From: "Richard Koenigsberg" <libraryofsocialscience-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: Culture, War and the Body Politic
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 23:43:18 -0400


Daniel Teodoru writes insightfully that "war is grief for many individuals
but survival truth for the body-body politic, that is." He observes that it
is the "same with culture." Culture represents an imposition of "positive
burdens and negative proscriptions on the individual that sacrifice 'me' for
'it'-the social entity to which I belong." Ironically, Teodoru concludes,
"in order to feel safe by being a member of that social entity, I sacrifice
even myself to protect it."

What is the nature and meaning of this "body politic" for which individuals
are willing to sacrifice their lives? The body politic is the fantasy of an
omnipotent entity separate from the self with which the self imagines itself
to be fused. The body politic symbolizes the idea of culture: that which has
been created by individuals, but which is imagined to "live on," possessing
a life of its own separate from the life of the human beings who have
brought it into being, and who sustain and perpetuate it through their
actions.

Infantryman Coningsby Dawson fought in the First World War and published two
books while the war was underway in which he attempted to convey the
motives, experiences and suffering of British soldiers. These men, he said,

"In the noble indignation of a great ideal, face a worse hell than the most
ingenious of fanatics ever planned or plotted. Men die scorched like moths
in a furnace, blown to atoms, gassed, tortured. And again other men step
forward to take their places well knowing what will be their fate. Bodies
may die, but the spirit of England grows greater as each new soul speeds
upon its way."

By changing a single word in the passage above, it is possible to
crystallize the logic of national sacrifice, how bodies of individuals
becomes transmogrified into the idea of a body politic: "Bodies may
die--therefore the spirit of England grows greater as each new soul speeds
upon its way." A mathematical relationship or positive correlation is
suggested: as the number of one's own soldiers who die in war increases, so
does one's nation become greater.

The death of the soldier--GIVES RISE to the life of the nation. What is it
that lives or survives when the body politic survives? It is precisely the
idea of a domain of reality separate from the self-culture-that "lives on."
The human fantasy of immortality is concretized by conceiving of one's
nation or society as an actual "body politic." The individual seeks to fuse
his small body with the larger body so that he might partake of its power
and glory.

Just as the Egyptian pyramids were built on the basis of the sweat and blood
of hundreds-of-thousands of individuals, so nations or bodies politics are
built on the basis of the sacrifice of human lives. The body politic is the
fantasy of many bodies united to form one omnipotent body politic.
Kantorowicz has written about the "King's Two Bodies." The second body of
the king is the dream of a body that lives on after the body of individuals
die: "The King is dead. Long live the King." The concrete body of the King
passes over into his immortal body.

The Second Body of the King is the foundational idea of nationalism: We die
for the King (the leader) so that his name might live on in history books.
Napoleon lives on, even though (because) millions of soldiers died as a
result of his actions. Hitler lives on in history books by virtue of the
millions of human beings who died in his name. World War II was initiated by
Hitler IN ORDER THAT he could sacrifice millions of lives and thus be
"remembered."

The term "body politic" is not simply a word or metaphor. Language cannot be
separated or divorced from the organismic being that creates language. The
dream of culture is that language and discourse CAN be divorced from
organismic existence. The fantasy is that there is a realm of existence
(contained within the idea of the body politic) that possesses an existence
of its own, separate from the lives of concrete human beings.

We wish to believe that the body politic is something other than a fantastic
magnification or projection of our own body. The fantasy of the nation or
body politic or "second body of the King" is the basis for societal violence
and the self-destructiveness that has characterized the history of
civilization. Violence is created as a result of our desire to believe that
earth contains something other than organismic existence, that the objects
we create possess a life of their own, independent of the lives of the human
beings.

Culture becomes a form of self-negation: our own bodies become the
"subjects" of the body politic. The SS-man swore "obedience unto death." To
become "obedient unto death" is to suggest the existence of some entity to
which the individual wishes to submit. Hitler said, "You are nothing, your
nation is everything." Or as contemporary theory puts it: "There is no other
but the other." The human being sacrifices his actual body in the name of
the fantasy of a body that is other than human. The reality of body
mutilation and death in war creates the idea of an entity to which these
sacrifices have been made.

Daniel Teodoru writes that in order to "feel safe by being a member of the
social entity to which I belong, I sacrifice even myself to protect it."
This "safety" is fundamentally psychological. The safety resides precisely
in the feeling of "belonging" to a body politic. "Hitler is Germany, just as
Germany is Hitler." The fantasy is that our own body is fused with an
omnipotent body. We feel "safe" to the extent that we imagine that fusion
with this entity will protect us from death. Sacrifice is the wish to give
over one's life energy (one's blood) in the name of perpetuating the fantasy
of a body politic whose life is more significant than our own: this
omnipotent body will "live on" whereas our small body will cease to exist.

The fantasy of the body politic is the source of political history. Scholars
say that nations are "imagined communities," or "social constructions," but
these are only words. Deep in their heart, they believe that nations
actually exist as real entities or bodies politic. We imagine that our own
lives cannot be disconnected from the lives of these entities. We exist
within nations as if fish within the ocean. The nation will protect us from
death. Approximately 42,000 people were killed in car accidents in the
United States last year, but no one wages a war against automobiles.

With regards,

Richard A. Koenigsberg, Ph. D.

 
 
 

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LIBRARY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE


Richard A. Koenigsberg, Ph. D., Director
Telephone: 1-718-393-1081


Orion Anderson, Research Director
Telephone: 1-718-393-1104

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 <http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/>
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HISTORY
 <http://www.conflictaslesson.com/why_main.html>
http://www.conflictaslesson.com/why_main.html

 


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