Comment freedom from choice is what you want (Score 2) 43
My favorite Devo song has always been Freedom of Choice. It complements the Alvin Toffler book, Future Shock, quite well. One of the premises of the book is that mass production has overwhelmed consumers with choices. He illustrates this by describing the number of permutations of Ford Mustang that could be custom-ordered due to the combinations of exterior & interior color, trim packages, etc. while people don't actually care to expend the mental energy to navigate those selections. Instead, they would prefer to buy the car with these choices made for them.
Freedom of choice is what you got, Freedom from choice is what you want.
Devo even emphasized the inane choices confronting consumers with the physical single for the song. The record did not have an "A" or "B" side labelled. Instead, the owner of the record would need to decide for themselves which song was on side A or B and fill out a checkbox denoting their choice on the cover and record label.
Really looking forward to seeing this documentary.