Sovereignty as Relation

Sovereignty is not a territory to conquer, but a relationship to adjust. Three propositions bear witness to this, refusing to align: for one, it is the work of reason; for another, the effect of a dance with the invisible; for the last, the symptom of an original malady. None claims to hold the truth of power, yet each reveals a facet of it, like three shards of the same broken mirror. Their very divergence is a lesson: sovereignty is not possessed, but negotiated, lost, reinvented. It is less a state than a movement, less a property than a relation. Here are their voices—first distinct, then confronted in their irreducible tension.

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Spinoza: Sovereignty as the Conquest of Reason

Spinoza offers a sovereignty that is not received, but built. It is neither gift nor inheritance, but the fruit of an effort: that of reason applying itself to itself. Power here is not a question of domination, but of use. It is less about commanding than about becoming capable of living according to principles that depend on no external master. Spinozist sovereignty is an active autonomy, a power that unfolds to the exact extent that it submits to rational necessity.

and would be of no use if men could easily be led to live by the sole command of Reason, as I shall briefly show.

The sentence is elliptical, but its stakes are clear: the instruments of power (laws, institutions, constraints) are necessary only because men do not live by reason. They are crutches for a humanity still unable to walk alone. Sovereignty, in this view, is not the prerogative of a sovereign, but the collective capacity to govern itself by the light of understanding alone. It presupposes an inner transformation, a metamorphosis of the affects that would render structures of domination superfluous.

Spinoza does not describe an ideal world, but a practical horizon. Reason is not an abstraction, but a force that operates in the concrete fabric of human relations. To live under its command is not to obey a transcendent law, but to recognize the causal links that bind men to one another and to the world. Sovereignty thus conceived is not an attribute, but a process: that by which a community learns to do without masters by becoming master of itself.

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Kopenawa: Sovereignty as Alliance with the Non-Human

Kopenawa does not speak of reason, but of dance. His sovereignty is not a conquest, but an alliance. It is not won through individual effort, but through relationship with beings that are not human: the xapiri, shamanic spirits, guardians of the world. Power does not reside in mastery, but in the capacity to make oneself available to these presences, to invoke them, to make them act. Sovereignty here is not a property, but reciprocity.

Without making the xapiri dance, how will you heal them? Become shamans, like your ancestors!

The exhortation is uncompromising: without the xapiri, there is no care, no protection, no life. Sovereignty is not a matter of human will, but of dialogue with forces that surpass it. It requires initiation, apprenticeship, a transformation of the self that makes this communication possible. The shaman is not a sovereign in the classical sense: he does not command, he negotiates. He does not possess power, he shares it.

Kopenawa does not separate the political from the spiritual. Sovereignty is inseparable from the capacity to maintain the world’s balance, to heal disorders, to appease conflicts between humans and non-humans. It is not a right, but a responsibility. It is not decreed, but practiced. And this practice demands radical humility: recognizing that humans are not the only actors in the world, that their survival depends on their ability to listen, to respond, to ally themselves.

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La Boétie: Sovereignty as Tragic Illusion

La Boétie does not propose sovereignty, but reveals its vanity. His voice is one of disillusionment: power is never where it is believed to be. It is not a conquest, nor an alliance, but a consented servitude. Sovereignty, in this perspective, is but a lure, a fiction men tell themselves to justify their own enslavement. It is not a relation, but an abdication.

Let us attempt to explain what Montaigne did and how he understood his duty: the commentary on La Boétie’s work will follow naturally.

The sentence is strange, almost meta: La Boétie speaks of his own text as an object to be commented upon, as if already detached from it. This distance is revealing. The Discourse is not a manifesto, but an autopsy. It does not seek to construct sovereignty, but to dismantle its mechanisms. Voluntary servitude is not an accident, but a structure: men submit because they choose to, because they have forgotten they could do otherwise.

La Boétie does not deny the reality of power, but exposes its fragility. It is strong only because men believe it to be. Sovereignty is not an essence, but an effect of belief. It has no substance, only relays: those who obey, those who command, those who justify. It is not a relation, but a chain. And once broken, this chain leaves nothing behind: no power, no freedom, only the void of its own illusion.

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Convergence Without Synthesis: Sovereignty as a Field of Forces

These three voices do not converge. They do not offer complementary answers, but incompatible diagnoses. Yet their very divergence outlines the contours of a shared question: what is sovereignty, if it is neither possession nor attribute, but relation?

Spinoza makes it a conquest of reason. Kopenawa, an alliance with the invisible. La Boétie, a tragic illusion. None of these propositions denies the others. Each displaces them. Spinozist reason is not the shamanic alliance, but it reveals its necessity: if men lived by reason, perhaps they would no longer need to dance with the xapiri. Kopenawa’s alliance is not voluntary servitude, but it illuminates its possibility: without relation to the non-human, are men not already subject to invisible masters? La Boétie’s critique does not invalidate Spinozist reason, but it shows its limits: is reason itself not another name for servitude, if it becomes a new idol?

In this tension, sovereignty appears as a field of forces. It is neither an ideal to attain nor a reality to describe, but a problem to inhabit. It belongs to no one, yet is endlessly negotiated. It is not a state, but a movement: that by which a community becomes capable of living together, without masters, without illusion, without renunciation.

Spinoza proposes trusting reason. Kopenawa, dancing with spirits. La Boétie, breaking chains. None of these paths is the right one. All are necessary. Their divergence is their strength: it prevents sovereignty from hardening into dogma, possession, or idol. It keeps it open, as a question ever to be taken up again.

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