[...] In Infinite Jest it is exactly this abhorrence of 'unsophisticated naïveté', this 'transcendence of sentiment' through hyperreflexivity and irony, that leads to emptiness, to 'anhedonia, death in life'. The desire to avoid naïveté at all costs is itself a form of naïveté--the 'queerly persistent U.S. myth that cynicism and naïveté are mutually exclusive'--that has catastrophic consequences for the self.