Category Archives: Rebel

Conscience and heart

Books, Classic Books, racism, Rebel

 

In a notebook Twain wrote in 1895 where  he described his Huck Finn as “a book of mine where a sound heart & a deformed conscience come into collision & conscience suffers defeat.”  Now conscience is a bit of an unusual word in this context.  Twain really meant “conventional morality” or “norms” by the word “conscience.” Twain was really speaking against conventional morality. Conventional morality or “conscience” was corrupt, for it allowed for the exploitation of slaves and discrimination against African Americans as being moral.

 

Huck thought he was immoral when he revolted against the conventional morality of his day that allowed a person to be declared worthless solely based on the colour of his or her skin.  The is a morality against which we must revolt. Nothing else will do. That is what Huck learned. The heart knew better than the “conscience.” Twain, like Nietzsche, wanted to turn morality upside down. This was the conventional morality or “conscience” that he  wanted to subvert in favour of a new morality.

 

Azar Nafisi summed up this purpose this way:

“From its first to its last page, Huck Finn shows us that everything that is accepted as the normal, respectable, is in essence not normal or respectable. It is s book in which “educated” people are the most ignorant, stealing is “borrowing,” people with “upbringings” are scoundrels, goodness is heartless, respectability  stands for cruelty, and danger lurks, most especially at home. It is a book in being “white” is not a badge of honor and you will go to hell if you do the right thing…Within the confines of this upside-down world, the only way for Huck and Jim to survive is to be dead.”

 

When such a conventional morality is confronted we ought to rebel against it. That is why Twain in his novel calls for a revaluation of values. They must be subverted, because the conventional morals are corrupt.

Original Sin

Books, Classic Books, Rebel

 

 

 

Mark Twain was not ignorant of what others have called the original sin of America—i.e. the catastrophic slaying of indigenous people and the slavery of African Americans. This is a sin so dark it is not clear how America can ever atone for it.

 

In 1881 Twain gave a dazzling speech to the New England Society of Philadelphia who were celebrating the anniversary of the Pilgrim’s landing on Plymouth Rock. He challenged the good people of the society to avoid smugness at that history.  He began his speech by asking the audience what they wanted to celebrate. As Nafisi said,

 

Speaking to the descendants of the Mayflower he begins by asking his audience what they would wish to celebrate

“those ancestors of yours of 1620—the Mayflower tribe,” whom he describes as a “hard Lot” who “took care of themselves but they abolished everybody else’s ancestors.” Twain differentiates himself from his hosts, telling them, “I am a border ruffian from the state of Missouri. I am a Connecticut Yankee by adoption. I have the morals of Missouri and the culture of Connecticut , and that’s the combination that makes the perfect man… “

 

Twain says his ancestors are precisely those people their ancestors abolished. As Nafisi said,

 

“Identifying with those “abolished” ancestors, he assumes the identity of America’s persecuted underdogs, and says his first American ancestor was “an early Indian.” Your ancestors skinned him alive, and I am an orphan. Not one drop of my blood flows in that Indian’s veins today. I stand here, lone and forlorn, without an ancestor”.

 

What a fascinating idea that his ancestors were the native American indigenous people who were slaughtered by Americans.

 

Twain also laments how “your tribe,” the Americans, chased the Quakers out of the country “for their religions sake.”  He added, They broke forever the chain of political slavery and gave the vote to every man in this wide land, excluding none!—none except those who  did not belong to the orthodox church.  Next Twain invokes others who were used and abused by their ancestors: the witches and finally the most persecuted and marginalized of all, the black slave. “The first slave brought into New England out of Africa by your progenitors was an ancestor of mine—I am of a mixed breed, an infinitely shaded and exquisite Mongrel. I am not one of your sham meerschaums that you can color in a week.” Twain identified with the spat upon and beat upon.  As a result, Twain was able to create what Nafisi called “an epic of the first American rogue.”

 

Here we learn what Twain revolted from—the exploitation of others. And this was, I would suggest the classic theme of this magnificent novel that makes it one of the glories of literature anywhere.

 

Sadly, Americans have not taken Twain’s case to heart. As Nafisi said, “After Twain, it becomes difficult to talk about America without acknowledging those absent ancestors, conveniently airbrushed out of the preferred mythology of America’s glorious origins.” Unlike Twain, too many Americans are not able to take an impartial view of their own history. In fact, as has been seen in the last few years, the American conservatives are actively trying to scrub out the truth of American history. They can’t bear to look at it. These Americans, unlike the best Americans, are not able to look at the truth. And as Nietzsche said “the measure of a person’s worth is how much truth he can stand.” These modern Americans reveal they have little worth because they can’t stand the truth.

 

Unlike so many other Americans who blamed England for all the sins of America, Twain wanted Americans to see their own sins. This theme was then picked up by other great American writers.

Of course Huck and Jim, the heroes of the novel,  embodied the mongrels and ruffians that Twain celebrated. .

 

 

Huck Finn : The Rebel

Books, CBC radio, Classic Books, Rebel, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

 

As readers of my blog may remember I am engaged in two quests. One is to pursue the religious quest in the modern age. The other, is to re-read at least one book each year.  Well reading this book does both!

 

I am often asked what is the best novel ever written? I answer that question in different ways at different times. That is entirely appropriate to a person who is meandering, uncertainly, I hope, towards the truth. In my opinion this book is certainly one of the best novels ever written, perhaps the very best. I think is my favourite novel of all time!

The book was published first in England in 1884 and America in 1885. In many ways it is the story of America.

Please note in this review I won’t worry about ‘giving things away”. Even if one hasn’t read the book it has been around long enough that everyone knows what the book is about and more or less what happens. So if you don’t like that, read the book first. It is much better than this paltry review.

Many years after I read and immensely enjoyed the novel, I read a book by Azar Nafisi called The Republic of the Imagination. It is a book about a number of American novels, including this one. That book significantly deepened my understanding of this great novel.  Nafisi was a teacher of English literature in Tehran, Iran, before moving to the United States and becoming an American professor of literature.

That seems almost inconceivable.  In Iran she taught a class of mainly young women, many who had asked her to form a book club which she led. One of her students was Farah who was dying but wanted the last year of her life to be devoted to the pursuit of a classic. This book—The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 

 

Many people consider this book a book for children, particularly young boys. Why is it that so many great American novels are considered books for children?

Nafisi said about young Iranian women reading this novel:

 

“The original Huck was our guide, our inspiration, the thorn in our side who reminded us to be true to ourselves and who, goaded us when we became too complacent, too conventional in our preoccupations,  whenever we seemed too comfortable with our lot. He gave us vital chaos as the kind of American we wanted to be.  He reminded us—best American heroes are wary of being overcivilized, and that they carve out their own path and look to their heart for what is right and just.”

 

Nafisi denied that a book was in the ordinary sense moral. She did say this, “it can be called moral when it shakes us out of our stupor and makes us confront the absolutes we believe in.” That is precisely what Huck Finn does. It wakes us from our moral slumbers. And all of us fall into such slumbers. It is intellectual indolence. A common disease.

 

One of the most amazing scenes in Nafisi’s  book is when her class at the University decides to put the book The Great Gatsby on trial. The prosecutor is a strict straight-laced Muslim regime supporter. The defense counsel is one of her female students. It is a remarkable achievement. Both learned a lot by reading closely that novel.  According to Nafisi, “a great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals , and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil.”

 

This of course is exactly what happens in a totalitarian society like Iran. The mullahs and morality police control everything in the lives of the people. The people are told what to do and what to think and even what to wear and how to wear it. This is what is now happening in Iran when the people are revolting against these restrictions, but it will be difficult. Yet the courageous women in her class did quietly revolt too. Merely reading Huck Finn was rebellious. Huck Finn was a rebel without a cause. No he was actually a rebel with a cause. A very important cause. We will get into that.

 

But how different is America?  As Nafisi said, “I wanted to write about Huck, to capture what he could teach us, at a time of reality TV and phony bombastic patriotism, about a more authentic American ideal.” It is interesting that I write this right after the 2022 midterm elections in the US. These are normally excruciatingly boring. But this year Americans were given a chance to reject the phony patriotism of the Trumpsters, and at least to some extent they seized the moment. Farah “wanted what Huck appeared to be escaping from—a comfortable and predictable home.” This is what Nafisi wanted too.

 

Huck of course became an orphan in the book. His father, Pap,  was mean and inscrutable and in his death freed Huck. So many novels about orphans who encounter a cruel and ungenerous world but then finds wealthy patron and all is then well.  But Huck was different. As Nafisi said about Huck, “But here was one little orphan who not only did not find a home, but was repulsed by its very idea, taking off whenever he was offered one.”

 

Nafisi made a bold statement about Twain: “If there was any figure in the history of American fiction who through his writing, created a literary declaration of independence, it was Mark Twain.” Huck was the classic scamp, rapscallion, and rebel. He dissented from the moral constraints imposed by society. As Nafisi said,

“Huck was a mongrel, an outcast, uneducated and unmoored, and since his creation countless Americans have recast themselves in his image.. He was suspicious of the smothery ways of conventional society, but in his ideals, his moral courage, his determination to open himself up to the lessons of nature and the vagaries of experience, he was as much a product of the Enlightenment as were George Washington and Benjamin Franklin…”

 

Twain understood how difficult it was to dissent from conventional morality.  It is never easy to turn your back on what most others are doing or saying in your society. It is much easier to paddle with the stream rather than against it. But Huck Finn found he could not do that.

That is why Huckleberry Finn is such a subversive novel.

That is why it is such a great novel.

 

 

Standing up for what’s right takes courage

Epidemics/Pandemics, Hate, Rebel, Social Justice

 

The Freedom Convoy in support of truckers went through Winnipeg on the way to Ottawa. I wish I had gone to see it, but Christiane and I are staying close to home in support of our health care workers and Manitobans who have not been able to get vital health care procedures or surgeries because our hospitals are filled up with Covid-19 patients and the staff are being relentlessly overworked. We are triple vaxxed so we think we are safe, but don’t want to take a chance right now partly for their sake.

Canada’s truckers don’t support such thinking. They want their freedom. And to them that basically means they don’t want to give in to health restrictions even if that increases danger for others. It’s all about them.

The truckers have also been joined by some unsavoury characters that they are not able to denounce. For example, in Winnipeg Niigaan Sinclair a professor at the University of Manitoba and columnist for the Winnipeg Free Press went to see their “freedom rally” when the convoy stopped in Winnipeg. He took his young daughter with him. She got an education.  This is what he reported seeing:

 

“We saw swastikas. We also saw dozens of signs chanting homophobic and Islamophobic slurs, threats against politicians, and near-endless messages about “freedom.”

I saw lots of sign-less people alongside children and elders.

I hope everyone I saw realizes that there’s no point chanting “freedom” when you stand beside someone calling for violence.

No one credits someone with a “differing opinion” while watching violence. The watcher is as complicit as the doer. Ask the German people if you want to know what I mean.

So, two days after International Holocaust Memorial Day (Jan. 27), Nazi symbols were brandished openly in downtown Winnipeg — and nobody stopped it.”

 

Frankly, I never thought Swastikas would be brandished in downtown Winnipeg. Some of the truckers or their supporters were carrying yellow Star of David’s with wording that suggested vaccine mandates were equivalent to persecution by Nazis.

This “freedom convoy” has been planned for nearly a year. Sinclair believes the date chosen for the event was significant. It was the day set for Canada’s National Day of Remembrance of the brutal and hateful attack on a Quebec City Mosque. It should have been about that event, not some phony “freedom rally.” There was a hero 5 years ago during that attack. He was not a trucker. He was Azzedine Soufiane, a 57-year-old grocery store owner, who was killed while opposing the gunman for long enough for others to join him and stop the shooting. That took bravery.  Driving a big rig across the country does not take any courage. As Sinclair said, Saturday should have been about Soufiane.” It should have been about a real hero.

 Instead of supporting a cause that needs our support, this convoy stood up for racism and zeonphobia. As Sinclair said, “No, Saturday was about people who used frustration with the COVID-19 pandemic to spread hate, sow division, and try to intimidate people they disagree with.”

 

I am not saying all the participants in the convoy are scum. But there were plenty of them, and I did not hear many words of dissent from the truckers or the non-truckers that organized the event. They were too busy ‘shouting hooray for our side,” to quote Neil Young.  The denunciations should have come through loud and clear. My own Member of Parliament, Ted Falk, had gone to the Manitoba/US border to show his support for the truckers earlier in the week. I did not hear him denouncing the hate.

Sinclair said he had not seen anyone standing up at the Winnipeg Rally to denounce the racism and hate.  Sinclair summed it up well,

“Truth be told, I don’t know if anyone during Saturday’s rally in Winnipeg or Ottawa had the courage to speak up against those waving swastikas. I’d like to hope there were a few… It takes courage to stand up for what one believes in. It takes much more courage though to stand up for what’s right.”

 

I would like to see some more truckers and politicians standing up against hate. That’s what freedom is really about. Standing up against hate. That takes guts. Something notable by its absence at the Freedom Convoy.

A very good Question

Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, Rebel, The Sleep of Reason

 

Recently a friend asked me a very good question. He asked me ‘why is it that so many of the anti-vaxxers are also evangelical Christians or right-wingers, or both?” Why do these people also resist vaccines? I don’t have the stats, but I think the factual basis for the question seems to be correct. The classic example in our area is southern Manitoba, particularly the Winkler area which is known as the Bible Belt and also has traditionally (virtually forever) voted Conservative, unless more extreme right-wing candidates are running.

 

I remember early on in the pandemic when someone told me that all the eastern European immigrants in Manitoba did not believe Covid-19 was real. They all thought it was a hoax she said. Many of them are also very right wing politically. From my experience that observation seems to be largely true. Why is this enclave so adamantly opposed to vaccines?

 

I am all in favour of dissenting from authority, but it must be rational dissent. That means the dissent must be based on evidence, not on presumptions or anecdotes or gossip on the Internet. Otherwise, the dissent slips into paranoia. Paranoia, by definition means an unreasonable fear. We have too much of that already.

When it comes to public policy the best evidence is scientific data. Rational dissent must be based on better data or better reasoning from the data.

 

The Big question is this: why do so many people, not just conservatives or Christians, but surely plenty of those, distrust government so much? Many people distrust government so much that they are prepared to believe all kinds of nutty claims, no matter how absurd, and they are not prepared to believe anything the government tells them.

 

Everyone has right to believe what they want. But that does not make those beliefs right. Everyone does not have their own right to their own truth. Believing something does not make it true.

 

People who disbelieve everything they hear from officialdom are just as foolish as those who believe everything they hear from officialdom. We all need to exercise our own critical judgment–our own critical thinking–to find the truth. Then we have to be prepared to abandon our beliefs when presented with better evidence or better reasoning.

But too many of us prefer fantastic conspiracy theories, because such theories, by definition, are opposed to the official version. After official truth is what the are rebelling against. They believe these theories exactly because officials don’t. If officialdom is in favor of something than to these people they are against it. Automatically. Without thinking they are against it. And that is exactly the problem because thinking is what we need in a time of public health crisis. We need our best thinking and we are not getting it.

Of course, when officials are automatically disbelieved, it makes it very difficult for them to counter arguments against them. How do you fight such an opponent? Anything you say is automatically not believed. Good luck with opposing such “reasoning”. It is like quicksand, the more you struggle against it the more you sink into the morass.

So I have been trying to figure out, why so many of these people distrust authority and instead believe wild theories with reckless abandon? I intend to think about this and blog about, in my annoying meandering style.

The Upside.

Movies, Rebel

 

Chris and I went to see this film on a rainy day in Arizona last year. We both liked it a lot. It is a remake of 2012 French film. Dave Driedger, a friend,  told us he saw the original with English subtitles. That makes him a super intellectual. The movie tells the story of Phillip (played by Bryan Cranston) an extremely wealthy paraplegic and Dell (played by Kevin Hart) a black ex-con who applies for the job only because his Parole Officers demand that he get a job or come back with 3 signatures from possible employers saying they turned him down. Nicole Kidman plays Phillips crusty and protective assistant. Phillip hires Dell because he is the least qualified applicant and yet detects some ephemeral bond between him and Dell. The choice reveals for the first time his rebellious streak.

The black parolee ends up restoring life to Phillip beyond listening to opera which until then seems to be Phillips only pleasure and it seems a pretty thin one at that (even to one who enjoys opera like me). There is no doubt that there is some class stereotyping in relation particularly to Dell. Dell is a father to a young man who has about as much use for Dell as does his ex-wife.

The two main characters learn from each other. Dell learns that it is useful to have some money and job. Phillip learns to have some fun. Both exchange musical tips. In the meantime they have fun riding around in Phillip’s fancy car, yanking the legs of cops, eating ice cream, smoking joints, and trading insights. Little insights that are sometimes the best kind. Dell learns that Mozart is not half bad. Dell learns that Aretha Franklin has something to offer. Both learn that a little rebellion goes a long way.

There is some genuine unforced humour in the film that fills it with joy. It is not a bad thing to go to a movie theatre and get filled with joy. Sometimes that is all it takes. Today was one of those days. I liked it.

The joy allowed me to overlook some of the more unlikely aspects of the film such as Dell creating a work of “art” that Phillip persuades his fellow owner in the New York condominium in the ritzy building. I say ‘go and see it for yourself.’ Perfect for a rainy day or, come to think of it now, a self-isolating day.

Free  Solo

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Movies, Rebel, Sport, World of ideas

 

 

I watched the documentary film Free Solo about the promise of Alex Honnold to climb a massive slab of granite called El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. It is a granite monolith about 3,000 ft. (900 m.) from base to summit. It is a massive hunk of rock. Free solo is a mountain or rock climbing technique that means the climber ventures forth entirely without safety equipment of any sort.

At the outset let me say it: I am a chicken. I would never do anything remotely like what Alex Honnold did. I have not the slightest desire to even try.  I also want to admit at the outset that I am fearfully afraid of heights. I get queasy just thinking about what he did. I got queasy watching rock climbers with ropes and equipment climb a rock mountain in Zion National Park 2 years ago. For me, I would have a hard time standing near the edge of the summit, let alone anywhere on the face without ropes or equipment.

I was scared of watching the film because I had been told that anyone who was scared of heights probably should not watch. I wondered what might happen to me from the comfort of my couch as I watched it. How cowardly is that?

I have only seen rock climbers once. That was 2 years ago in Zion National Park. We were beside what I thought was a massive monolith. We saw the climbers from the ground and looking up they appeared as miniscule people. Frankly, I could hardly watch them from down on the ground. I thought the climbers were nuts. And they all had ropes.  In the movie Free Solo I learned that this free solo climb in Zion was an easy preparation for El Cap. Nothing to it was Honnold’s attitude. To me that seemed incomprehensible.

It is interesting to note that Honnold was going to climb with a film crew following every step, often from a safe distance. That must have added to the pressure.

I found one thing very interesting in the film. Alex said, “in free soloing you come as close to perfection as you will ever get, because even the slightest mistake means you will die.” I always think the pursuit of perfection is insane. This type of perfection is even crazier. Perfection, as they say is the enemy of the good. I would add it is the enemy of sanity.

I admit to some unease about the film interviews with Alex. Was the purpose to glorify the attempt? If so I do not want to be a part of it. I think it is a crazy thing to try. No it is an insanething to try. I hope the film does not lead others to try it too to grab some glory. The glory could be short-lived.

The first person to climb El Capitan climbed it together with a partner  in 47 days using “siege” tactics. This means they climbed expedition style using fixed ropes along the length of the route linking established camps along the way and using  aid climbing with ropes, pitons, and expansion bolts to make it to the summit. Even then it took nearly 2 months.

It was ascended again 2 years later by a group of 4 in 7 days. Today it usually takes a group of fit climbers about 4 to 5 days to do it. In 1975 a group of 3 climbers did it in 1 day.

The first solo ascent (not free solo) was accomplished in 10 days in 1968. In time some climbers sought ways to climb El Cap either free or with minimal aid. On June 3, 2017 Alex Honnold completed the first free solo climb of El Capitan without any protective equipment whatsoever. The film is about that climb. He ascended the Freerider route in 3 hours and 56 minutes.

The filming was spectacular with some fabulous 360°shots.  A number of times I was almost ill watching. Remember I’m a chicken.  It was that intense when he made some moves that required stunning body twists and holding himself with a thumb or a couple of fingers and a quick movement of a foot for a slight toe-hold from one tiny ledge to another. Imagine holding yourself up with a thumb? Or a toe? It really seemed like an impossible achievement.

Even though the cameramen at times had to look away as well, one of them said, “Alex is having the best day of his life.” Was he? Why? I really don’t get it.

I personally have no need to seek out thrills.  I don’t want to support it (even though I paid to see the film). I would not want to encourage anyone to take such chances for no real purpose.

Now I know there is nothing gained by me going to photograph wild flowers, or writing this silly blog, but at least I am not putting my life in danger. I get lots of excitement from traveling the world of ideas. I would rather venture forth in the world of ideas than climb a mountain, or walk across Antarctica, or run 29 miles in the Sahara desert. Each to our own. I don’t say my puny achievements are better. They are just better for me.

It was interesting to me that no one in the film encouraged Alex to climb the mountain free solo. Not one person. His girlfriend clearly would have preferred him not to do it, but I also felt perhaps she enjoyed soaking up some of the glory surrounding Alex. She did not stick around to watch him climb. Alex admitted he did not have to do it.  He chose to do it. Even after months of preparation by him and the film crew he said, “I know I could walk away from it, but I just don’t want to.”  He wanted to try it, knowing he might die in the attempt. But he gave no powerful reason for doing it.

What is the morality of a person doing something as crazy as this so we might behold his achievement? I don’t know. I don’t think I want to encourage it, but I guess I did. I don’t know why. Chris did not want to see the film because that would be like encouragement to others to try it too.

Honnold also said he did not want to die in front of his friends who were filming him. None of them wanted to do anything to distract him. They were very careful to avoid that while filming him. It must have added a serious element of extra danger to do what Honnold did with a film crew constantly around him. He even said he was tempted to just do it all alone one day without all the fuss. Just sneak out int he morning and do it. But then no one would know you did it. Why should that matter?

Honnold also claimed he was doing it “for all the right reasons”. What could that possibly mean? He did not explain. Can you conceive of a right reason? I can’t. Even Honnold admitted that it seemed odd to him to say he was doing it for the right reasons when he was climbing with an entourage of a crew.

At the end Alex said, “What a journey.”  That was his summation. That is a pretty prosaic statement for such an amazing achievement. That leads me to think that the entire effort was actually entirely banal. There was no good reason to do. He could not explain one. I don’t think there was one. Hannah Arendt wrote when she covered the Nuremberg Nazi trials after World War II that evil was banal. Sometimes that is true.  But I would add that so is spectacle. Spectacle is banal. Sports achievements are all ultimately banal. It may be briefly fun. But there is no important reason for them. There is no good reason, other than to have some fun and get in shape and experience some competition. Extreme sports achievements are all, in my opinion, banal.

         I know you have to be brave to do what Alex Honnold did. I don’t have that kind of courage. None of it to be precise. But you also have to be brave to dissent from the almost unanimous opinions of your friends or community. You have to be brave to strike out on your own on new lines of thought. You have to be brave to speak up when someone else is espousing racist views. You have to be brave to attack your own convictions because you never know where that will lead you.  That is the kind of bravery I wish I had.

To be in you have to be out

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Arizona, Rebel

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zfv63ofvb1hfh9h/Screenshot%202019-03-20%2019.56.21.png?dl=0

 

One lovely day we visited San Tan Flat Restaurant and Bar for the first time this year. This was voted “Best Country Bar in Phoenix.” This should have concerned me.  The problem with Americans is that they love what is popular. In Tucson they love the Festival of Books. It was great, but in typical American fashion they loved it to death. Huge crowds destroyed the fun for me. The long line-ups eviscerate all pleasure. It seems to me that if Americans don’t experience long line-ups they think a place must be inferior.  On the other hand, long line-ups seem to guarantee a great time.

I have never been to Disney World or Disneyland. I never took my kids. I guess I was a bad parent. But I was not interested for many reasons–one of them was the long line-ups I had heard about. Recently someone told me about someone else who had been to Disney World and only got onto 4 rides because the lines were so long.

The restaurant today was like that. Most people wanted to sit outside. It was a pretty decent day. Sitting outside meant that people stand in a long line-up just to orderfood. But inside, where those who were not part of the in crowd, sat, as weird as that sounds, there was no wait at all. To be in you had to be out. To be out you had to be in. Go figure. I am always happy to be part of the out crowd, so I sat inside. My reward was no line-up. Same food but no line. I think I made the right choice.