Logan on Nostr: So when I was in undergrad, my thesis was on negative vs positive freedom in David ...

So when I was in undergrad, my thesis was on negative vs positive freedom in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.

It dug into the idea that in modern America we have lots and lots of negative freedom (freedom FROM external constraints) but a pretty shallow, if not nonexistent, cultural conception of positive freedom (self-determination, self-autonomy, self-actualization…basically okay no one’s telling you what you can and can’t do now how do you find fulfillment in your externally free state).

The two concepts can be kind of roughly analogized to having a thousand channels and no one telling you what to watch (negative freedom) but you have to pick something to watch, knowing your time is scarce and irretrievable (positive freedom).

The interplay of these concepts underpins Wallace’s famous commencement speech at my alma mater. Everybody worships something, and in America you’re mostly free to worship what you want (negative freedom), but how to choose wisely what one devotes oneself to is the issue (positive freedom).

For those who don’t know, the unifying plot point in Infinite Jest is the existence of a film (the “Entertainment”) that is SO entertaining that those who watch it basically lose interest in doing anything else and feel compelled to keep watching it over and over until they die.

Some terrorists want to disseminate the film in America because Americans are, they argue, uniquely susceptible to this film. The reason for this susceptibility is the subject of an ongoing conversation between two characters (Marathe and Steeply) which is essentially an extended, though fragmented, discussion of negative vs positive freedom.

Wallace wrote this book before social media. These days I think of the Entertainment through the lens of addictive, incendiary social media algorithms. One could argue we’ve died a kind of cultural/spiritual death as the result of these technologies.

One question I think worth considering is how much has social media, as well as state co-option of mainstream media, degraded our negative freedom (in addition to obviously degrading our positive freedom)?

#bitcoin and #nostr are both mostly negative freedom technologies. But there are very interesting ways of looking at them from a positive freedom perspective. They are tools to combat the seemingly implacable and ubiquitous cultural forces that impede our ability to pursue positive freedom.

Bitcoin, as sound money, can allow adopters to sort of buy back their time, clearing space to pursue more abstract things like self-actualization, fulfillment, etc.

The more I think about Infinite Jest the more I want to figure out a way to merge negative freedom bitcoin culture with an under-discussed, under-explored positive freedom bitcoin culture. If we’ve died a kind of cultural/spiritual death as the result of things like addictive social media, endemic entertainment, mainstream media, etc., my hope is we can have a revival, a renaissance, and a Cambrian explosion of art and culture through the advancement of technologies like #bitcoin and #nostr.

Negative freedom is only one half of what we need to be flourishing, productive individuals pursuing our respective highest purposes. We need positive freedom too.

Anyway, more to come.