Steeply's freedom-case: the doctrine debate

pivotal · 30 April / 1 May YDAU

• When: 30 April / 1 May YDAU (across the night)
• What: Against Marathe's "choose your temple of fanaticism" creed, Steeply argues the U.S.A. case: personal freedom, the sacredness of the individual, "enlightened self-interest," delayed gratification, the genius that each American pursuing his own maximum good maximizes everyone's. He insists U.S. citizens are "not presumed by us to be children," recites the tested American dreams and ideals ("We want choice... To be loved by someone. To freely love who you happen to love"), and holds that greed, crime, addiction and suicide are "just the price... of the free pursuit," "the hazards of being free." Marathe caps the American character as "The loyalty of a domestic pet," and Steeply agrees: "There you go, friend." (A common paraphrase of Steeply's anti-fanatic case — "we're all dying to give ourselves away" — is not attested verbatim in his mouth; his verbatim freedom-lines are quoted here instead. The nearest textual cousin anywhere in the novel is Hal's interior "We are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe. God or Satan, politics or grammar…" — scene 170, 20 Nov YDAU, a different speaker entirely; a fainter cousin is the Hal-focalized "give themselves away to an ambitious pursuit" of scene 013. Neither belongs to Steeply.)