I.e., his idealism, specifically his idealized sense of self. To the doctor, who
puts no faith in the self, Nostromo's idealized sense of self would be the ultimate
affront. By extension, it is the People at large who succumb to the "confounded
nonsense" of trust in the self, and, nonsense or not, it is quite true that
it derives in no little part from the ideal of Liberty, i.e., the notion that
the people are fit to govern themselves.