The body of the individual dies, but the body politic lives on by Richard A. Koenigsberg Abstract: The body politic—unlike one's own body—does not seem subject to death and decay. It “keeps on keepin’ on." To project one's self into this "higher level" is to identify with the fantasy of self-perpetuation through culture.  Books in libraries constitute a split off dimension, seemingly separate from concrete existence. People plug into libraries to partake of what seems eternal and ever-lasting. Amazon has negated the dream of immortality through culture. Books no longer exist in a separate dimension, rather are contained within and bound to reality, coming and going. My Newsletter is part of this new conception of the written word, appearing in real time, not separate from life itself. Pyramid blocks have melted and flow through the Nile river. Hitler's fundamental mission was to “maintain the life of the nation”--making certain that Germany would “live on.” Hitler's fantasy of ceaseless existence—immortality—was projected into the idea of the never-ending existence of the German nation. Hitler and the Nazis dedicated their lives to creating a German body politic that would live longer than the bodies of individuals. Whereas Hitler's body was moving toward disintegration, Germany would live forever.   Hitler stated that National Socialism strived to “safeguard the people as such, if necessary at the expense of the individual.” The term “the people” did not refer to actual human beings. This term symbolized the idea of a national community that could live forever. Nazism meant renunciation of individual life in the name of devotion to an immortal community. Individuals come and go, Hitler said, but “a people” can live forever. German human beings sacrificed their lives in the name of a fantasy of “the German people.”   The Nazi renounced individual existence to partake of a perfect, immortal body. Radical nationalism (totalitarianism) is negation of the self; renunciation of one’s own body. The nation replaces the self. When one identifies with the nation, one feels big and powerful, but also small—a fragment of the larger body; cell within the national organism.   Nazism was the psychopathology of identification: refusal to conceive of the existence of a self-separate from society. Hitler explained to his people, “You are nothing, your nation is everything” (Lacan said, “There is no other but the other”). Nazism refused to conceive the possibility of a self that did not exist in a symbiotic tie to the nation. Hitler conceived individual bodies as being “at one” with a gigantic body politic.   Nazi “obedience” grew out of symbiotic identification with the nation. Human beings were understood as being fused with the national body. There was no possibility of separation from this body. One could not escape submission. Nazism required “sacrifice”  for the omnipotent body politic. Each German was to abandon individual identity and fuse with the larger body Nationalism relocates the self into a place that exists “out there,” projection into a symbolic object with that seems to exist in the external world. Unlike one’s actual body, the body of culture seems immune from decay. Human beings come and go, but nations live on. Nations are the “second body of the king” (Kantorowicz). For the nationalist, one’s own body and one’s nation are a single entity. The fantasy of being symbiotically bound to a national body negates one’s sense of finiteness and mortality.   Nationalism declares that the survival impulse be directed towards the body politic rather than one’s actual body. The body politic substitutes for one’s body. Human beings create and identify with nations based on the fantasy that countries are immortal. Unlike one’s actual body (frail and subject to death and decay), nations are imagined as invulnerable bodies capable of “living on” through time.   The nation is a double of the self. One "splits off" a part of one’s self and identifies into the "third dimension." The domain of immortality contains objects that "live on." Fear of separation from culture is fear of separation from a body that seems to live eternally. We imagine our culture as a body that will perpetuate itself even as our own bodies cease to exist. The body politic—unlike one's own body—does not seem subject to decay. It “keeps on keepin’ on." To project one's self into this "higher level" is to identify with the fantasy of self-perpetuation through culture.  Books in libraries, for example, constitute a split off dimension, seemingly separate from concrete existence.  People plug into libraries to partake of what seems eternal, never-ending and ever-lasting. But Amazon has negated the dream of immortality. Books no longer exist in a “separate dimension,” rather are contained within and bound to reality, coming and going like life itself. Publications flow. My Newsletter is part of this new conception of the written word, appearing in real time, not separate from life itself. The Internet negates the fantasy of “permanent” institutions like libraries. The pyramid blocks have melted and flow through the Nile river. To project one’s body into the life of the nation is to identify with the fantasy of immortality. However, identification with the body politic negates one’s actual body. Long-distance running constitutes a desire to escape culture, seeking return to the body--throwing off the burden of society. Rebellion against culture—struggling against the burden it imposes—is a powerful human impulse. We try to deny that our bodies are disintegrating. The death instinct refers to this simple, biological reality: gradual breakdown of cellular structure (aging). Each of us is withering away. We seek to escape this knowledge through projective identification into an omnipotent body politic. The dynamic of national identification is fueled by the desire to escape the actuality of one's real (disintegrating) body by projecting existence into the idea of an immortal body not subject to death and decay. Liberation from culture means embracing concrete existence and withdrawing energy from symbols of the self. One begins to abandon the desire to fuse with omnipotent objects. The privatization of life (your own private enterprise) means separation from the "big world." Cutting off parts of the self that had been identified the body politic is symbolic castration: lopping off the omnipotent object from within the self. Contraction, similarly, means withdrawal of libido from the body politic. Separating from culture—lopping off omnipotent identifications—makes one feel small, vulnerable and alone. However, one becomes more compact, dense, and real.    Why do we profoundly identify with nations? One’s nation is experienced as a double of the self. One fuses one’s sense of being with this entity—experienced as greater than the self.  Nationalism is rooted in the fantasy of immortality: identification of one’s own body with a second body that will “live on” after one’s own body has ceased to exist.