The Art of Tetman Callis

“The idea that the individual’s autonomy and authenticity can decisively and irrefragably be secured simply by insisting on the point that her motivations really are her own motivations is what Soviet theorists used to called naïve or even bourgeois individualism; it is the one-person-case analogue of the idea, in political theory, that the party that gains a majority in a fairly-conducted election is necessarily in possession of an unchallengeable mandate to govern. But the Sioux Nation do not lose their ancestral rights in Minnesota the moment they are outnumbered by white settlers there; and just because reasons are internal for me, it does not immediately follow that they are authentically mine.” – Sophie-Grace Chappell, “Rôles and Reasons” (emphasis in original)