Hare dedicated Interior America “to the those who are awakening to their own authority.” This message of self-liberation resonated across Hare’s practice both as a photographer and a therapist. But it is not entirely clear if Hare ever experienced such an awakening himself. Nor, more troublingly, is it clear if the newly awakened authority that Hare realized around 1977 when he quit his job at Standard Oil did not itself entail new forms of oppression and alienation. One might ask: is it even possible to be both anti-authoritarian and awakened to one’s own authority?
