Choice is a good thing. Right?
Illustration by Roy Scott/Ikon Images Arts & Culture Choice is a good thing, right? Historian explores how having options became synonymous with freedom — and why it doesn’t always feel that way Jacob Sweet Harvard Staff Writer February 24, 2025 4 min read It often feels that we were put on earth to choose. Paper or plastic? Coke or Pepsi? “Have it your way,” Burger King beckons. In controversial policy debates, Democrats and Republicans both use the language of choice to argue for their sides — pro-choice, school choice. Choice is a slam dunk, inseparable from contemporary notions of freedom. It’s this sort of ubiquitous idea that most attracts Sophia Rosenfeld, Ph.D. ’96, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. After writing books on the history of common sense and truth, Rosenfeld tried choice. “It struck me as something particularly important that we rarely discussed,” she said. “Yet it was the unifying point, in many ways, for the...