THE MEDICINE OF THE SOCIAL BODY

INTRODUCTION

To the present day, Medicine has been known for addressing the issue of the individual's biological Health.. Beside a semiology of the human body, the Medical field also covers epidemiology and hygiene - and while there is a Public Health Administration, these branches of Medicine appear secondary and minor. In fact, they prevent us from perceiving the lack of a Medicine, that would address the physicality of collectivity - i.e. groups as organisms.

Considering the social bodies, Sociology is fairly recent. During the Middle Ages, it was known as Ceremonial Magic. After the Renaissance, it was identified with Education. It is only in the early 20^th century that an objectivity - of the social groups began to be conceptualized. Hence, if a Sociology has existed for one century, then why is there no established Medicine of the Social Body?

HORIZON FOR AN UNLIMITED MEDICINE

Summary of the section: our present situation reflects the absence of a Medicine of the Social Bodies; the reason being an impossibility, an invisilibity or a seeming blindness - the latter due to a protective measure against the danger of such notion as a Social Body. However, we can suspect that a greater danger will continue to threaten humankind, if this concept is ignored. And moreover, we notice that humanity now finds itself equipped with tools and conditions which, by themselves, impose an actual conceptualizations of social organisms.

Psychological analysis notices that the reason for the absence of a Medicine of the Social Body is not usually pondered because its consideration raises anguish. As a result of this affect, we also realize that such Medicine of the Social Body should exist &endash; and this obviousness is being manifested for us through the industrial and ecological phenomena that become perceptible. It also indicates a series of possible responses to disturbing propositions:

Proposition a) " There is no established Medicine of Social Body (or Social Bodies) because such practice is impossible or because, for some logical reason, such medical object cannot exist. Even if Environmental phenomena suggests this idea, there is no possibility to materialize it - and the question, therefore, is nullified. "

The nonsense: We shall see below that this was probably the best answer in the past. It shall be also explained that during the 20^th century, Psychoanalysis has been the first discourse to establish a project for a Medicine of the collectivity [see the Freudian project]. It can be here noticed that the very advanced quality of the Freudian theory corroborates the unrealistic aspect of the emergence of a medicine of the social bodies.

Proposition b) " No Medicine of Social Body has been developed so far because we had no 'eyes to see it', no way to perceive it, or tool with which to operate it. "

The absence of preception means: This is also a correct answer which well explains the reason for emotional pressures, and why we repress our wondering why there is no established medicine for the society. It helps also to clarify two points; firstly, that in the past, Utopia, or other theories (such as recent Marxism) may be considered medicinal forms that were applied on Society. Yet Kingship, as another example, was not usually seen as a medicine, and modern ideologies did not prove how they could apply a therapy. &endash; They simply failed, and consequently, could be denied as medicine. Thus follows the second clear notion of a need for a tool, a specific organ or apparatus, that can be used in order to observe, define, and/or establish a Medicine of the Social Body - as it will be said below, while such a requirement becomes fulfilled.

Proposition c) " There is no established Medicine of the Social Body because it is unethical, or because a taboo forbids its conception and/or its establishment. "

c.1) Protection against Fascism: This is again a strong argument. Following immediately upon the foundation of Sociology, and the conception of a Social Object, the early 20^th century engaged into a 'personalization' of groups. The notion of a soul was attributed to the masses. This has been driving an ideology, called Fascism, that lost the notion of individual morality (under the preeminence given to a tyrannical superego). As a result of this, one can justify the banishment of a notion of Social Body.
However, in looking twice at the issue, this shows that Fascism was not caused by Sociology, but was revealed by it - as an illness, that is not caused by a diagnosis; and instead of revealing an unethical essence of Sociology, Fascism appears as a symptom that calls for a Medicine. Again Psychology helps in providing a key factor which explains this mirrored casuistic - describing a paranoiac foundation of the human personality (J.Lacan). The understanding of the reciprocity between individual paranoia and collective fascism allows the formulation, and therefore an operative, upon the link between an individual and society. Notwithstanding, this trial explains why, indeed, a taboo has long laid upon the social bodies, and has protected them against the conjuncts of paranoiac and fascist collapses.

c.2) Censorship of the Plural: Psychology reveals that the human personality emerges when it reaches an alternative option (vel , J.Lacan), that is based on a reference, which is either of an Absolute (One ), or a representation of the collective (plural ). The former has been well defined by the modern philosophers as it builds the psychic argument for a Divinity[see the constitution of the Absolute in the Psyche], while the latter provides a concept of Humanity. This relative collection (humanity), in regard to the individual (minus-one ), was a vivid representation amongst the Pre-Renaissance Hermetists, and is still well known amongst historians (Art of Memory ). It was called Nous (Nõus - in Corpus Hermeticum).
In Latin terminology, Nõus points towards the first plural pronoun, 'us' or 'we' (nous). It also indicates the verb 'to know', as in Gnosis, 'Know(ledge)'. Moreover, in English, the inclusion of the negative attribute ('no') fits well with its root in the original mythology of the semi-god 'Anti~no~us' (Antinõus ), who is involved in the principle of Collective memory (anomia  - see E.Durkheim below).
After the Renaissance, while the organized religions separated from their social responsibilities, they molded the population's mentalities on the basis of an Absolute-One. Correlatively the alternative system of the Relative-One God was left as the major taboo, since the repression by the Inquisition of the Renaissance of its Hermetic divine reference - Nõus had become the dangerous 'fruit of knowledge'.

This presents a fourth explanation for the absence of a notion of Social Body until the late 20^th century, especially when fascism seemed to prove the danger of a sociological knowledge. However, by the end of the same century, new circumstances (presence of Cybernetics ) impose the observation of a discourse (Grey Literature ) from the once called 'We, No~us', thus compelling the human knowledge with ambiguity, and reconsideration of the 'plural' alternative to an Absolute system in its mentality and morality.

FROM HERMETISM TO ECOLOGY

Summary of the section: History of civilization shows that original treatments of social bodies have been practiced as treatment of ecological niches. This fundamental approach can be revived today with an industry of code and a technology that authorizes its humanization as a Medicine. Such Medicine of the Social Body finds its most recent history in the last transmission of Hermetism (i.e. sociology of the Nõus) attributed to Asclepius (Esculape/Patron of Medicine).

During the 20^th Century, Historians have denounced several of our misconceptions. For instance, they explain how Science did not spring only recently and without a background. It is as an effect of a repression, during the Renaissance, that the modern age experienced difficulty in acknowledging the simple and obvious evidence that there was a previous form of 'real' science. We call it Magic and/or Alchemy. To be precise, Hermetism was, during most of the civilization, beside the Church, the equivalent with the University beside the modern national States.

The Inquisition in the Renaissance resulted into the super-ego form of the Absolute One (manifested as ideologies). On the opposite, and consequently, this has been barring the Relative Plural of Hermetism, which, has since, remained misestimated. But if we expect Medicine to continue to develop on a scientific basis, it will be useful to widen our understanding of this science, including its history - its previous Hermetic model of interactivity (i.e., environmental equilibrium and dynamism, which is Health).

The last transmission of Hermetism has been attributed to Asclepius/Esculape, thus requiring that we acknowledge its Medical orientation. This doctrine prophesized the building of Alchemical apparatuses that would 'speak and heal' (that is the current computers and robots which are produced by Cybernetics). Other clues indicate well the Hermetic precise foresight of Cybernetics (Art of Memory). Added to theses late testimonies, the early Hermetism is also meaningfull, as history teaches us its important primal notions of sociology - as a short historical overview will show:

Christian Hermetism (referring to Hermes Thoth Trismegistus ) followed a Ptolemean period (referring to Hermes Thoth). This followed the Greek reference to Hermes, which was itself issued, during the pre-Hellenic and pre-Moses period, by the discourse of Hermonthis (City of the Egyptian God Monthu). Along this descent in the past, especially instructive is the hinge between the Ancient Egypt of Hermonthis and the new civilization of Greece and Israel - both beginning circa 1000 B.C. The transition took place in Amarna in Egypt (the City of the pharaoh Akhnaton) which had been founded upon the political project of unifying the Egyptian conquests in a new and single culture. The Egyptian power, at that time, was covering the Western World, i.e. North Africa, Near and Middle East, plus Aegean parts. The ruling class (or a ruling party) of this 'total' territory planned to provide and organize their various populations under one single entity: Aton. The project encountered difficulties but continued as an underground and/or Unconscious process. Today, in parallel with its apparent failure, it reveals the connatural similarity between the Ancient Cults, their cities and/or temples, and the ecological niches that each one of them represented.

The identification of what today we define as the 'religious' system in the ancient time, as a network of Environmental Significands , casts a powerful light on the origins and structure of our Civilization. Morale and spirituality are not its only factors. Ecological niches (Environmental Significands) are made of natural, historical, sociological references (biological, sociological, historical; trade places, industrial production, memory sites, natural resources etc...). Atonism was an attempt to group these 'ecolons' (neologism©WT) under the unique principle of the solar system of Earth, along with the notion of a unique political nature of mankind. It is thus an early ceremonial (social) representation of the planet (or the world as it was know at that time) as an ecosystem, which can be recognized today as the Primal Scene  of our present situation and civilization. Thus the historian and scientific rediscovery of the foundation of Monotheism reveals how logically, and traditionally, today, one can clarify the notion of Social Body by its synonym, as Human Ecological Niche.

We are now realizing our cultural consciousness with an improved realism: the human specificity makes its own spirituality an expression of collective organizations (sociology) with psychological and biological dimensions. Reciprocally, it expresses the natural condition of its social groups (not only through abstraction, super-ego and fascism). Thirdly it must be deduced: such conscious ability for a reflection that encompasses animal niches or conditions, may encounter difficulties during its empowerment; and they can be read in the vestige of the Primal Scene:

After its failure, the Amarnian Primal Scene has been reconstructed into an organization of Nations (Ramessides) which lost its ecological part of significative 'niches'. All collective mentality has been since held under this restricted order. From that moment the origins of the pathos indicates itself. The social representation was not accessing its ecology any longer . This is why, unable to reach its natural practical base, a Medicine of the Social Body could not develop; it was consequently doomed to perversion and thus taboo.

These conditions have rapidly changed during the 20^th century. A sudden set of technologies and tools open a perspective that includes biology, the physical and the so-called Nature, into a social dimension and collective knowledge. The term "Cybernetics" is the most appropriate to designate this sort of organ that gives to humanity access and perception to its self-control and knowledge as well as the mysterious logic of Health.

The early definition of Cybernetics has provided the typical Ecological notions of loops, feed-back equilibrium, and the identification of the alien elements that machines constitute in primitive Nature. Cybernetics was then defined as the science of the interactions and their control between machines and nature. Later it extended, up to meet with its highest development into Artificial Intelligence. At this degree, Cybernetics must add a third 'agent' that completes its definition as an ecology: It thus becomes the science of the interactions and their control between machines and nature and humans. Well established with a Cyphermatics , when this Science reaches such level, it provides a tools which enables humankind to deal with a Logic of Code . A base for an Environmental Health is then operative.

THE MEDICAL OBJECTIVE

Summary of the section: An Ethic of Medicine necessitates a social dimension that necessitates the tool of Cybernetics that necessitates Psychoanalysis. This thread, which warrants a possible Medicine of Social Body, finds also its tradition in the past, thus restoring the full potential of a civilization which integrates its Primal Scene.

Since we now have the required tools and technology we can develop Medicine to its rightful extension. Beyond its classical Medicine (individual-physical), humanity is able of the intuition that supports its holonic approach of health and therapeutic - and can develop it even more: with its advanced machines, humanity objectivly blends the Global Nature of its organism with it Environment. An Integral Medicine is no longer only methodological, it becomes practical ecology. From this moment, a variety of forms in the modalities of Medicine become distinguishable:

a) Somatic Medicine, also said Biological

This chapter is mostly represented by the classical Medicine, by which treatments are applied within the limited span of the individual organism. This view is currently complexified with the development of Genetics. The management of DNA engineering cannot resist, for a long time, the environmental factor, since DNA code precisely supports the signification of the Environment. This situation gives an opportunity to analyze the intellectual process of extension of this Medicine.

By the end of the 20^th century, the proscription of human genetic engineering as 'unethical' is a typical denial, in Freudian terms, since it relies on its own truth while hiding the opposite - I explain this: as long as there is no human genetic engineering, this manipulation, so negatived, is unethical because genetic engineering is - or must be - in fact, Ethics itself, especially when it includes the human genome. It is obvious that DNA follow the laws of Ecology (rules of interdependence for instance) and genetic alterations cannot be limited to a range of species. Hence, the idea of modifying only certain life forms is an error - as is the proscription of genetical human alterations within an environment which supports genetical engineering.

However, the primary inhibition of Ethics by the political prohibition has an explanation. It is justified because Ethics still require a social dimension that has to be fulfilled by the second chapter of Medicine:

b) Psychiatry, also said Sociological Medicine

It is admitted that the basis of Psychiatry is the social order. Different from the Somatic medicine and its reference to a natural state, there is no clinic of neurosis and/or psychosis which can stand outside a reference to the social mentality. There again, a denial phase inaugurated Psychiatry, which was first identified with the use of chemicals (or physical constraints) - while distracting an understanding from these treatments as the code interface of a social logic (the code as a structure is the common denominator of its forms - e.g. social, hormonal, genetical, cerebral etc..). It is only when the specificity of Psychiatry is acknowledged as Social control, that it can instrument, and make complete, the Ethic of the contemporary somatic Medicine (DNA, Hormones, Drugs, etc..).

Several examples already indicate the need for readjusting the partition of Medicine. With the above mentioned DNA engineering, the distribution of brain chemicals in a defined population - 6% of children under Ritalin - is typically overlooking its effects on the children's community itself. As another example, it is astounding - and probably anguishing - to consider how ignorant we were, and we remain, of the intersubjective effects of the feminine consumption of sexual and contraceptive hormones, since the pharmaceutical industry was allowed to provide them to the population. At all levels, science today produces somatic agents which quite directly target the social and environmental links. It is an obvious call for a consideration of the Social Body.

However we still encounter a difficulty, for the definite attribution of Psychiatry to the social domain would leave the whole chemical spectrum under the responsibility of the Somatic Medicine, thus restating the former manicheisms either of State religion or fascism (respectively Absolute & asubjectivity or Idealism & anomia).

A third conception is necessary for solving the aporia of this radical dualism (somatobiology beside sociopsychiatry). As it has been explained above, the tool which causes the necessity for this distinction, allows also its perception, and supports its own operation: Cybernetics is the main factor of this progress.
Cybernetics provides the science with the laws of our intricate interventions upon our own intervention control that a system of duality is insufficient to address. It has been noticed above that there are three required categories in order to be operative (e.g., nature, machines, humanity). In the realm of Medicine, this threefold includes the biological and sociological Medicine, plus a third and pseudo-Medical category which is Psychoanalysis.

c) The pseudo-Medical interface, Psychoanalysis

The link of Psychoanalysis with Cybernetics has been made clear by J.Lacan, whose description indicates their similarity and complementarity, when the former in the Psyche reflects the latter in the real world. A second link is original in Freud's study, and connects Psychoanalysis with brain biochemistry; as it is well known, it was under the social and biological effects of the European discovery of Cocaine, that the foundation article of Psychoanalysis opened the era of neuroscience.

These two facts (Lacan & Cybernetics, Freud & Cocaine) have both been subjected to denial, which weigh as a third argument for associating Psychoanalysis with the two former dimensions (Psychiatric and Somatic) of Medicine. Moreover, the fundamental vocation of Psychoanalysis for sociology has been Freud's major and conclusive claim, that was also primarily denied amongst his followers. All these psychological elements make a complete conjunction where Psychoanalysis relates to the biological body (brain chemicals), as well to the social body (Freud's collective psychology). In addition, it represents the human reaction to Cybernetics which reveals and distinguishes them both [biochemistry, cybernetics, sociology].

CONCLUSION The four requirements (Biology, Sociology, Cybernetics, Psychoanalysis) for a functional Medicine of individual and social bodies, are currently provided. The remaining step for this Medicine to be complete, is to define the form of the fourth and last piece in its system, i.e. the Psychoanalysis that Freud failed to establish. Since 1985-1990, a version of it addresses effectively the social bodies; it addresses the collective and the individual at the same time. It has been developed and described as Plural Analysis (alias PLAN). Between Biology and Sociology, PLAN operates as a buffer. Combining Freud's and Lacan's theories, on the basis that biological and social codes are congruent, it renders them through a unique deciphering. This deciphering, or 'interpretation', constitutes what Cybernetics actually mirrors in the present world - thus providing the Humanization part in the trine definition of Ecology [above]. Hence we have an available method which is synchronical with our time. And since History discovers also the tradition of PLAN/Psychoanalysis in Esculape's Hermetism (it was then known as Art of Memory), we see the temporal continuity (diachronical) restored with the Primal Scene, and the civilization project of Amarna, that was to provide humanity with an integral Medicine for its access to a Global politics.

Note, standing for a partial glossary of PLural ANalysis terminology:

The extraction of a group member as it is practiced in PLAN, creates a minus-one in the social space where it is practiced. This logic was acknowledged in the ancient Art of Memory where the extracted member identifies with Antinõus in the space outside of the group and with the sociological amonia inside the group. Therefore in the group the logic of Psyche is centered by the classical Hermetic reference - the Nõus that is plural, instead of an Absolute God that is One. According to the Lacanian logic, this relative Unique entity (Nõus) emanates from a vel that is a form of choice, which establishes a Primal Scene as a Significand in the group while this is surmised outside the group from Logic of Code point of view. When Cybernetics is an apparatus in this group, this logic is operated through a Cyphermatics while the group acknowledges its text as a Grey Literature within.

Dr William Theaux, September 1999

Edited by Leona Theaux

© William Theaux 1949-1999