Sovereignty: Illusion and Necessity

Sovereignty first appears as an affective mirage. Spinoza unfolds its mechanics in the Ethics: what is imagined as free elicits a more intense feeling than what is perceived as necessary. Proposition 49 of Part III establishes this principle, which Part IV extends to possible or contingent things. The passage cited condenses this logic:

The feeling toward a thing we imagine to be free is greater than toward one that is necessary (per Proposition 49, Part III), and consequently even greater than toward what we imagine as possible or contingent (per Proposition 11, Part IV).

In this perspective, sovereignty is not a real attribute but a mode of imagination. It feeds on the illusion of freedom, which in turn amplifies affect. Spinoza does not describe a state of fact but a relation: the thing imagined as free becomes the object of heightened sentiment. Necessity, by contrast, diminishes affect because it eliminates the gap between representation and reality. Political sovereignty thus functions as an operator of this imagination. It transforms determinations into appearances of choice, constraints into wills. The sentiment it generates is not deceptive, but it is produced by a categorical error: confusing freedom with what merely resembles it.

Spinoza does not condemn this illusion. He exposes its structure. Sovereignty is not an error to correct but a phenomenon to understand. It is an effect of collective imagination, a fiction necessary to political order. Proposition 49 shows that affect is proportional to the distance between what is perceived and what is. Sovereignty, insofar as it presents itself as free, maximizes this distance. It is, by definition, an excess of sentiment. This excess is not incidental: it is the very condition of its efficacy. Without it, sovereignty would lose its power of attachment. It would cease to be an object of desire and become a mere mechanism.

Part IV specifies that possible or contingent things elicit a lesser sentiment. For sovereignty to remain intense, it must therefore present itself as free—that is, as withdrawn from all determination. It must erase its own conditions of possibility. Spinoza thus reveals that sovereignty is a performative fiction: it produces the affects it claims merely to reflect. It is not a given but a process. A process grounded in an active misrecognition of necessity.

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Pride as Metaphysical Root

Schopenhauer approaches sovereignty from another angle: that of pride. In Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, he writes:

Since pride has its roots in conviction, it lies, like all notions, beyond our free will.

Pride is not a choice but a conviction. It is anchored in a certainty that precedes all deliberation. Schopenhauer does not speak here of political sovereignty but of its subjective condition. Pride is what makes the very idea of sovereignty possible. It is the metaphysical root of an illusion: that of a free will, independent of determinations.

For Schopenhauer, sovereignty is first and foremost a matter of conviction. It rests on the idea that something—a person, a state, a will—escapes the laws governing the rest of the world. This conviction is not rational but affective. It is a form of knowledge that does not submit to proof. Pride, as a conviction, is thus a form of alienation. It alienates its bearer to an image of themselves that has no foundation in reality.

Schopenhauer specifies that this conviction lies “beyond our free will.” Sovereignty, then, is not an act of freedom but a determination. It is the product of psychological necessity, not choice. Pride, as the root of sovereignty, is therefore a prison. It locks its bearer into a self-image that exceeds them. Sovereignty, in this light, is not liberation but servitude—a servitude to an image, to a fiction.

Political sovereignty, for Schopenhauer, inherits this structure. It is the collective extension of an individual conviction. It rests on the idea that a group, a nation, a people can exempt itself from the laws governing others. This conviction is just as illusory as individual pride. It is a metaphysical alienation, a misrecognition of the necessity that governs the world.

Schopenhauer does not propose escaping this illusion. He exposes its mechanics. Sovereignty, like pride, is a conviction that precedes all will. It is thus inevitable, yet irreducible to mere error. It is a condition of political thought, a fiction necessary to social order. But a fiction that, because it is rooted in pride, is also a form of alienation.

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The Xapiri and Ontological Resistance

Davi Kopenawa, in The Falling Sky, approaches sovereignty through a radically different framework. The cited passage does not speak directly of sovereignty but of the xapiri, the spirits that populate Yanomami cosmology:

167 - On the xapiri of the white ancestors’ land, see Chapters XVIII and XX.

The xapiri are not political entities but ontological forces. They are the guardians of an order that precedes and exceeds human constructions. The reference to the “xapiri of the white ancestors’ land” suggests a confrontation between two regimes of truth. On one side, the sovereignty of states, nations, laws. On the other, the xapiri, which do not answer to human will but to cosmic necessity.

For Davi Kopenawa, sovereignty is not a fiction or an alienation but a form of resistance. A resistance to an order that seeks to impose itself as universal. The xapiri are not sovereigns but guardians. They protect a world that has no need of sovereignty to exist. Their presence reminds us that human sovereignty is always local, always limited. It is an attempt to master what, by essence, exceeds it.

The reference to Chapters XVIII and XX indicates that this confrontation is a central theme of the book. The xapiri of the white ancestors are not Yanomami spirits but forces that have been domesticated, transformed into tools of power. Sovereignty, in this perspective, is an attempt to appropriate what cannot be appropriated. It is a violence done to the cosmic order. Yet a violence that, because it is local, is also fragile.

Davi Kopenawa does not reject sovereignty. He reveals its limits. The xapiri are not adversaries of sovereignty but witnesses to its insufficiency. They remind us that human sovereignty is always partial, always threatened by what exceeds it. They embody a form of ontological resistance, a way of recalling that the world cannot be reduced to political constructions.

For Davi Kopenawa, sovereignty is not an illusion or an alienation but a struggle. A struggle to preserve an order that has no need of it to exist. The xapiri are not sovereigns but guardians. They protect a world where sovereignty is not a necessity but an exception.

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Sovereignty as Irreducible Tension

These three voices do not converge. They do not form a synthesis. Spinoza describes sovereignty as an affective fiction, Schopenhauer as a metaphysical alienation, Davi Kopenawa as an ontological resistance. Yet they reveal a shared tension: sovereignty is never univocal.

Spinoza shows that sovereignty is an effect of imagination. It rests on a misrecognition of necessity. Schopenhauer makes it a conviction that precedes all will. Davi Kopenawa presents it as an attempt to master what exceeds it. These three approaches do not exclude one another. They complement each other, revealing that sovereignty is always already divided.

Sovereignty is neither an illusion to dispel nor a necessity to celebrate. It is a complex phenomenon, irreducible to a single framework. Spinoza reveals its affective dimension, Schopenhauer its metaphysical dimension, Davi Kopenawa its ontological dimension. None of these dimensions suffices on its own. None can be ignored.

In this light, sovereignty is a tension. A tension between what it promises and what it conceals. Between the freedom it displays and the necessity it denies. Between the pride that founds it and the xapiri that threaten it. It is neither entirely an illusion nor entirely a necessity. It is both at once.

These three voices do not offer solutions. They expose a problematic. Sovereignty is not an object to define but a field of forces to explore. A field where affect, conviction, and resistance intersect. A field where truth is never given but always to be constructed.