Haunted By Choice

The great nonsense of cultural relativism has been superseded by personal relativism. Values are now relative to each person. Shirley Jackson's ghost story reveals how this "freedom" is really a cage.

“First world problems”: I hate that phrase, if only for its cringe-inducing note of virtue signalling. Still, there are problems and then there are problems. As I fretted over a particular quandary a couple of weeks ago, even I was moved to think, This might justify the “first world problem” phrase. I couldn’t decide what to read.

Given the thousand-plus books straining the shelves of my library, the issue wasn’t a lack of something to read — it was a surplus of novels calling for my attention. I’d take one from its shelf and glance across the cover, skim its pages, imagine sitting down to read it, then imagine which books I might enjoy reading even more, and a strange anxiety about missing out would make me return the book to find another.

I know, I know: Cry me a river, and then drown this self-indulgent fool in it. But this scene manifests something many of us face frequently. Our culture has become enamoured with an ill-conceived notion of freedom, one that rejects any boundaries an…