It would be conventional at this point to say that what emerges in the argument is a concept of true freedom as opposed to false freedom. What I want to do instead is simply drop “freedom” as a term of approbation. The word is strained by being made to do too much cultural work; it has become a linguistic reflex that affirms our image of ourselves as autonomous. In doing so, it obscures the sources of our current predicament of attention—by reenacting the central dogma that gave rise to it.
