Analysis of The Body Politic

In response to below, pick your favorite feature of the Classical Body Politic (1 scholarly source)
The Body Politic refers to the people in a certain place or under a specific government and in western political thought, it is “an ancient metaphor by which state, society, or church and its institutions are conceived of as a biological body” (Rollo-Koster, 2010). The Body Politics infers that there is a hierarchy within the leadership, a divided labor force, and autocratic origins. The analogy of the Body Politic was created by Plato in his works Republic and Laws (Ryan, 2012). Aristotle also touches on the Body Politic in his work Politics: “The polis is prior in the order of nature to the family and the individual. The reason for this is that the whole is necessarily prior to the part. If the whole body be destroyed, there will not be a foot or a hand” (Sherman, 1995). Plato and Aristotle recognized that a state or government could not survive without all the parts including the society it is made up of. For example, the head of the body politic would be the king, or the leadership. The head is “the ruling principles to which all other parts of the human body and the body politic are subjective” (Sherman, 1995). The feet would be the laborers and the commoners, who worked hard to support the entire body and the hands would be those who protect the good of all the people (Sherman, 1995). Additionally, the heart would be the council while the eyes and ears would be associated with judges and other figures in the political hierarchy (Sherman, 1995). The analogy of the body was a simple and effective way for these classical political theorists to communicate the importance of taking care of the state and government in its entirety. Throughout the history of European political debates, medical metaphors in political writings were used in order to discuss the health or sickness of a state or government (Shogimen, 2008). Some of these metaphors compared the reality of the state with the desired outcome of the state, while others were concerned with the treatment of the state (Shogimen, 2008). Classical Body Political thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the different political institutions and gave suggestions to society about how to best live under those (Ryan, 2017). Plato focused on providing descriptions of ethical societies and how societies and politics can develop morally. Plato and Socrates believed that because man has physical wants that he cannot fulfill himself, he must use politics to fulfill his physical desires (Ryan, 2017). Injustice is often performed in the Body Politic when selfish people seek out their own interest at the expense of the greater good. The best version of a state, society, government is where the different parts of the body cooperate to bring renewed vitality to the entirety of the body.

References:
Rollo-Koster, J. (2010). Body politic. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www(dot)britannica(dot)com/topic/body-politic.
Shogimen, T. (2008). Treating the Body Politic: The Medical Metaphor of Political Rule in Late Medieval Europe and Tokugawa Japan. The Review of Politics, 70(1), 77-104. Retrieved July 7, 2021, from http://www(dot)jstor(dot)org/stable/20452958
Sherman, C. R. (1995). Imagining Aristotle: Verbal and Visual Representation in Fourteenth Century France. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ryan, Alan. (2012). On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation. ISBN: 9780871404657.