The titled short story, written by John Stockton in 1882, presents the reader with a hapless protagonist’s dilemma of an impulsive choice between two doors, one giving desired access to his desired and beautiful lover, the other to a ferocious and predatory tiger.
Being constrained to choose one of two options portending contrasting results is a dilemma that requires an insecure exercise of impulse, which, one would presume is rare among prudent and contemplative individuals. Nevertheless, certain choices, despite careful consideration, intrinsically, pose the conundrum of. unknown, or uncertain, outcomes. The choice of a life partner, friendships, business location, career, strategic policy and its timing, investment, political candidate, the route to an unfamiliar destination, and even menu choices, are among the plethora of such individual choices; albeit not as dramatically impactful as the stark choice presented in the Stockton short story. In such enumerated choices, the individual, hopeful of the desired outcome, has merely the facility of the exercise and reliance upon perceived relevant past experience,
In our view, it is typically misleading and potentially harmful to rely on the recited experience of others, except when needed and appropriate, that of qualified sources, like doctors, lawyers, and engineers. In matters of emotion, such as love, trust, and many other subjective determinations, it would be pragmatically wise, considering our contemporary divisive community, to rely solely upon oneself; this is especially true in choices relevant to politics and social acceptability.
Some philosophically contemplative individuals, not without arguable validity, would seek to question the principled existence of “free will,” citing the empirical limitations of familial, ethnic, and religious-based predisposition, nuanced life experience, societal expectations, mental and physical health, ambient environmental factors, economics, race, education, and nuanced persona; nonetheless, the risk in the outcome, of arbitrary or principled choice, is similarly, universal.
The final general category of voluntary choice, at times, is referred to in common parlance, as a “no-brainer.” The choice of sunny as opposed to rainy weather, smooth, versus rough surfaces, sweet, savory taste over bland, vacation rather than work, mellifluous sound over cacophonous, assets rather than debts, flowers as opposed to invasive weeds, and the like. The choices in this non-problematic category are facilely based on prior relevant experience.,
In the coming November Presidential election, the voter is unremittingly faced with a hybrid choice, combining the “no-brainer” choice of a suitable candidate, dedicated to the perpetuation of America’s constitutionally based, Democratic Republic and on principle, an Orange predator, like the tiger, bent on rapacious destruction. (see, early writing, ” Hazmat, Agent Orange.”)
We are supremely confident of the voters’ facile (“no-brainer”) exercise of judgment and the determined rejection of the threatening and dangerous non-fictional orange predator.
-p.
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