Abundant choice doesn't force us to look for the absolute best of everything. It allows us to find the extremes in those things we really care about, whether that means great coffee, jeans cut wide across the hips, or a spouse who shares your zeal for mountaineering, Zen meditation, and science fiction.
Virginia PostrelIn a dynamic, decentralized system of individual choice and responsibility, people do not have to trust any authority but their own.
Virginia PostrelMedicare is immune from the competitive pressures that force private insurers to pay attention to what patients and doctors want.
Virginia PostrelAt the simplest level, only people who know they do not know everything will be curious enough to find things out.
Virginia PostrelHow we feel about the evolving future tells us who we are as individuals and as a civilization: Do we search for stasis-a regulated, engineered world? Or do we embrace dynamism-a world of constant creation, discovery, and competition?
Virginia PostrelEuropean nations began World War I with a glamorous vision of war, only to be psychologically shattered by the realities of the trenches. The experience changed the way people referred to the glamour of battle; they treated it no longer as a positive quality but as a dangerous illusion.
Virginia Postrel