In Season 3, Episode 1 of Star Trek, Spock loses his brain, well, not exactly. He doesn’t misplace it. Someone steals his brain. So, for most of the episode, Captain Kirk and crew have to search for it. You can’t expect Spock to do the looking, can you? If you lost your brain, would you know you lost it? I mean, that’s bigger than misplacing your keys or glasses, but in losing either of those, you at least have a brain to recognize the loss. Anyway, by the end of the episode as you might well guess, Spock gets back his brain, and all is well. In another episode of the series, the crew meet up with disembodied minds. Now, there’s a step beyond losing Spock’s brain. These guys have lost their bodies, making the antithesis of the expression, “I’m losing my mind!”
But what about losing one’s body while keeping the head? First thing that comes to mind is one of those tabloids I once saw in the checkout line at the grocery store: “First Head Transplant.” Made me wonder who profited. Was it the body that lost and then gained a head, or the head that lost and then gained a body? The imagination expands like the universe, but the mind becomes a fog of unresolved questions.
A headless body seems the same as a bodiless head, but not so fast. Take into account the ability of the kleptoplastic sea slug Elysia cf. marginata, a sacoglossan capable of severing its own body from head, an autotomy that results in a living head capable of regenerating a new body, yes, a completely new body. The head moves on its own, senses its environment, and responds. * Kleptoplactic, marginata’s head appears to survive on food from the photosynthetic symbionts which it incorporates in its tissues. Bodiless head, disembodied head, headless body, whatever, this is weird, isn’t it? Same goes for the brainless Spock.
But bodiless heads and headless bodies seem to me to be rather common in human history. No, not individual humans, but rather in the analog of leaders and followers, governments and people. And there appears to be a severing of head from body in one particular circumstance that from ancient world to modern one has led to a bodiless head: The unrestricted burgeoning of government, that is, the proliferation not only of agencies, but also of members within agencies. Big Government in any era has been, is now, and will be always top heavy. The head, like some sacoglossan, continues to move around, continues to administer, issuing reports and regulations to foster a relevance recognizable only by the head. Governments do two things above all others: Grow and find a way to survive independently.
Maybe Pennsylvania’s higher education system serves as a model. Originally, the 14 state colleges were supervised by the PA Department of Education. They had some autonomy, each having its own president and board of trustees. Then the system became a state university system, severing itself from one head, that in the Department of Education while growing another, that which became a university chancellor’s office, the Chancellor, of course, serving as head. Now, of course, one person can’t run an entire system of a 100,000-plus students and thousands of professors and local administrators. So, you guessed it, the Chancellor had to have a staff, and from that the hierarchy of administrators formed: Heads within head. ** The new head grew larger, much of its new tissues operating symbiotically to support the Head-Head. Vice-chancellors of various kinds, assistants to them, directors, and secretaries for all, and even the eager student intern, all with an obligation to demonstrate their relevance. And how do the members of such agencies demonstrate their relevance? Why, by issuing calls for reports, by receiving those reports, and by handing them up the line of heads, hoping to reach the Head-Head. In the meantime, the growing head, now on auto-drive toward seemingly never-ending expansion, reduces the body to a mere source of food. Regardless of the vicissitudes of student enrollment, the head maintains its size or even grows.
So, bureaucracies tend to grow, and grow and grow, and grow. They take on a life of their own as disembodied heads that, if they so desire, can produce new bodies or discard them as they wish. The head, however, continues on regardless of being embodied or disembodied. Such is the sacoglossan-like life of Big Government. The United States is the prime example. The government employs more than 2,000,000 people, including, of course, the necessary military personnel, *** but also including 31,734 Park Service, Fish and Wildlife rangers, 12,612 Patent and Trademark people, 78,071 IRS agents (Ouch! That’s one that directly affects every member of the body), 14,416 people in energy who don’t actually produce any energy, 14,761 permanent census employees even though the census is a once-a-decade process, 93,964 people in agriculture who don’t farm, and almost 4,000 people in the Department of Education who don’t teach. There are thousands of others, of course, all summing up to that count of two million Federal employees. Remember that the Federal government is a head among heads, also. Every state has its own Department of Education, its own Environmental Protection Agency, and, heck, a mirror agency for every Federal agency.
Seems that if we consider humanity as an organism, humans aren’t much different from sea slugs whose heads have a life of their own.
Notes:
*Cell Press. 8 Mar 2021. These sea slugs sever their own heads and regenerate brand-new bodies. Phys.org. online at https://phys.org/news/2021-03-sea-slugs-sever-regenerate-brand-new.html Accessed March 8, 2021. Original article at: Sayaka Mitoh and Yoichi Yusa. Extreme autotomy and regeneration of the whole body in photosynthetic sea slugs. Current Biology. Volume 31, Issue 5. Pr233-R234. March 8, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.012 Link Online at https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00047-6
**Not taking into account the many secretaries and understaff, I find four people listed under Academic and Student Affairs, including the Vice Chancellor and CAO, 18 people under Administration and Finance, 2 more Vice Chancellors, a deputy Vice Chancellor, an advisor and coordinator listed under the “Chancellor’s Office, two in the CIO’s Office, four in the Gear Up Grant, 17 in the Legal Department, four in Public Affairs, 15 in the Advanced Data Analytics Shared Service, two in the Facilities Shared Service, four in the Finance Shared Service, sis in the HR Shared Service, 28 in the IT Shared Service, six in labor Relations Shared Service, Three in Payroll Shared Service, and three in Procurement Shared Service. Those numbers include “directors,” “assistants,” “developers,” and “managers” of all kinds and their associates in those eight “departments.”
***https://fortune.com/longform/government-employee-count-2019/
But what about losing one’s body while keeping the head? First thing that comes to mind is one of those tabloids I once saw in the checkout line at the grocery store: “First Head Transplant.” Made me wonder who profited. Was it the body that lost and then gained a head, or the head that lost and then gained a body? The imagination expands like the universe, but the mind becomes a fog of unresolved questions.
A headless body seems the same as a bodiless head, but not so fast. Take into account the ability of the kleptoplastic sea slug Elysia cf. marginata, a sacoglossan capable of severing its own body from head, an autotomy that results in a living head capable of regenerating a new body, yes, a completely new body. The head moves on its own, senses its environment, and responds. * Kleptoplactic, marginata’s head appears to survive on food from the photosynthetic symbionts which it incorporates in its tissues. Bodiless head, disembodied head, headless body, whatever, this is weird, isn’t it? Same goes for the brainless Spock.
But bodiless heads and headless bodies seem to me to be rather common in human history. No, not individual humans, but rather in the analog of leaders and followers, governments and people. And there appears to be a severing of head from body in one particular circumstance that from ancient world to modern one has led to a bodiless head: The unrestricted burgeoning of government, that is, the proliferation not only of agencies, but also of members within agencies. Big Government in any era has been, is now, and will be always top heavy. The head, like some sacoglossan, continues to move around, continues to administer, issuing reports and regulations to foster a relevance recognizable only by the head. Governments do two things above all others: Grow and find a way to survive independently.
Maybe Pennsylvania’s higher education system serves as a model. Originally, the 14 state colleges were supervised by the PA Department of Education. They had some autonomy, each having its own president and board of trustees. Then the system became a state university system, severing itself from one head, that in the Department of Education while growing another, that which became a university chancellor’s office, the Chancellor, of course, serving as head. Now, of course, one person can’t run an entire system of a 100,000-plus students and thousands of professors and local administrators. So, you guessed it, the Chancellor had to have a staff, and from that the hierarchy of administrators formed: Heads within head. ** The new head grew larger, much of its new tissues operating symbiotically to support the Head-Head. Vice-chancellors of various kinds, assistants to them, directors, and secretaries for all, and even the eager student intern, all with an obligation to demonstrate their relevance. And how do the members of such agencies demonstrate their relevance? Why, by issuing calls for reports, by receiving those reports, and by handing them up the line of heads, hoping to reach the Head-Head. In the meantime, the growing head, now on auto-drive toward seemingly never-ending expansion, reduces the body to a mere source of food. Regardless of the vicissitudes of student enrollment, the head maintains its size or even grows.
So, bureaucracies tend to grow, and grow and grow, and grow. They take on a life of their own as disembodied heads that, if they so desire, can produce new bodies or discard them as they wish. The head, however, continues on regardless of being embodied or disembodied. Such is the sacoglossan-like life of Big Government. The United States is the prime example. The government employs more than 2,000,000 people, including, of course, the necessary military personnel, *** but also including 31,734 Park Service, Fish and Wildlife rangers, 12,612 Patent and Trademark people, 78,071 IRS agents (Ouch! That’s one that directly affects every member of the body), 14,416 people in energy who don’t actually produce any energy, 14,761 permanent census employees even though the census is a once-a-decade process, 93,964 people in agriculture who don’t farm, and almost 4,000 people in the Department of Education who don’t teach. There are thousands of others, of course, all summing up to that count of two million Federal employees. Remember that the Federal government is a head among heads, also. Every state has its own Department of Education, its own Environmental Protection Agency, and, heck, a mirror agency for every Federal agency.
Seems that if we consider humanity as an organism, humans aren’t much different from sea slugs whose heads have a life of their own.
Notes:
*Cell Press. 8 Mar 2021. These sea slugs sever their own heads and regenerate brand-new bodies. Phys.org. online at https://phys.org/news/2021-03-sea-slugs-sever-regenerate-brand-new.html Accessed March 8, 2021. Original article at: Sayaka Mitoh and Yoichi Yusa. Extreme autotomy and regeneration of the whole body in photosynthetic sea slugs. Current Biology. Volume 31, Issue 5. Pr233-R234. March 8, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.012 Link Online at https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00047-6
**Not taking into account the many secretaries and understaff, I find four people listed under Academic and Student Affairs, including the Vice Chancellor and CAO, 18 people under Administration and Finance, 2 more Vice Chancellors, a deputy Vice Chancellor, an advisor and coordinator listed under the “Chancellor’s Office, two in the CIO’s Office, four in the Gear Up Grant, 17 in the Legal Department, four in Public Affairs, 15 in the Advanced Data Analytics Shared Service, two in the Facilities Shared Service, four in the Finance Shared Service, sis in the HR Shared Service, 28 in the IT Shared Service, six in labor Relations Shared Service, Three in Payroll Shared Service, and three in Procurement Shared Service. Those numbers include “directors,” “assistants,” “developers,” and “managers” of all kinds and their associates in those eight “departments.”
***https://fortune.com/longform/government-employee-count-2019/
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