I recently heard, again, a relatively popular idea which,
honestly, offends me. Like many pop-psych or pop-philosophy ideas, it obscures
the truth and can be hurtful to some—in this case, me. That idea is this:
Everything that happens to us (or even around us) is at
bottom our responsibility because we chose it.
This sentiment is a sorry bastardization of one of the
tenets of Existentialism, namely that we always have a choice.
Yes, we always have a choice. Even when it appears we have
no choice, says Sartre, we still have the choice of suicide. Well, I’m not sure
I can accept that as truth, either, but cases where suicide is not a choice are
relatively rare, and I suppose even a person in a straitjacket could “choose”
to strain this muscle or that, or speed or slow her breathing. In any event
this argument turns the existence of choice into a tautological word game.
What our having a choice does not guarantee is that we can choose our choices, and that is
everything. At one time in my life, for example, much as I wanted to pursue my
art, I was faced with the following options: I could allow myself to be drafted
into a war which I knew to be immoral, flee the country, or find a way to defer
my conscription. I did not have the choice of remaining in my country, which I
love, and painting full time. Had that choice been available to me I would
certainly have taken it, but I had to pick the available option that felt best
to me. That selection had side effects that led to other choices, but never to the
ideal one.
I have oversimplified that story, of course, but the conclusion
would still be that, much as I wished to, I could not choose what I really
wanted.
What I find unforgivable is for choice-purists to blame
others for suffering life conditions as if by choice. Body type, looks,
intelligence and many other qualities are out of our control, but less obvious
are the causes for drug addiction, poor mate choices or lack of ambition.
Here is how I “chose” not to be ambitious:
My mother died three weeks after my third birthday. I did
not choose to grow up without a mother. I did choose from the options
available, though I was not aware of choosing.
I loved my father
desperately. That love may have faded after his remarriage and emotional
abandonment of me, but even so, as he was my only remaining parent, I “chose”
to struggle for his favor—rather unsuccessfully.
My father was oddly competitive with me. When I taught
myself a year of calculus during a summer vacation he confessed sadly that I
was smarter than he. “But that’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?” he
sighed.
He took up a course in calculus himself. When I asserted my
interest in art, he purchased a set of watercolors and told me that he had been
able to paint a “pretty decent sunset.” He urged me away from engineering—his
career—while insisting that I could be anything I wanted to be. One might
wonder if he was steering me away from a competition with him in that arena as
well.
I did not compete with my father, my only true parent. My
only confrontation was passive-aggressive. I was often angry at him, sometimes
hated him, but judging from my actions it appears to me that out of loyalty I “chose”
not to compete. I used to believe that I was afraid of him, but later came to understand
that I was afraid to lose him, afraid to be disloyal. (On the other hand, he
was a pretty good spanker.) My fury with my father sprang from his
intransigence. He couldn’t give an inch, so that the only way to get anywhere
with him would have been to give up my very self. I chose not to do that, but
nor would I confront him in a struggle.
This choice left out an option for success. His comment
about my prowess in mathematics may have been the deciding factor in my
decision not to fight for success in a subsequent math course. But he did not
turn me away only from mathematics. It was clear that if I exceeded him in any field I would make him sad. I chose
against that arrangement; though later, when I felt my ethical and actual
survival were at stake, I chose to reject him, however sad that made him.
Don’t worry. I’ve since chosen years of therapy, and am no
longer motivated by paternal loyalty; but the after effects remain in the form
of limited experience and history and I choose to do my best at overcoming
them.
I recently saw a video in which a woman expressed rage that
she had worked her “ass off” for her exceptional financial success, but was now
upset to be reviled by those at lower levels of affluence. It had not occurred
to her that many people have worked just as hard as she but are lucky to barely
even survive. How did that happen? I can imagine her rejoinder—so repugnantly
common—that those people just had not made the right decisions like she had. To
such people I want to say, “Well if it is all about choice, then you are
reviled as a result of your own decisions.”
