2019ve answered a big question, that between the stimulus and the response you\u2019ve made a judgment. Because then you don\u2019t have to deal with the uncertainty. And you don\u2019t have to take responsibility for making a choice in a context where there\u2019s no right answer, only better and worse ones. It\u2019s easier to pretend that you had no choice. It\u2019s easier to pretend that you were born this way, that this is just your personality, that these are the rules or this is the way things are. \u201cWe are, mostly, comfortable with less choice. . .\u201d<\/p>\r\n

    Philosophy can be one of those breaks in the story of your life, because philosophy, with its big and bigger questions, can make you aware that you are choosing. That you are choosing all the time, whether you want to or not, whether you notice it or not. That you have already answered those questions, whether you remember it or not. And so philosophy can help you make the choices more freely, by making you aware that they are yours to make.<\/p>\r\n

    Suppose that after you leave Normal World for the Unfamiliar City, someone back in Normal World tells everyone a version of your life\u2019s story in which you never left at all. Suppose someone tells everyone else who you are, based on their understanding of who you used to be. They lock you into the story that you might have lived if you had never discovered it was up to you to write your own story. They write your story for you: the story in which you react to every situation in the predictable way, the way everyone back in Normal World reacts. The story in which you give the Correct Answers to all the big questions. Meanwhile you are not who you used to be, because you\u2019ve learned that \u201cyou\u201d are not who you are: you are who you\u2019re becoming, and your choices take you there. You\u2019re filling in the map with your choices.<\/p>\r\n

    When that person back in Normal World holds up this \u201cmirror,\u201d the mirror in which you see what they want to see in you, it hurts you. They are not seeing you, the you that is capable of choosing, of leaving the cave in which all your choices are made for you. The only see their daydream of you. But while it hurts, it also helps, because in that mirror you see more clearly than ever that crucial difference between \u201cdiscovering who you are\u201d and \u201cdiscovering who you could be.\u201d If you focus on \u201cwho you are,\u201d you\u2019ll be mostly focusing on who others think you are. You\u2019ll think you\u2019re defining yourself, but really you\u2019ll be getting your definitions from them. You\u2019ll import their illusions about who you are into your head, and you\u2019ll believe them. But if you focus on \u201cwho you\u2019re becoming,\u201d you\u2019ll be focusing on the choice that you\u2019re making all the time, the choice to accept or reject those images, those illusions. And, by realizing that when other people make you feel inferior (or superior: flattery is another one of those mirrors) it\u2019s because you are choosing to let them, you\u2019ll be taking those next steps out of the cave, into the sun, where you won\u2019t \u201cknow\u201d yourself at all \u2014 and where you\u2019ll feel the freedom that only comes when you\u2019re willing to choose, without having to know.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nJean-Paul Sartre (who was Simone de Beauvoir's lover) said: \"even the red-hot pincers of the torturer do not exempt us from being free<\/a>.\"<\/em> He thought were were always free to choose, no matter what our circumstances. Even with a gun to your head, you're free to choose, and you're responsible<\/em> for your choices.<\/div>\r\n

    But you have to remember: to be outside the cave isn\u2019t to be outside of reality. It\u2019s the opposite: to be outside the cave means to live fully in reality, without illusions. And in reality, aren\u2019t our choices more or less limited by circumstances? Isn\u2019t the idea that \u201cyou are always free to choose\u201d the worst kind of illusion? What about \u201cdilemmas\u201d \u2014 what about the Trolley Problem? Sure, you have a choice, and you have to make one, but it\u2019s the kind of choice we call \u201cimpossible.\u201d There\u2019s no good choice. And you didn\u2019t choose to be put into that situation in the first place! What about person who\u2019s being tortured so he\u2019ll give up the location of his friends \u2014 in the end, does he really have a \u201cchoice\u201d? Aren\u2019t we often forced to do things? And aren\u2019t there some things you really can\u2019t change \u2014 things about how you were born, the personality you have, the rules of society, the \u201cway things are\u201d? Isn\u2019t there something called \u201cnature\u201d?<\/p>\r\n

    Well, maybe there is a \u201cnature\u201d \u2014 maybe there are things that can\u2019t be changed. Maybe there are things we don\u2019t get to choose. But it\u2019s not nature we tend to resist: it\u2019s nurture disguised as nature. Things that could be different, disguised as \u201cthe way it has to be.\u201d This is the social situation in Normal World. And that\u2019s where this work of \u201cchoosing,\u201d of being aware that you are choosing and being capable of choosing well, comes into play.<\/p>\r\n

    What does Masha Gessen say, after talking about all those impossible choices faced by grandparents in terrible, even totalitarian, social situations? \u201cI think resistance can take the shape of insisting on making a choice, even when the choice is framed as one between unacceptable options.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

    Kill the one to save the five, or let the five die; these are unacceptable options. The thought experiment forces you to choose, and you don\u2019t get to change the rules: there\u2019s no third track, no time to untie them all. There\u2019s no magic ring. But that doesn\u2019t mean your choice is meaningless. By choosing, you\u2019re taking responsibility: you\u2019re refusing to live in the illusion that you aren\u2019t responsible, that you are just \u201cbeing who you are.\u201d It isn\u2019t so much about the outcome of the choice; it\u2019s about the act of choosing itself. It\u2019s not so much about what happens, as it is about what happens to you when you make the choice. You let go of excuses, including the excuse that you \u201cknow the right answer,\u201d and you take responsibility for choosing without<\/em> knowing the right answer.<\/p>\r\n

    But you don\u2019t want to do this. None of us do. None of us wants to leave the cave, not really. \u201cBecause choice is a great burden. The call to invent one\u2019s life, and to do it continuously, can sound unendurable.\u201d And so the powerful, the puppetmasters, \u201caim to stamp out the possibility of choice\u201d or else to \u201crelieve you of the need to choose.\u201d The puppetmasters aim to tell you who you are. They do this by spinning nightmares, in which all your choices are impossible ones; or they do this by weaving daydreams, in which all your choices are being made for you, but the whole time you think you\u2019re doing what you want. They do it by telling you that whatever you happen to desire, or whatever happens to you, is fate \u2014 that no one, including them, chose to make things this way, or chose to make you this way.<\/p>\r\n

    This is how power works: by not taking responsibility for what its choices. Neither the powerful, nor the powerless: both live inside the cave. Resistance to the power of others and to powerlessness they want to make you feel starts when you take responsibility for your choices. It starts when you stop believing in fate: like Neo. It starts when you start doing philosophy. You can only escape the matrix of power if you\u2019re more interested in being in control of your life than you are in living a safe life, or a pleasant one. You can only get out of the cave if you\u2019d rather find out who you\u2019re becoming than find out who you are.<\/p>\r\n

    But this is not all Gessen says about these stories of a life. There\u2019s making choices, but then there\u2019s also \u201cmore importantly, making better choices . . .\u201d There are no right answers; but there are better and worse ones.<\/p>\r\n

    The next chapter is about what happens when you forget that.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

    \r\n\r\n

    Reflection<\/h3>\r\n
      \r\n \t
    1. Can you give an example of a time when you made a choice to go one way rather than another, without knowing which was the right way, about something that mattered?<\/li>\r\n \t
    2. One the one hand, \"having a choice\" seems closely connected to feeling free. On the other hand, \"having to choose\" seems closely connected to feeling\u00a0un<\/em>free. Reflect on this tension. When does having a choice make you feel free, and when does having a choice make you feel unfree?<\/li>\r\n \t
    3. Sartre's idea is that even the person who is being tortured is \"free.\" Which of the two kinds of freedom does he seem to have in mind? How do you react to Sartre's idea?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>","rendered":"

      The Ninth Chapter,<\/strong>
      \nIn which you ask yourself again:<\/strong>
      \nWhat\u2019s Keeping Me Here?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/h3>\n

      Preparation<\/h3>\n

      Required Reading: Quarmby, “Impostors<\/a>” (Aeon<\/em>)<\/span><\/p>\n

      Optional Reading: Schechter, “What We Can Learn About Respect and Identity from ‘Plurals’<\/a>” (Aeon<\/em>)<\/span><\/p>\n

      Writing:<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Quarmby talks about “passing.” What is it? Answer with paraphrase, not quotation.<\/span><\/li>\n
      2. An argument is a\u00a0thesis <\/i>supported by one or more reasons. <\/i>What is Quarmby’s thesis? What reason(s) does he provide in support of his thesis? Paraphrase or quote briefly.<\/span><\/li>\n
      3. What is your immediate reaction to Quarmby’s argument? Agreement, disagreement, or something else?<\/span><\/li>\n
      4. Respond to the following question by writing at least one paragraph:\u00a0If people should be able to change gender, should they also be able to change race? Should they be able to voluntarily amputate limbs in order to change from “abled” to “disabled”? Why or why not?<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n

        Introduction<\/h3>\n

        The Matrix ends by leaving the choice of \u201cwhere we go from here\u201d up to you. Neo doesn\u2019t know where we go from here, but he knows it\u2019s a world where people choose where they go, instead of a world where people live under the illusion that this is all there is, that there\u2019s nowhere else to go. The world outside the cave is a free world, and freedom means freedom from limits on what we can choose.<\/p>\n

        What does philosophy do for you? Does it dissolve all the artificial limits placed on your choices, and increase your negative freedom, like Neo promises? Or does it discover the natural limits, the limits that secure your positive freedom? Or does it do both of those things \u2014 distinguish the artificial from the natural limits, and work to replace the one kind with the other, so that we are less and less constrained by \u201csociety,\u201d while society is more and more guided by \u201cnature\u201d? What does it look like outside the cave? Is it a place of total freedom from social pressure, or is it a place where the social pressure makes us free?<\/p>\n

        And what is the role of choice itself? How important is it that you make the choice?<\/p>\n

        Think about that question as you listen to Masha Gessen’s talk, “Stories of a Life.” After you listen, read the rest of the chapter.<\/p>\n

        \n