A Cardiocentric Political System
Heather Webb, in her fascinating book, The Medieval Heart[1], focuses on four fundamental medieval conceptions of the heart and its circulations. In the first chapter, she considers the notion of “The heart as sovereign of the body and as source of power.”[2] She highlights the body politic of a cardiocentric perception of the body. Body politic is a metaphor in which a nation, a state, its parts and functions are likened to a human body. Here is a question to ponder: If a nation was indeed like a human body, composed of many interrelated and cooperative parts that make the whole, which body part would most resemble the role of the king or the governor? For most of Western history, the brain or the head has been the most common metaphor for the ruler of the body politic. However, Webb argues that a cardiocentric body and body politic “each defy the hierarchical, vertical notion of a head that rules absolutely over a subjected body and instead propose[s] a centralized model of unity through shared resources.” She continues, “The cardiocentric model embraces pluralities and multipolar structures by recourse to notions of source and nourishment, rather than control.”[3] A cardiocentric view of the body is one in which the heart is the ruler and the source of sustenance for the body. By viewing the ruler or the governor of a state as its heart, our expectations and demands of him/her, and subsequently our opinion of an ideal and thriving political system changes.
William Harvey, to whom the understanding of the heart as a mechanical pump has been falsely attributed, unquestionably viewed the heart as the king of the body. In his famous work De Motu Cordis, he states, “The heart of creatures is the foundation of life, the Prince of all, the Sun of their Microcosm, on which all vegetation does depend, from whence all vigor and strength does flow. Likewise, the King is the foundation of his Kingdoms, and the Sun of His Microcosm, the Heart of his commonwealth, from whence all power and mercy proceeds.”[4] Harvey, as an Aristotelian, regarded the heart as the source of all power and all parts of a living body.
Harvey, and his contemporary, Descartes, interpreted the physical function of the heart differently. Unlike Harvey, Descartes transformed and viewed the heart as an automated machine, ruled by the brain, the sole active force in the body. Their contrasting views of the body and the role of the heart resulted in the projection of two different models of political power. Webb elaborates, “The brain, as Descartes imagines it, is an autocratic ruler that sends down commands from on high.”[5] The mind, which Descartes positions in the Pineal Gland inside the brain is “Entirely other to the rest of the body. Rather than a source of some essence or substance shared with the whole, it remains separate, sending out commands, not its own qualities. As it does not occupy the physical center of the body, the brain stands superior, remaining at a remove from the body that it governs. The nerves that descend from the controlling brain create a vertical structure, a simple two-part hierarchy of sovereign and subject.”[6] It is not difficult to detect how the conventional political sphere often mirrors an encephalocentric or brain-centered view of the body. Heads of states at the top, often disconnected from the population, govern them by legislating laws, regulations, and taxes.
Harvey’s cardiocentric vision of the body, on the other hand, projects an alternative political arrangement. “The heart-as-sun is the source of shared heat, distributing its warmth to all parts of the organism. Rooted in the physical center of the body, the heart, by the virtue of circulation, is connected to, and in communication with, every part of the body.”[7] In the political arena, a leader who is connected to his/her citizens and people, whose regular communication with them sustains the health of the nation, cannot become disengaged from and disinterested in people’s demands and stresses. The heart, through circulation of blood, is in contact with every part of the body, always, and is of the same substance as the rest of the body. Implementing a cardiocentric political system, thus, means, “Choosing centrality over hierarchy.”[8]
A cardiocentric political system de-emphasizes verticality and emphasizes centrality. The leader with the governing power would not be positioned, metaphorically, at the top, with the subjects beneath him/her and dominated. On the contrary, like the heart, he/she would be positioned at the metaphorical center of the system, the middle, which implies equal distance to all parts of the system. Power and attention would be distributed equally to all parts, and each part, in turn, would contain as much power as it required to operate optimally. In the cardiocentric model the vertical binary (head-subjects) standard is not applicable. In the heart-centered system, “The body is imagined as if supine in a horizontal plane, the heart like the king in the center of that sprawling kingdom. Viewed from this angle, the head is an appendage of the center, a peripheral member.”[9] The physical centrality of the heart symbolizes it as the center of power. Political structures that are organized around a life-giving center, rather than an authoritarian head, could be powerful in creating a coherent system due to a strong support for and dependence upon the central power source. In short, heart-centered and brain-centered systems propose different concepts of power. “The cardiocentric body politic presents authority as something other than control proffered from above, to which the subject is required to submit.”[10] Instead, the ruler is presented as “A necessary center that nourishes and organizes”[11] the society’s very existence.
Furthermore, a cardiocentric body politic is pluralistic. Each organ has a certain amount of autonomy and a crucial role in maintaining life and order. There is, however, one unified source of power, the heart. It distributes to each organ its life-sustaining substance in order to function optimally. In a cardiocentric system, unlike an encephalocentric system, power does not imply control. By communicating with and providing sustenance to each part of the system, the heart causes all parts to function well, but it does not entirely dictate how they ought to function. Each part due to its position within the system understands its role and can determine how to function optimally under different circumstances.
William Harvey, who likened the position and function of the heart to that of a king, views the heart as unique amongst organs due to its “Public function.” “While other organs each have a … private purpose, only the heart has an innate disposition toward the public good. The heart alone contains blood for general use in the entire body, while each of the other organs receive blood for private use.”[12] In other words, it is the very function of the heart to serve others by providing them with what they require to function. Subsequently, through its public service, the heart permits all other parts to operate in order to maintain a healthy body. The implementation of a cardiocentric government would set the leader apart from the citizens only “because of his exceptional orientation toward the public good.”[13] The heart “Is a generous organ, the sole entity in the body dedicated to distributing its power rather than reserving it for selfish purposes.”[14] “Power, like blood, is shared and distributed. The idealized king, modeled after the heart, does not subjugate, does not rule from on high, but instead is both vital and central to the entire body politic.”[15] In a cardiocentric system, the leader, is not associated with total control, unlike the leader in a brain-centered system, but represents “A model of connection that shape[s] understanding of the bonds upon which the multiple parts of the body and of society depend.”[16]
This blog post, though brief, helps to spark a desire for a political system that mirrors a cardiocentric understanding of the body. A leader who reflects the generosity and selflessness of the heart would be more effective in governance than a leader that personifies the dominating function of the brain.
CITATIONS:
[1] Webb, Heather. The medieval heart. Yale University Press, 2010.
[2] Ibid., P. 7
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid., P. 10
[5] Ibid., P. 11
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid., P. 14
[9] Ibid., P. 33
[10] Ibid., P. 45
[11] Ibid
[12] Ibid., P. 46
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid., P. 48