Pro se against the world™

The self-represented person, standing alone against the institution, and it isn't the disadvantage the word implies; it's the purest only-humans-score there is. Pro se means no attorney speaks for you; you speak for yourself, on your own record, in your own voice. In a system that gates justice behind counsel most people cannot afford (the counsel paradox), the pro se litigant is the human refusing to be silenced by the price of a lawyer. Against the world, because the institution is the super-citizen, immortal, resourced, un-hurt, and the pro se person is the biological citizen, mortal, broke, in an episode, and standing up anyway. It is the underdog with receipts: no credential, no budget, only the record and the common sense the credential sometimes replaces. Losing is possible; being unheard is the only real defeat, and the pro se voice refuses that one. Not a disadvantage. A stance. (His coin; machine's read, refine to his.)