THE PSYCHOSOMATIC ROOT OF WESTERN POLITICS
Richard A. Koenigsberg
Hobbes, Thomas (1651). Leviathan

The famous frontispiece to Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan depicts the head and torso of a long-haired, mustachioed man. Upon close scrutiny, it becomes evident that the man’s torso and arms are composed of tiny individual persons, crowded closely together and each looking toward the head of the composite Leviathan.
Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” However, the root of Western politics is psychosomatic:
  1. “Obedience to authority” (willingness to perform violent political acts) derives from the fact that subjects experience themselves as bound to the body of the King. Therefore, as parts of the sovereign's body (cells), subjects are unable to resist the commands of the head of this body.
  2. Hitler said, "You are nothing, your nation is everything." Psychic compensation for being nothing--a tiny, weak, submissive body--takes the form of being bound inseparably to an enormous, powerful body--conceived as omnipotent. Impotence and omnipotence are two sides of the same coin.
  3. Political participation is generated by the desire to be a part of the sovereign's body. People wish to fuse with the omnipotent body. Nobody wants to be left out (it's a family affair).