Episode 2223: Sophia Rosenfeld asks if our age of choice might also be an age of tyranny

In an era where even toothpaste shopping can trigger an existential crisis, intellectual historian Sophia Rosenfeld explore how we became both imprisoned and freed by endless options. Her new book The Age of Choice traces our evolution from a world where nobility bragged about not having any choices to one where choice itself has become our modern religion. From voting booths to gender identity, from Amazon's infinite scroll to dating apps' endless swipes, Rosenfeld reveals how "freedom of choice" conquered modern life - and why having too many options might be making us less free than we’d like to think.

Here are the 5 KEEN ON takeaways from our conversation with Rosenfeld:

* Choice wasn't always central to freedom: Historically, especially among nobility, freedom was associated with not having to make choices. The modern equation of freedom with endless choice is a relatively recent development that emerged alongside consumer capitalism and democracy.

* The transformation of choice from moral to preferential: There's been a fundamental shift from viewing choice primarily as a moral decision (like Hercules choosing between right and wrong paths) to seeing it as an expression of personal preference (like choosing between toothpaste brands). The mere act of having choice became morally significant, rather than actually making the "right" choice.

* Democracy's evolution transformed voting: The shift to secret ballots in the late 19th century marked a crucial change in how we exercise democratic choice, moving from communal decision-making to private, individual choice - a change that philosophers like John Stuart Mill actually opposed, fearing it would reduce democracy to consumer-style selection.

* Choice can work against collective good: While individual choice is celebrated as freedom, it can actually hinder addressing collective challenges like climate change or public health, where limiting individual choices might better serve the common good.

* The paradox of modern choice: While we've extended choice into previously unthinkable areas (gender identity, sexuality, family relationships), many people are simultaneously seeking ways to reduce choice overload - from AI recommendations to personal shoppers - suggesting we may have reached the limits of how much choice we can handle.

Sophia Rosenfeld is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches European and American intellectual and cultural history with a special emphasis on the Enlightenment, the trans-Atlantic Age of Revolutions, and the legacy of the eighteenth century for modern democracy. Her newest book, to be published by Princeton University Press in February 2025, is entitled The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life. It explores how, between the 17th century and the present, the idea and practice of making choices from menus of options came to shape so many aspects of our existences, from consumer culture to human rights, and with what consequences. She is also the author of A Revolution in Language: The Problem of Signs in Late Eighteenth-Century France (Stanford, 2001); Common Sense: A Political History (Harvard, 2011), which won the Mark Lynton History Prize and the Society for the History of the Early American Republic Book Prize; and Democracy and Truth: A Short History (Penn Press, 2019). Her articles and essays have appeared in leading scholarly journals, including the American Historical Review, the Journal of Modern History, French Historical Studies, and the William and Mary Quarterly, as well as publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Dissent, and, frequently, The Nation. From 2013 to 2017, she co-edited the journal Modern Intellectual History. In 2022, A Cultural History of Ideas, a 6 volume book series covering antiquity to the present for which she was co-general editor with Peter Struck, appeared with Bloomsbury and won the Association of American Publishers’ award for best reference work in the humanities. Her writing has been or is being translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Hindi, Korean, and Chinese. Rosenfeld received her B.A. from Princeton University and her Ph.D. from Harvard University. She has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, the Mellon Foundation, both the Remarque Institute and the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Paris, and the American Council of Learned Societies, as well as visiting professorships at the University of Virginia School of Law and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris). Prior to arriving at Penn in January 2017, she was Professor of History at Yale University and, before that, the University of Virginia. She also served a three-year term from 2018 to 2021 as Vice President of the American Historical Association, where she was in charge of the Research Division. In 2022, she held the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the North at the Library of Congress, and she was also named by the French government Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques. Among her other ongoing interests are the history of free speech, dissent, and censorship; the history of aesthetics (including dance); the history of political language; political theory (contemporary and historical); the history of epistemology; the history of information and misinformation; the history of the emotions and senses; the history of feminism; universities and democracy; and experimental historical methods.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe