The Classical Body Politic
The Body Politic was a term developed by Plato; today this is known as the Classical Body Politic. This came from the term “polity,” used by the Ancient Greeks to describe the politics of society. Plato’s “Laws” writing on the subject of arbitrary power, concluded that “[i]n order to guard against this evil, the God who watched over Sparta gave you two kings instead of one, that they might balance one another; and further to lower the pulse of your body politic, some human wisdom, mingled with divine power, tempered the strength and self-sufficiency of youth with the moderation of age in the institution of your senate,” (Plato, p. 2251-2252).
Jack. C. Plano’s Dictionary of Political Analysis defines the term as “the political organization of a society… applying to both a highly organized state as well as a very primitive society,” (Plano, J.C., p.110). Aristotle described the Body Politic as “[t]here are three kinds of constitution, and an equal number of deviation-forms — perversions, as it were, of them. The constitutions are monarchy, aristocracy, and thirdly that which is based on a property qualification, which it seems appropriate to call timocratic, though most people are wont to call it polity. The best of these is monarchy, the worst timocracy. The deviation from monarchy is tyrany [sic]; for both are forms of one-man rule, but there is the greatest difference between them; the tyrant looks to his own advantage, the king to that of his subjects,” (Aristotle, p. 1127).
Historian Alan Ryan writes on the era of the developing classical body politic in ancient Greece that “[f]or the Jews, politics was a fall from grace. For the Greeks, it was an achievement,” (Ryan, A., p. 8). Ryan cites Plato among others viewed this achievement as a flawed one, leading to the development of the term Body Politic. Ancient Greek Historian Polybius officially held the view that in politics, “a healthy start is indispensable. Sickly children did not make healthy adults.” Polybius wrote that “there is no more authentic way to prepare and train oneself for political life than by studying history,” (Waterfield, R. et al., p. 3). Alan Ryan reminds us that the Body Politic is reliant on human nature, writing in Regard to Philosopher Thomas Hobbes, that “since a body politic is constructed from individuals, we must know the nature of the parts to know the nature of the “artificial man” that we shall build,” adding that “[t]he body politic has two aspects; it is the sovereign when actively making law, and the state when implementing the laws once made;” Ryan adds that sovereignty is moi commun, striving to achieve common good, (Ryan, A., p. 562).
States were a component of Plato’s Body Politic, where he wrote that “a state, if an ‘ocracy’ at all, should be called a theocracy.” (Plato, p. 2260). Plato scribed a debate between [ancient] Athenian Philosopher Hermogenes and Socrates, where Socrates stated on the ruling class “[d]o you not know that the heroes are demigods?”(Plato, p. 682) Plato’s Republic featured a more elaborate example of theocracy whereby Plato wrote, “The subtle difference between the collective and individual action of mankind seems to have escaped early thinkers, and we too are sometimes in danger of forgetting the conditions of united human action, whenever we either elevate politics into ethics, or lower ethics to the standard of politics.” (Plato, p. 1339).
In Plato’s “Law” Book IV, where he wrote on monopolies of power, that “[s]uch governments are not polities, but parties; nor are any laws good which are made in the interest of particular classes only, and not of the whole. In Book VIII “Four Forms of Government,” Plato writes on a conversation between his older brother Glaucon and Socrates, scribing that “the inferior sort of natures, being the contentious and ambitious, who answer to the Spartan polity; also the oligarchical, democratical, and tyrannical,” (Plato,1859). During this conversation, a question was proposed asking, “[a]nd what manner of government do you term oligarchy?” to which was replied, “a government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it,” (Plato, p.1867). This represented the potential sicknesses to be incurred by government, consistent throughout history into contemporary politics.
The illnesses of the classical Body Politic can be best described by Plato’s five defined regimes; Plato believed that the body could at any point the Body Politic could form an ocracy, resulting in an oppressive theocracy, whereby forcing citizens to follow the ordinance of the state with limited sovereignty under its ruler. Should a citizen choose to rebel in this sickened Body Politic, he would succumb to the perils of persecution, even death. Plato cited these political mutations, or sicknesses of the Body Politic as; Timocracies, Democracies, Aristocracies, Oligarchies, and Tyrannies. Critical scholars opposing ‘democracy’ being vilified as a diseased body, are reminded by historian Alan Ryan, to “anyone who supposes that democracies are by their nature peace-loving, humane, and just. Their capacity for mass murder should not be underestimated.”
Plato rightly believed an implemented Democracy to be of a temporary state, writing that, “[t]o the perfect ideal succeeds the government of the soldier and the lover of honour, this declining into democracy, and democracy into tyranny, in an imaginary but regular order having not much resemblance to the actual facts. When ‘the wheel has come full circle’ we do not begin again with a new period of human life; but we have passed from the best to the worst, and there we end,” (Plato, p. 1310). Ancient Greek democracy is very different from American democracy, however, this perpetual cycle of politics remains active into the modern age.
Plato stated of Aristocracy that, “although the existence of an ideal aristocracy is slenderly proven from the remains of early Greek history, and we have a difficulty in ascribing such a character, however the idea may be defined, to any actual Hellenic state—or indeed to any state which has ever existed in the world—still the rule of the best was certainly the aspiration of philosophers, who probably accommodated a good deal their views of primitive history to their own notions of good government,” (Plato, p. 1360).
Timocracy, a government run by property owners, was another deviation or sickness, altered from the Body Politic, resulting in ill citizens and, thereby, Plato wrote, “[t]he individual who answers to timocracy has some noticeable qualities. He is described as ill educated, but, like the Spartan, a lover of literature; and although he is a harsh master to his servants he has no natural superiority over them. His character is based upon a reaction against the circumstances of his father, who in a troubled city has retired from politics; and his mother, who is dissatisfied at her own position, is always urging him towards the life of political ambition. Such a character may have had this origin, and indeed Livy attributes the Licinian laws to a feminine jealousy of a similar kind. But there is obviously no connection between the manner in which the timocratic State springs out of the ideal, and the mere accident by which the timocratic man is the son of a retired statesman, (Plato, p. 1436-1437).”
Despite the alternatives, or sicknesses of the Body Politic, many contemporary scholars look to democracy the goal of their endevours. Looking back into history, democracy was considered a state of political instability, leading to mutations and deformities in cities, states, and citizens thereof. As Plato wrote; “[n]ow in a democracy, too, there are drones, but they are more numerous and more dangerous than in the oligarchy; there they are inert and unpractised, here they are full of life and animation; and the keener sort speak and act, while the others buzz about the bema and prevent their opponents from being heard. And there is another class in democratic States, of respectable, thriving individuals, who can be squeezed when the drones have need of their possessions; there is moreover a third class, who are the labourers and the artisans, and they make up the mass of the people,” (Plato, p. 1433-1434). Plato’s observation of the menacing patterns remains observable today in democratic governance, where similar detriments persist. Contemporary democracy’s interests have fallen increasingly correlative with that of a total state, in order to achieve some radical utilitarian ambition apart from Republican order. Alan Ryan writes, “The essence of a modern state is centralized authority, bureaucratic management, the efficient delivery of the public services that only a state can provide;” (Alan, R. p.24).
Plato’s development of the Body Politic introduced more extensive thought on the subject as indicated by numerous philosophers including Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Hobbes referred to Plato’s Body Politic in many iterations; although Hobbes existed in a different era beyond that of the Classical Body Politic and interpreted it within his own perspective, much of his work was contingent on Plato’s definition of the term. Hobbes declared that “the pacts and covenants, by which the parts of this body politic were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that fiat, or the let us make man, pronounced by God in the creation, (Hobbes, T., p. 1426). Of Plato’s iteration of democracy coming “full circle” culminating the diseased body, Hobbes ardently believed that “[i]n all bodies politic the power of the representative is limited…[i]n a body politic, if the representative be one man, whatsoever he does in the person of the body, which is not warranted in his letters, nor by the laws, is his own act, and not the act of the body, nor of any other member thereof besides himself: because further than his letters, or the laws limit, he representeth no man’s person, but his own,” (Hobbes, T., p. 1645, 1646). Plato’s Body Politic encompassed states, cities, and civilians government, Hobbes stated, “bodies politic for government of a province, colony, or town,” (Hobbes, T., p. 1649).
Conclusion
As history has shown, politics are nothing more than the general well-being [welfare] of the people; and the defense of the national government itself, and its ability to protect its citizens from inherent threats to the Body Politic. The city, state, and the sovereignty of the citizen must be in union; this delicate balance is easily exploited by maleficent forces, resulting in regime transition and democratic mutations. The division seen today is an example of strategic implementation to disrupt civil order, as government has learned that a state of depravity is grounds for intervention, in esse encroaching statutes on civility; resulting in a diseased polity. This is preventable as America’s Constitutional Republic was foundationally built upon the principles of Platonist Classic Body Politic, therefore our legislators must acknowledge the faults in the logic of former governments and ascribe to a strict originalist Constitutional interpretation to avoid invoking plagues to the polity; including the deliberate attempt to initiate a paradigm shift at the taxpayer’s expense. Plato’s Classical Body Politic attributed the head to the ruler, and the body to the people, relevant in the position of Thomas Hobbes; America’s Body Politic positions the citizen as the head, and the nation as its body. The contemporary government of today is representative of an external virus seeking to deplete the health of the Body Politic, yet as the citizen of today remains the head of their own body politic, the sovereign citizen must build up an immunity to such erroneous expectations from authority.
–August 28th, 2023
Bibliography
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Plato. Complete Collection of Plato - 31 Works. Ageless Reads. Kindle Edition.
Plano, J.C. et al (1973, 1982)
Waterfield, Robin; Brian McGing. The Histories (Oxford World's Classics). OUP Oxford.