Renata Salecl and the RSA
The Paradox Of Choice
About the speaker
Renata Salecl is a Slovene philosopher, sociologist and legal theorist. She has written a number of books and is a senior researcher at the Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law at the University of Ljubljana.
The big issue
Does the freedom to be the architects of our own lives hinder rather than help us? When we’re faced with choice in every aspect of our lives from career to life-partner to toothpaste brand, does our preoccupation with choosing and consuming actually obstruct social change? And why is the freedom of choice be so overwhelming that it can leave us paralyzed and anxious? In this exciting talk, Professor Renata Salecl explores the curious dissatisfaction surrounding limitless choice.
Read the book
The Tyranny of Choice
Professor Renata Salecl looks at how choice and the vast array of choices we are bombarded with in every aspect of our lives can overburden us, causing anxiety and depression. She explores how the pressure to 'be yourself’ can be a tyranny which leads to ever-greater disquiet and how insistence on choice being a purely individual matter can prevent social change.
