Tip-Off #133 - Political Anatomy
"Two laws are discerned in the true nature of things: both natural laws and the moral laws that must be established." - Tilo Schabert, "The Second Birth."
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Rembrandt—The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632). The Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons commissioned this group portrait. Dr. Tulp, the City Anatomist, presides. In 17th-century Holland, anatomical lessons were noted social events accompanied by music, conversation, food, and wine. (Mauritshuis, Hague, Netherlands) 7 feet, 1.08 inches x 5 feet, 6.72 inches.
Few disparage biology, physics, or mathematics, regardless of their understanding. Yet, "politics" is often met with disdain – an unfortunate irony, given its fundamental role in our existence. Before establishing institutions, politics existed within us, governing the interactions between our thoughts, emotions, and desires. The internal debate shapes our decisions, and there is constant negotiation between our competing impulses. We are "political" from the start of our lives; it is how our body works.
This might make the term "politics" even more depressing. I am not thrilled with how my body works. Now that I am older, I live under an authoritarian regime: aches and pains rule the day; what I should do is mandatory; what I want to do is off limits: I am virtuous, whether I wish to be or not. The days of democracy, though chaotic, at least allowed me the freedom to make my own mistakes and act without constant vigilance.
The excesses of youth diminish compared to those of age, yet the body, accustomed to tension, seeks peace. This balance — homeostasis — ensures stability and harmony or alleviates internal conflict and the sensation of living "out of joint." The most distinctive and essential characteristic of organic systems is their intrinsic drive toward homeostasis. (1) Homeostatic imbalance causes confusion, irritability, aggression, anxiety, listlessness, delirium, increased heartbeat, low blood pressure, fast breathing, and falls.
The new genomic science reveals how genetic predisposition causally affects public health and social dynamics. From what I know, I simply say that the laws of nature, including our own, reinforce cherished ideals by making them essential — vital in a culture that values connection and community. Three lessons stand out. (2)
First, synergy in biology refers to the combined effect of factors surpassing the sum of their individual effects, from genes to ecosystems. Political synergy brings two ideas together without the need for compromise. This process creates a third viewpoint that incorporates the original ideas while remaining independent of them. Unlike compromise, which leaves both parties unsatisfied, or the middle ground, where everyone is equally unhappy, synergy creates a solution that incorporates the best of both ideas. This approach can be valuable, not just in public politics but also in social settings and at family functions, making Congress look like child's play.
Second, interdependence entails mutual reliance among diverse members, balancing needs and contributions to achieve equity and stability. It describes how organisms in an ecosystem depend on each other for survival. For instance, removing a predator can result in prey overpopulation, depleting vegetation, and altering habitats. In politics, interdependence is seen when adversaries recognize their need for each other or when public agencies collaborate with the private sector on issues like homelessness, combining resources and expertise to reconcile differing viewpoints.
Thirdly, resilience is the capacity to recover and adapt to adversity, learning from experience to thrive amid challenges. In everyday health, resilience is shown by someone who, after suffering a significant illness, adopts healthier lifestyle choices and builds a stronger support network to improve their quality of life. In politics, a community demonstrates resilience by rebuilding stronger and more united after a natural disaster, leveraging lessons from the past to better prepare for future challenges.
Synergy, interdependence, and resilience are their own laws of gravity. They are essential for balance and equilibrium, both biologically and politically. As the famous metaphor of the body from the apostle Paul states, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you'... God has so arranged the body that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together." (Paul is inclusive: Our "less presentable members," so to speak, are "clothed with greater honor.") Break your little toe, and your blood pressure spikes; tough out your shortness of breath and star in your own medical drama; find relief for your back pain, and your whole day gets better.
The good life entails respecting who we are meant to be. Our lives carry the seeds of their renewal. What we began to be, we can still become.
The poet says it well:
"And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."
— T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets
Notes and reading
(1) “… drive toward homeostasis” - from “Cognitive Systems and Homeostasis” - David Bentley Hart (Substack Leaves in the Wind - January 6, 2024.) Traits contributing to homeostasis enhance an organism's fitness, increasing its chances of survival and reproduction. (Popular familiarity with this concept has diminished its perceived significance.)
(2) This is not another "appeal to nature," the rhetorical technique that makes morality a function of nature: something is good because it is "natural" or wrong because it is "unnatural." Appeals to nature often justify debatable moral positions by calling them “true to nature,” such as male dominance and monogamy. These arguments contend that heterosexuality and traditional gender roles are the only natural and acceptable forms of sexuality and gender expression. (As if nature were exclusively Alpha-males and straight monkeys.)
The quote beneath the title (footnoted here below) correlates but distinguishes between “natural” and “moral” laws. They are not two sides of the same coin. In this spirit, the three lessons I draw from nature function as “laws,” understood not as decrees or commands but as the fundamental context for humanly developed moral laws and as guardrails for debate. (A likely critical gambit: All this is "glorified proceduralism"; on the other hand, it is said "substantive ends" tribalize the common good.)
The Second Birth: On the Political Beginnings of Human Existence (2015) — German political thinker Tilo Schabert (mentor: Eric Voegelin), Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Erlangen, Germany. Schabert's work explores how our bodies inform our understanding of politics by analyzing the intersections of politics, philosophy, and religion, specifically Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Taoism. He believed in the necessity of considering spiritual and transcendent dimensions to fully comprehend natural law and human existence. Were Schabert a theologian, he would say that grace completes or perfects nature; at least for him, reason and revelation are intertwined. His naturalism is tempered by a theologically infused “political cosmology,” which I acknowledge without further elaboration.
Note: Although Schabert and the work immediately below inspired my remarks in this essay, they reflect my own initial thoughts.
Genomic Politics: How the Revolution in Genomic Science Is Shaping American Society (2021) - Jennifer Hochschild (Harvard); “Can Progressives Be Convinced That Genetics Matters?” Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker (September 26, 2021): E.g., “Building a commitment to egalitarianism on our genetic uniformity is building a house on sand,”
“The Body Politic” - Julia Metzger-Traber, If the Body Politic Could Breathe in the Age of the Refugee: An Embodied Philosophy of Interconnection (2018), 63-82. Metzger-Traber is an American performance artist and social activist. “Politics have long taken inspiration from the body. As a symbol, an object, and a metaphor, the body has been a muse for political philosophy and inspired the blueprint for many emotional and political landscapes of belonging.”
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder - Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2014). A close consideration of resilience by the bestselling author of The Black Swan. - Consider homeostasis — as tough (antifragile) as it is tender (fragile).
"... the famous metaphor of the body from the apostle Paul" - 1 Corinthians 12:21-26 (abridged).
T.S. Eliot - excerpt from "Little Gidding," the final poem in The Four Quartets.
Rembrandt - The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632).