Body Politic

BODY POLITIC, the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a na­tion as a liv­ing or dead or­gan­ism's body. Usu­al­ly the metaphor­i­cal cor­pus is hu­man, but oth­er forms may be more ap­pro­pri­ate in a giv­en case, such as bovine, oc­topoid, or amoe­bic.

De­scrib­ing a coun­try's peo­ple as a body politic is con­ve­nient, as it al­lows for not on­ly sim­ple gen­er­al­iza­tions such as "the Ene­my," but al­so in­creas­ing­ly com­plex di­vi­sions such as hindquar­ters, flanks and filets.

In the same way, a body politic can be de­scribed in terms of gen­er­al na­tion­al health as well as spe­cif­ic in­juries, growths, ob­struc­tions, or even in­fec­tions at the cel­lu­lar lev­el.