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YAKOV KROTOV
Body and Power
The lack of logic in itself doesn't make things bad. Most things are
not rational in their nature and can do fine without logic. Some things
seems to be quite neutral: they can be managed on logical basis, they
can be manage through intuition, without logical distinctions. Human
body is a nice example. The distinction between body and "environment"
is not at all "natural." Most cultures live without such
dictinction. The distinction between body and outer environment is
not unnatural but it is artificial.
This can be best understood if we think about other possible distinction
which has been avoided by Western civilization. It is widely acknoledged
that human being consists of soul and body. Yet, we don't bother
about making definite distinction between both to the degree which
is known in some Indian theologies. Emotionally Westerner perceive
himself as a unit of soul and body, although this things are much
more different than body and nature. Soul is immaterial and body
and nature are material, so it is only "natural" to perceive
body as the part of nature, just as don't make any qualitive distinction
between air, water, trees. Yet, modern Western man puts body and
soul in one class and air, soil, water in the other, with the strict
wistinction between the two, distinction both logical and emotional.
This a kind of "privatisation" of the body. Body is made
not the part of nature, but one's own sell, a place for one's own
identification and being. This primary revolution in perception
gives to a man an experience of making divisions in spheres which
can exist and exist in many cultures without any divisions at all.
West differs from the East not so much on personal level, as on the
level of social instituions and proclaimed ideals. Politics and ecomony
in the West are supposed to be good when they are rational, operates
with logical distinctions, don't rely upon undifened terms and wishes.
The difference between West and East is the desire of the West to
make some important distinctions on the social level. Personally Eastern
man can be quite rational, more rational than a Western one. But Eastern
society is always less rational than Western one. The efforts of the
Roman pontiffs to define the borders of their power, to define in
precise terms the borders and meaning of secular power was the first
step towards modern West.
The struggle between Popes and Emperors was the first Western experiment
of dividing the power between different institutions. In the final
end it led to the Western conception of "division of the power"
in three independent branches (legislative, executive, judicial;
church power, from which the division began, simply disappeared.)
Such division is the base of the modern Western democracy. This
division is not only rational (if rational at all), as emotional.
It makes divisions in the sphere of power, in which most cultures
doesn't acknowledge any divisions.
Many Eastern countries adopted Western political models as forms.
Three branches of power formally existed in Russia even under communists.
But it is only formal division. Jadges and law-makers are subordinate
to the executive power. Attempts to change this situation are looked
upon not as "democratization", but as "Westernization."
Westerns (any most Easterners) look upin such situation with indignation,
and yet it exists. Why?
The miracle is not that Eastern political totalitarianism exists
but that in the West some democracy exists. East enjoy political
system without any divisoin of powers not because East enjoy slavery
but because East enjoy love. The essence and goal of love is unity,
and it is quite reasonable to promote love through unity.
When the change took place? "Divide et impere" (Divide
and rule) was the motto of Roman emperors, and it was in Rome that
the first step was done towards division as the mean to promote
unity. To divide in order to keep unity is quite a paradoxical way,
but it is very fit to our world, which very paradoxical in itself,
where human pride tends to poison any good ideas.
For centuries in different culturies people compared society in
general and different associations with human body. The unity of
the members of the body had been a prototype and symbol of the social
unity. Priests have been compared with the head, warriors with hands,
peasants with legs. Apostle Paul used the same image to make vivid
the unity of the Church despite national backgrounds of her members:
"For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and
all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body,
so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one
body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free." (1 Cor
12:12-13)
The metaphora of the body includes two possibilities: to stress
unity and to stress diversity. St. Paul, as all Easterners, stresses
unity:
"Now there are many members, but one body... God has so composed
the body ... that there should be no division in the body, but that
the members should have the same care for one another."(1 Cor
12:20)
According to this mentality, body exists due to the refusal of
members to struggle with each other. Western civilization still
think this is true concerning the Church, but the political unity
from the XV-th century is believed to be reached through the opposity
way. Let all members be divided and oppose each other in order for
the body in general to be alive. Certainly, that means that all
members are thought to be ill with pride and selfishness. The balance
of powers is the balance of egoisms.
The Western position seems natural for Westerners, but we must
remember that it emerged only recently. Eastern position, which
prefers to sacrifice freedom and personal views in order to save
society, is natural in a sense that it is ancient and more widespread,
and it emerges anew in the West in all critical times. Why Western
position is hard, why it needs constant efforts, why is it connected
with some peculiar nervousness? Because it is based on the changed
perception of one's own body as some system based on collaboration
of divided and antagonistic members. Most vividly this position
is evident in the Freudian view on the human being, which gives
to a Westerner self-imige as a being which consists of several deeply
antagonistic parts not only in physical members, but also in the
soul. The struggle and balance of subconsies, consience and super-ego
is a myth, which is a projection on the inner life of the person
of political myths of the West: politics are the struggle and balance
of different sectors of power.
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