Her intervention is timely, as cracks opening for social transformation are widening, even while “rational choice, transferred from the domain of economics, has been glorified as the only kind of choice we have” (page 42). In the process, she manages to make Lacanian theory, as well as her own insights, legible for a broad audience. Salecl demonstrates that an ideology of individual, unlimited choice manifests as personal dissatisfaction, increased anxiety, and never-ending efforts to improve our individual selves at the expense of the social. More precisely, she brings Lacanian theory to bear on questions of why and how we embrace economic rationalism as well as how these processes inhibit social change.

Working from a psychoanalytic tradition, she demonstrates the important role that unconscious emotions and desires play in shaping subjectivity and agency. In The Tyranny of Choice, Renata Salecl expands and deepens this analysis. Such analyses, it is hoped, might provide crucial insights into how people are animated by ideology and structure, and illuminate openings for social change. Critical scholars and others have long sought to denaturalize market capitalism by exploring the relationship between market-ideology on the one hand, and individual identity and behavior on the other. Market logics and the ideology of rational choice so overwhelm today’s imaginations and desires that they beg to form the basis of our whole identities-economic and otherwise. What an uncanny situation we find ourselves in today.

This personal branding was, of course, “a promise to your employer”, he said, but “it’s not just about your work-life, but your whole life”. Carefully cultivating the right brand was necessary to effectively “market yourself” and “stand toe to toe with anyone, anywhere”. He made clear to the graduates that if they wanted to succeed in this highly competitive world, they too needed to think of themselves as their own personal brands.

The key to his successful transformation? “I needed to invent my own personal brand”. A few years ago, he explained, he was out of work, just like many other people because of the recession.

The commencement speaker, an alumnus of the school, reminded students about the realities of the world into which they were stepping and what it meant for their economic futures and overall life prospects. The terms and limits of this new phase-what graduates could expect and were expected to do with their lives-was as at once harrowing and quite commonsensical. The near perfect weather-sunny and warm, comfortable enough for either coats and ties, or t-shirts and shorts-and the rolling, center-campus green made for an auspicious setting from which graduates and their families could mark a new beginning and embark on a new phase of life. I recently attended a commencement ceremony at a mid-size, liberal arts college on the east coast of the United States.

Tyranny of choice