I saw parts in this section's Maranthe/Steeply interaction that reminded me of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale."

"but what of the freedom-to? Not just freedom-from. Not all compulsion comes from without. You pretend you do not see this. What of freedom-to. How for the person to freely choose?...How is there freedom to choose if one does no learn how to choose?" (320)

Published in 1986, Atwood's novel deals with a dystopian world in which this "freedom-to" is extinguished for a significant amount of the population, and its loss is particularly obvious with the protagonist stuck in a role not of her own choosing. She implies that the loss of "freedom-to" resulted in dystopia, whereas Wallace's novel suggests that freedom-to" has always been lacking.

Actually this argument that Maranthe and Steeply have slightly confused me. Who "wins" or strikes a better point? The argument seems to go off on a tangent that doesn't resolve its initial issue.