Traditional martial arts should offer a simple method of protection and independence for citizens in an age where society has pushed us to become intimidated components of a great machine, comforted only by mass consumption, instead of self-sufficient individuals full of resilience and will as is our birthright. In this brief  essay, we will examine components of a strategy whereby you can become such an indivivdual, and how martial arts can help you achieve this goal.

  

The points I wish to make are simple:

 

 1. There can be no such thing as rights without concomitant responsibility. Such

an institution (rights without responsibility) is artificial and cannot survive entropy.

 

In my book Pammachon, I referred to the Greek word idiotes, a term which describes a private person, someone who does not involved himself in common affairs; this term has become incorporated into the English language as the word “idiot.” The Greeks believed a true citizen must involve himself politically. There were two types of citizens in ancient Greece: those who involved themselves in the public affairs of the “people,” the demos (from hence democracy), and the private ones, the idiotes, who kept to themselves. I will not hesitate to repeat myself repeatedly to stress that the ancient Greeks thought that those who did not involve themselves in politics were blatantly stupid. Today, both involvement and sacrifice are paramount if we are to reverse the trend of social decline; I will outline the reasons below.

  

The term Power Elite in political and sociological theory refers to a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, and access to decision-making of global consequence. The term was coined by Charles Wright Mills in his 1956 book of the same name, which describes the relationship between individuals at the pinnacles of political, military, and economic institutions. The unity of this elite rests upon their similar world view, i.e., the belief that they are superior to the common man. Behind this psychological unity, lie those institutional hierarchies over which the political directorates, the corporate rich, and the militarily powerful now preside. How each of these hierarchies is shaped, and what relations it

has with the others, determine in large global politics. It is a mistake to think that the Power Elite have emerged as the realization of some global plot; in fact, their existence can be predicted through the mathematical modeling of industrialized societies. They, like many things in life, are the result of auto-organization. The question is, how does one deal with them?

  

In the past, I have suggested approaching these people as individuals, looking at them as people, ascertaining what their individual needs are, and moving to establish win-win scenarios. This is most certainly one approach. But at the end of the day, to be truly successful, one must also address the matrix within which the power elite operate.

  

One cannot understand the international system of the world without understanding the interplay of the three fields of business, politics, and military strength. Imperialism has generally meant the political and military protection of businessmen and their interests in foreign lands. The political protection provided need not be the conquest of colonies; the military protection need not involve the establishment of military bases. Regardless of the manner in which the matrix extends itself, the power elite provide for the interplay of economic, political, and military institutions and men. The current war in Iraq is an example of this strategy (as opposed to Afghanistan, which had an actual strategic and tactical basis).

  

The democratic system of power is usually interpreted as a moving balance of many competing interests. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this balance occurred among a great scattering of individuals and enterprises, and so functioned at its peak. Today, it occurs among a scattering of great interest blocks. The strategy that prevails at the peak of these blocks is that a conglomerate of technological, financial, and military power is required to dominate the other blocks. I call those elite blocks among the Power Elite, the Enclaves, borrowing from a highly prophetic video game published in 1998. (1) In fact, there are many Enclaves, not one, each at the peak of its particular special interest group and geography. But all Enclaves do work together internationally as much as possible, to further the interests of the global Power Elite, except in those instances where their specific interests collide.

  

Fate can be viewed as a sociodynamic force shaped by our Unconscious Mind. One can accept that or not; if one understands this principle, one can use it both in the macroverse and microverse. But tapping into our Mass Unconscious notwithstanding, the functional shaping of history in our day is the domain of the various Enclaves that are now organized worldwide. Their facility for violence is absolute; their economic systems are autocratic. Politically, each one of them has become a closed world, and in all these spheres their bureaucracies are global. It is not a pretty picture.

  

In the past, romantic bards would often assert that men are free to make their own history. It would seem in our day that some men are much freer than others to do so, given that such freedom requires access to the means of decision and power by which such history is made. One could argue that this has always been the case, but never has the condition been so well organized and controlled as in our time (a product of our technology). Power itself is a hierarchy, and the shape of this hierarchy has always been subject to historical change. At any given moment in Time, Fate seems to open to different men different opportunities to exercise their wills in the shaping of history. It appears overwhelming, but only if you accept that you have no power to affect change. What to a powerless man is an awe-inspiring event, to a member of the Power Elite is an opportunity to make his personal mark and step upwards in the hierarchy. In our time, the common man has increasingly become the utensil of the Power Elite. But is that all there is to it?

  

The antidote to this condition is an understanding of the methods and the techniques of personal empowerment. If you are confident in your own personal power, when you understand our social matrix and see it as just that, you also understand how and where to strike to further your own interests within that matrix.

  

One riddle to solve is that, in this globalized age, there is no longer any one issue that remains exclusively the subject of domestic politics – everything has become international. It would appear, for example, that labor unions would only be concerned with their slice of the pie, and not be interested in the international goings-on of their particular industry. But this has proven to be a false standard – in fact, many labor unions have become obsolete by the simple relocation of their industry. Since labor unions historically have not been concerned with international politics, the result is that what influence they have had on domestic affairs, has often been used quite irresponsibly to their own detriment.

 

One must look at the situation as it is, rather than as one would like it to be. Today, contrary to the rhetoric espoused by our fearless leaders, the following factors have come to prevail around the world: (2)

 

1. To assume that democracy is a balance of powers is to assume that the units in balance have more or less equal power and are independent of each other. These assumptions once rested on the historical importance of a large and independent middle class. In the latter part of the 19th century, such a class of farmers and businessmen did indeed exist; they were able to continue their lives independent of global events. But these men lost their rights by becoming economically dependent on larger economic structures. The farmers came to rely on government subsidies rather than their own hard work, and the small businessmen became white collar workers. Neither subsidized farmers nor white collar workers are independent entities – they must make their daily declarations of dependence and fealty in order to survive. Accordingly, the middle class has already been disrupted.

 

When George Orwell3 published his novel 1984 in 1949 (3), this situation was already maturing, but few had the capability to see it as manifest reality during the boom-time of the 50s and the anthropocentric decade of the 60s. Today, it has become an apparent truth all around the world.

 

2. Mass communications, media and especially the Internet included, do not link and feed erudite discussion circles. On the contrary, more often that not they convert them into circuses. They do not truly communicate; they trivialize and distract. In addition, they are wide open to external surveillance and influence.

 

3. Voluntary associations open to individuals and small groups and connecting them to centers of power, are no longer are dominant features of the social structure of western democracies, as they were at the beginning of the 20th century. They have been replaced by Internet chat sites where language is destroyed and grammar is repeatedly raped.

 

When one takes the above into consideration, he understands that western democracies are no longer comprised of a political public, but rather a politically indifferent mass society. Demotes have become idiotes, surrendering rule to the Enclaves in the process.

 

So how does one get his personal power back?

 

By reversing the trend. By becoming internally stronger personally, and as a consequence assuming responsibility for yourself. Once you are a responsible citizen, you will be able to assume more and more of an active role, involving yourself in your society. Practicing martial arts can help with this; it is no coincidence that Vladimir Putin takes time out to actively promote the sport of judo among Russian schoolchildren. Once you are a true demotes, a true member of the society you live in, you will be able to enhance your power base by becoming a living example for others to emulate. In this case, society itself as a whole will become stronger, and the large group of private persons that comprise our world today, will in truth become citizens.

 

As once they were.

 

2. The greatest freedom is to be able to say (without fear of reprisal) that two

plus two equals four. If that is given, all else follows. (4)

 

There is nothing an Enclave member fears more than having made public the news that he is not superior to the rest of mankind. And it is a sad truth that, specifically, in this generation, many Enclave offspring have become flaccid and spoiled. I am not referring to their physical shape, which may appear to be at a peak, but rather to their spirit inside. Alexander the Great fought on the frontlines with his troops, risking all on a toss of the dice in the heat of battle; men died for him willingly. Many Barons and Kings of Medieval Europe did the same. Today, things are different, and paid mercenaries often handle the daily affairs of the pampered elite, financial as well as physical (sadly, even sexual in some cases). However, deficiency among their own kind is something Power Elite Elders fear and watch for, considering it a weakening

of the gene pool. This is leverage of sorts.

 

An individual who is powerful enough inside can often stand against a younger member of the Power Elite by playing on this fear. I have done so successfully on more than one occasion. The best way to achieve this is by insisting that two plus two equals four.

 

“No man in the wrong can stand up against a fellow that’s in the right and keeps on acoming” was the motto of Texas Ranger Bill McDonald, who captained a company of Rangers from 1891 to 1907. While this is not exactly true, and many a fellow in the right has been mowed down by those in the wrong, it is a good stance to take if you can prove that two plus two equals four. What I mean by this is simple: at the end of the day, only a small percentage of the population are sociopaths. Most Enclave members and leaders are human beings, and will react to moral stimuli much like everyone else. You will have to work harder to reach the point where negotiations can be made, but, ultimately, two plus two equals four is a good principle to keep dear to your heart.

  

To reach the point of negotiation, you will have to be strong and have much stamina. Your opposition’s initial strategy will be to wear you down. Once again, martial arts training can provide both the spirit and the stamina required to endure the initial onslaught. But you must persevere. That having been said, always remember that two plus two does equal four. Wishful thinking should be put aside, and one’s own situation reviewed in the clear light of logic. Chances are that you will not be able to stand before superior forces. Accordingly, you must play the game without emotion and without pathos. See things as they are, not as you wish them to be.

 

3. Develop the heart of a warrior, regardless of your physical condition, age, sex

or social status. A warrior is a common man just like everyone else. To think

otherwise is to believe a delusion that has been developed by Hollywood

screenwriters.

 

Conflict is terrible. Killing any living thing is horrible and should be viewed as such. Killing a human being is an abomination. It is not something to be proud of; on the contrary it is something that should fill you with remorse. And yet, there it is. A true warrior should be a reluctant protector, not a willing executioner. That fine line is what distinguishes the true warrior from the criminal and the sociopath. This statement can be better explained if we review the actual state of affairs regarding modern warfare. Modern war is, in itself, a shadow-play, a reversion. Modern war does not, in fact, exist, and has not existed since 1945, when the first atomic bomb was dropped. Those who have read Orwell’s 1984 will recognize the following quote:

 

…war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of

modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labor.

 

If the energy and man-hours involved in waging war were spent instead increasing the standard of living of the various nations around the globe, then there would be no need for war. But, if this were the case, then the control of the Enclaves over the rest of humanity would cease. War, then, is the economic basis of a hierarchical society. When one understands this, he understands why he must become a reluctant warrior, if for no other reason than to become a true warrior.

 

4. Educate yourself continuously. Study something new every day. Never stop learning. A jewel shines only when polished, a rough diamond will never be worn on a ring.

 

My great-grandfather was a peasant who kept the company of kings. I never understood how this could be possible, and scoffed at the historical anecdotes told to me by my own grandparents. But when I stumbled onto the treasure trove of family documents I discovered in 2003, I was also fortunate enough to find a cache of letters that my great-grandfather had written to my great-grandmother from the United States at the turn of the twentieth century.

 

These letters are in incredibly erudite classical Greek, so profound that few young Greek adults today could understand them, let alone write them. I was astonished to read them myself, astonished to find that a peasant from a remote village in Turkish occupied northern Greece could write in this type of language. But a further search allowed me to discover the school books used by my grandparents and grand-aunts in the village, and everything became clear. At ten years of age, they were studying Xenophon’s Anabasis. (5) What is even more amazing is that the elementary school in Papingo, my village, had procured these books from Germany, given that at the time the Greek Orthodox Church had forbidden the publication of ancient texts as they were considered “pagan” in nature.

 

So these denizens of a remote mountain village were very aware that education was the key to a better lifestyle, even if they spent that life farming in said village. Today, this need has become even more crucial. And nowhere is the need more pronounced than in the matter of language.

 

It would appear that young people all over the world are losing the capacity to fully express themselves in their respective native languages. The Internet is a key contributor to this, due to two factors: 1) books are no longer the primary vehicle for imparting information, and 2) the internet has established its own rules for verbal exchange. But this is dangerous on many fronts, and, once again, brings to mind Orwell’s 1984.

 

One of the major constructs of Orwell’s novel was a fictional language called Newspeak. In the novel, it is described as being “the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year.” Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar. The Newspeak term for the mainstream English language is Oldspeak. The historical seeds of Newspeak can be found in the constructed language Basic English, which Orwell himself promoted from 1942 to 1944 (during World War 2), before emphatically rejecting it in his essay “Politics and the English Language”. In this article he laments the quality of the English of his day, citing examples of dying metaphors, pretentious rhetoric, and meaningless words, all of which contribute to fuzzy ideas and a lack of precise thought. I cannot imagine what Orwell would think of the English vocabulary used by native speakers today. I cannot imagine what he would think if he visited a typical forum on the Internet and read the exchanges posted.

 

 Reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end to itself. Newspeak was designed to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum. It saddens me to say that this fictional model is taking historical shape in our day and age. While I doubt there is a deliberate plot behind it, one can see it everywhere. In 1982, 56.9 per cent of Americans had read a work of creative literature in the previous twelve months. The proportion fell to fifty-four per cent in 1992, and to 46.7 per cent in 2002. In 1970, according to Editor & Publisher International Year Book, there were 62.1 million weekday newspapers in circulation—about 0.3 papers per person. In 2006 there were just 52.3 million weekday papers—about 0.17 per person. More alarming are indications that Americans are losing not just the will to read but even the ability. According to the Department of Education, between 1992 and 2003 the average adult’s skill in reading prose slipped one point on a five-hundred-point scale, and the proportion who were capable of such tasks (formerly considered commonplace) as “comparing viewpoints in two editorials,” declined from fifteen per cent to thirteen.

 

Which means that only 13% of Americans can actually digest, understand, and comment on what they are reading. This is frightening. This is staggering. This is un-effing-believable. And this erosion isn’t unique to America. Between 1955 and 1975, the decades when television was being introduced into the Netherlands, reading on weekday evenings and weekends fell from five hours a week to 3.6, while television watching rose from about ten minutes a week to more than ten hours. During the next two decades, reading continued to fall and television watching to rise. By 1995, reading, which had occupied twenty-one per cent of people’s spare time in 1955, accounted for just nine per cent. No wonder Borders went out of business recently.

 

The most striking results were noticed when comparing generations. By 1995, a Dutch college graduate born after 1969 was likely to spend fewer hours reading each week than an elementary school-level person born before 1950. As far as reading habits were concerned, academic credentials mattered less than whether a person had been raised in the era of television. The patterns are the same in America. Between 1982 and 2002, the percentage of Americans who read literature declined in every age group, even in those moving from youth into middle age, which is often considered the most fertile time of life for reading. We are reading less as we age, and we are reading less than people who were our age ten or twenty years ago.

 

If television is one culprit, then the Internet is twice so. Both TV and the Web are enjoyable, and I spend hours a day on one or the either. But I read like a maniac as well. This is the way I combat the degradation of thought imposed upon us – I read everything I can get my hands on voraciously, and then take the time to discuss it with my friends, who do the same.

 

You can do this too. Why is this important? Because the old texts themselves, classic literature that is, contain the breadth of spirit necessary for you to enhance your own mind. This is rarely the case for television series (with some exceptions), or the Internet. You must study the classics in order to understand who you are. How can you understand where you now stand, if you do not read the words of those who have walked before you? The past is your power base. You would be a fool not to use it. You would be even more of a fool to ignore it.

 

 Keep in mind that the evident degradation of culture prevalent in our time is not unique to the middle classes, but includes the Power Elite themselves. By the middle of the twentieth century, the global oligarchy had become an entirely different breed of men from those who could on any reasonable grounds be considered a cultural elite. By the beginning of the 21st century, they were typified by Paris Hilton and George W. Bush. It occurs to me that what these people fear most, deep in their hearts, is a cultivated man who is unafraid, a man with a powerful heart, a true citizen who sees them not as superior beings, but for what they really are. In the past, there were many such men all around the world. Today, there are few. But this could be a temporary state of affairs. The educated, unafraid man could be making a comeback, if developments in world affairs are an indication. Knowledge and power are not truly united inside the ruling circles, and when men of knowledge or power do come in contact with the circles of powerful men, they come today not as peers but as hired men. It has been my personal experience that these hired men are in the end feared and envied by their very employers for their abilities. This fear and envy is a weak point you can use to your own advantage.

 

But first you must become cultured, educated, and unafraid.

 

5. Become independent. Independence is the key to both personal freedom and a

healthy society.

 

What do we mean by independent? We have stated that an ideal democracy would arise from a balance of powers where the units in balance have more or less equal power and are independent of each other. In the past, a large and independent middle class did indeed exist, and were able to continue their lives unaffected by global events. But the descendents of these men lost the battle by becoming economically dependent on larger economic structures.

 

When Ghandi set about to liberate India from the British, the first thing he attempted was to foster a spirit of physical independence from the merchandise of the ruling class. The British rulers made very good cloth in their textile mills; rich Indians wanted it, and wore it, to differentiate themselves from the poorer members of their society. Ghandi made homespun cotton cloth a fashion, dealing a powerful monetary blow to textile interests. But what really brought the Indian independence movement home was the boycott on the Salt Tax. For many years, the procurement of salt, a free substance on India’s many coasts, was a monopoly of the British government, heavily taxed. Gandhi chose to disobey the taxation and monopoly laws. He had his reasons for choosing the salt tax. The salt tax was a deeply symbolic choice, since salt was used by nearly everyone in India. It represented 8.2% of the British Raj tax revenue, and most significantly hurt the poorest Indians the most. But what had begun as a Salt Boycott quickly grew into a mass sanction of all British goods. British cloth and goods were increasingly boycotted. Unpopular forest laws were defied. Peasants refused to pay land tax, under threat of losing their crops and land. The British responded with more laws, including censorship of correspondence and declaring the Indian Congress and its associate organizations illegal. None of those measures slowed the civil disobedience movement, which gathered momentum like a locomotive.

 

The Salt Boycott succeeded in drawing the attention of the world. Millions saw the newsreels showing the march. Time magazine declared Gandhi its 1930 Man of the Year, comparing Gandhi’s march to the sea to defy Britain’s salt tax to the Boston Tea Party. In short, the method worked. Or perhaps those were simply different times.

 

Today, it is no secret that most of our food is produced and distributed through centralized sources; the small farmer has almost vanished. We most certainly no longer manufacture our own clothing, and carpentry is a lost art. Even manufacturing itself has become all the more centralized, with small factories being bought out and absorbed by large special interest groups, or closing down outright due to the inability to compete financially.  In short, we live in the age of power consolidation, with power being limited to the hands of the very few.

 

What drives me crazy personally is that this tactic is nothing new, and has failed dismally every time it has been implemented.. In addition, this consolidation is mathematically unstable and cannot exist for long; there are too many factors and forces working in opposition to it. In order for consolidated globalization to work, the people in charge would have to predict every statistical deviation from the system of equations they set in motion for the machine to operate. Anyone who has any experience whatsoever with complex systems understands that this is impossible. As Murphy predicted, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. There is no way around this. We have not evolved, and most likely will never evolve, to the point where such control is possible. The inevitable result is insurrection and global catastrophe followed by centuries of yet another Dark Age.

 

Globalization is Mankind’s destiny in the long run and an inevitable result of our evolution, but there is one factor that the Power Elite do not understand, or they are studiously attempting to ignore, and that is this: in order for Globalization to exist, it can be neither consolidated nor hereditary. At the end of the day, in a globalized society, the only system that will withstand the onslaught of time and result in stability, is a merit-based system based not on dependencies but rather respect. This is the point where both Confucius and Plato made the same error, not taking into account natural tendencies towards entropy.

 

In the 19th century, the world was globalized; it was an Age of Empires after all. And what were the results? Two World Wars, competing systems of financial governance, revolution and insurrection, global disease, a whole slue of regional wars, dictatorships, famine, and finally the Cold War itself, which almost resulted in the nuclear devastation of mankind and our End. It is not the first time this has happened. The myth of Atlantis reflects similar circumstances. During the Bronze Age, as archaeology has established today, the

world economy was globalized. Goods flowed from China to Britain and Sweden to the heart of Africa. The world was divided into the fiefdoms of Great Kings, who considered each other Brothers and all people beneath them fodder for their whims. What happened? The little people eventually rose up, circa the 13th century BC, all over the Mediterranean. Empires crumbled and vanished overnight, and the world was cast into a Dark Age for five centuries. We were lucky to recover as quickly as we did.

 

It doesn’t work, people. It cannot work, it has never worked historically. Get someone to do the math for you (complexity theory required). Get over it, get used to it, swallow this not-so-bitter pill before your own children face the consequences of mass revolution (again). Remember what happened to the Eastern Bloc countries behind the Iron Curtain; the citizens rose up. Look at the Arab Spring movement; watch was is happening in Greece carefully. The same thing can happen anywhere, has happened everywhere. This is a lose-lose scenario.

 

When I was a younger man, I always used to wonder why the ancient Greeks never got their act together enough to become a united nation. I mean, the Egyptians did, the Persians did, the Romans eventually did, why not the classical Greeks? I believe it was a deliberate decision due to recollections and stories left over from the Bronze Age. Racial memory told them that the experiment could not work, so they opted for independent centers of power tied together by a common language. That experiment worked well enough to result in an Age of Enlightenment that is still the Ideal Model for what has come to be known as “Western Democracy.” Even in our day and age, then, consolidation can be walked away from. You can still capture a modicum of independence and self-respect by delving into basic needs. I will not get into the creation of an independent homestead; there are many publications out there written by people far more qualified than myself to discuss the subject. I encourage the reader to find these books and follow their advice. On my own part, what I would like to inspire people to do is to plant a small garden for themselves. You will be amazed at how such a simple achievement can empower you. I once fed an entire neighborhood all summer long from the simple garden I had planted in my (very small) back yard.

 

In a civilized and ideal world, or in a Disney movie, the advice I have given you in this essay would have profound effect on your world. But we must remember always that two plus two equals four, and we must apply this principle first to ourselves. If you take the stance to seek empowerment for yourself and your dignity, there is always a chance you will fail; indeed, the status quo around the world is built upon this fear of failure. I have both succeeded and failed many times; I wish I could say it is easy. It is not.

 

I am reminded, in closing, of an old Eastern Orthodox Christian parable. A monk is, through his prayers, deemed worthy of being shown both Heaven and Hell. An angel takes him to the Afterlife. He chooses to see Hell first. Hell is a vast hall with an endless table. All manner of food and drink is placed in platters on the table: succulent meats, pastries, pastas, ripe fruits and crisp salads, fresh juices and wines, ice water and succulent deserts. The damned are seated at this table, and in front of them are dishes of gold and goblets of crystal. But the dishes and goblets are empty; the damned cannot eat or drink. They have been given forks and spoons six feet in length with which they must eat; these utensils cannot be grasped from anywhere but their very end, so that the damned cannot bring any food to their mouths. Also, they cannot seem to hold the goblets firmly; they can fill them up alright, but when they try to bring them to their lips to drink, the goblets twist and turn like living beings in their hands and all the liquid dribbles away. The damned are angry, hungry, thirsty and tormented, skeletal in appearance, with bloodshot eyes, foaming mouths, and bellies distended round and tight by starvation.

 

The monk is then brought to Heaven. It is an identical hall with the same endless table. Once again, all manner of food and drink are placed on the table. Once again, the blessed are seated with plates of gold and goblets of crystal in front of them. Once again, they have been given two meter long forks and spoons with which to feed themselves. But, unlike the damned, the blessed are robust in appearance, laughing, sated, happy, telling jokes, eating and drinking their fill. How do they manage it?

 

Simple. The forks are just long enough so that one person can feed his neighbor, the goblets have no problem when one man holds them for another to drink. And all seated at that table are willing to do so.

 

Religion aside, at the end of the day, there are only two types of people in the world: those who think only of themselves, and those who take others into consideration. There is no other distinction that matters, and none is required: every other conceivable distinction belongs to the realm of religious dogma, and is not within the scope of this discussion.

 

This axiom is the secret behind any successful political and economic system. Warren Buffet understood this, as did Bill Gates in the end. In addition, if one styles himself a warrior, this axiom is the cornerstone of the Warrior’s Path. Self-sacrifice is at the heart of being a warrior; a true warrior is a Protector, one who lays himself in the path of a predator to protect his fellow men, not a predator himself. The Spartans did not die at Thermopylae for themselves; they died there for their brothers, their brethren, their countrymen, and all their fellow Greeks. They died there so that the Enemy would know who he was fighting against, and despair of ever conquering, men who were so free inside as to laugh at Death itself. 

 

(1)   That would be Fallout 2 by Interplay Studios, which eerily and sadly predicts modern events and future trends. That it was developed in the US during a time of Clintonesque abundance says much for its creators.

Making revisions/ correcting errors, Pammachon book

I just caught a major blooper in my new book on Pammachon (I caught it myself so it doesn’t count). If you could help me out with comments and corrections, dear readers, I would appreciate it.

There are some people out there who I really respect who have requested a hard copy - I want to get all such corrections in place before I print their copies.  (Actually, this publish on demand method is pretty cool as far as that is concerned - you can correct mistakes!) So feel free to question and criticize - I will answer most questions on that subject in this blog.

 

There are few references to Pammachon in antiquity. One of them is the papyrus letter SB 3.6222.

 

In this letter to his sister Sophrone, a man called Dios writes how he competed in athletic games in Alexandria. He may have penned the letter himself, as indications are that Dios received a good education and belonged to the upper class. The letter has been dated to the late third or fourth century through literary means, and we can date it very precisely based on the events it illustrates.  The papyrus describes the emperor attending festivities in the center of the city. We know that Diocletian visited Egypt in the winter of 301 through the spring of 302. He was most certainly in Alexandria on the 31st of March.

 

Let’s look at some excepts from the text of the letter (as translated and completed by Ms.Sofie Remijsen of Leuven University in her article Pammachon, A New Sport (The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 47 (2010) 185-204)):

 

(Note: Text in parentheses and italics (this format by example) has been added by yours truly for clarification).

 

To my dear sister Sophrone, greetings (from) Dios.

 

Above all I pray to [the lord] god that you are doing well and also that

the best things in life may be yours. …..

 

We are glad to be here. I will tell you everything that has happened to me in Alexandria. So, when we arrived here, we didn’t find the person whom we came looking for (but) we did find our lord the emperor visiting. He ordered that athletes be brought to the Campus and fortunately, I and five (others) were selected, without the other athletes knowing. When I arrived there, I was at first paired up to do pankration and I had bad luck, as I do not know how to do pankration. So I was performing [poorly] for a long time…  then I challenged the five to do pammachon. The emperor wanted to know whether I was [immediately] summoned to do it (fight) one man after the other. (Note: Pammachon contests were also held with one man fighting against multiple opponents.)

 

The prize for us was a linen tunic and hundred guilders. The [linen tunic] is inexpensive, and I received … and I got a gold coin with the money and the other five the tunic. This happened on the 27^th of Choiak. And on the 26^th of the same month he held the festival in the Lageion and we performed there. And I got a silver prize, a sleeveless tunic, and the money.

 

So don’t be sad …. for good fortune has given us other things. Take care of your sister … I greet my dear father and all who love my soul. I pray that you are well, my dear sister, for many years.

 

To Sophrone from her brother Dios.

 Ms. Remijsen makes an interesting case in her article for Pammachon as the “new sport” of the early 4^th century:

 

SB 3.6222 is the earliest attestation of pammachon as a separate sport. This interpretation is confirmed by ILS 5164, an honorary inscription from AD 375-378 for the athlete Philoumenos, who had obtained victories in four different events: pammachon, wrestling, pankration, and boxing. Also in the fourth century, Eusebius compared a martyr to a victor in the sacred games, victorious in the pammachon. As this passage does not go back to agonistic poetry and was written in a century when pammachon was attested as a separate sport, one may assume that Eusebius also referred to the new sport. The athletes doing pammachon were not called pammachoi, but pammacharii with the Latin ending -arius typical of professions (Note: in Roman times)  Pammacharii figure in six texts from the fourth and fifth centuries.  The anonymous author of the Expositio totius mundi mentioned them in his description of the entertainment sector in Syria.  In a story of the Apophthegmata, an officer helped a group of pammacharii on their way to Constantinople to get a boat from the governor.  In another story, an old hermit compares a Christian fighting evil with a pammacharius fighting two adversaries.  Saint Jerome mentions pammacharii as a type of athlete, besides runners and those who throw the discus.  Firmicus Maternus and Pseudo- Teuchros tell which position of the stars makes pammacharii. The lexicon of Hesychius, mentioning pammachon in the lemma about Cypriotic wrestling, brings the total number of sources on this sport to ten.

 (Note: Hesychius makes a point of calling the Pammachon practiced in Cyprus “barbaric and unskilled.”)

 

I personally have to question however whether or not Pammachon was something “new” in the fourth century (though it undoubtedly became a new sport at that time).  I have multiple reasons for this, which I will endeavour to explain.

 

Back in the year 2000, I had selected the designation “Pammachon” because I knew that the ancient Greeks were fully aware of the distinction between the Martial Arts and Combat Sports.  I specifically decided to use the word for my reconstructed martial art because, beyond the historical and documented use of the word from ancient times until the palaeochristian era, it is obvious linguistically that the words “machaira” (μάχαιρα – blade), and “machi” (μάχη - battle) originate from the same root “mach-” (μαχ-). Thus the word “machi” (μάχη), essentially describes a martial confrontation that includes both the use of close quarter combat weaponry (e.g. knife, sword, spear, lance, club etc.), and (the somewhat more important in contemporary times) unarmed combat against the aforementioned lethal weapons. A proper translation of the word “pan-machon” (πάν-μαχον) would be “total combat.” In essence “pammachon” describes what we would call today “close quarter combat,” and so I chose the term carefully to differentiate what I would be teaching from combat sports.

 

It is also important to distinguish pammachon from pankration, though the words have been poetically used as synonyms. Pankration derives from “all” (pan) and “kratos”. The word Kratos is used in modern Greek to denote a nation and has multiple implications. It means power, yes. But it also means dominance, control, the ability to reduce something else to submission. Pankration translates best as “submission fighting”, that is to say, the intention of the sport being not to kill, but to subdue the opponent and control him.

 

But the word μάχη in Pammachon refers to other things. Pammachon can translate as “everything in combat.” Does that imply that weapons were taken into account, or that their use was taught in same? It appeared as a sport in Roman times – was it influenced by gladiatorial contests? The reader should recall the following definition of a martial art that I have posted in the past (this definition has not changed for the past ten thousand years):

 

A true martial art

Must use the same type of movement

And the same tactics,

Whether the practitioner is armed or unarmed,

Armored or unarmored,

Whether battling alone or in a group,

Fighting one opponent or many,

Whether on the battlefield itself,

Or in a civil disturbance.

 

But it is worth pointing out that the types of people who practiced pammachon as a sport came from very different social groups. Men such as Dios and Philoumenos, who received a statue in Rome, belonged to the upper class and enjoyed a certain degree of prestige. But other sources list  pammacharii among lower class circus entertainers or troupes of professionals for whom pammachon was little more than an ordinary job.

 

Ms. Remijsen states that the differences in the class of Pammachon practitioners were common to fourth-century Greek athletics in general. In Late Antiquity, Greek athletics were performed as extra entertainment in the circuses. These circus athletes belonged to a completely different social structure than the career athletes of the traditional Greek games. Hence Ms. Remijsen states that the diversity among the pammacharii did not differ from that among their contemporary wrestlers or boxers. I am not so sure I agree with that conclusion, and can perhaps offer an alternative explanation.

 

I was very intrigued by Dios’s stating that he “did not know how to do pankration,” which clearly differentiates what he was doing (pammachon) from pankration. Why were the two arts  different? How was pammachon different? Therein lies the key to the puzzle.

 

What if pammachon was a name for the martial arts, a term that evolved to become the name for a combat sport in the 4^th century? There is precedent for such a transition in the past millennium, with the same word being used for both martial art and combat sport. I am referring to the German “fechten”, which 500 years ago used to mean “how to rip the other guy to pieces in actual combat,” and now means “how to compete in a combat sport in which padded athletes tap each other with electrically sensitive rods of metal in order to score points.”  Both activities have to do with fencing – it is how the activity of said fencing is expressed that differentiates the two expressions of “fechten”.

 

That is to say, if pammachon was so very different from pankration, and yet was a sport that suddenly appeared in the 4^th century and then just as suddenly vanished, it had to have evolved from something that was “known” earlier to be different from pankration. Well, we know that the word pammachon is ancient and has been used in much older texts than the one referenced above. What if the evolution of pammachon was similar to that of 15th century fechten to 20-21st century fechten? In the case of fechten, 15th century close quarter combat with bladed weapons became sport fencing with electrical implements. What if the same held true for pammachon? What if it were a martial art before it became a combat sport in the 4th century?

 

Now wouldn’t that truly be something?

 

 

Many thanks to Ms. Sofie Remijsen for providing me with a copy of her extraordinary article.

Dear all,
 
A Happy 2011 to everyone.
 
I am happy to finally announce that the promised book on Pammachon is out. The title is Pammachon, Martial Art of the West, and it can be downloaded for free in pdf format from Lulu at:
 
http://www.lulu.com/product/file-download/pammachon-martial-art-of-the-west/14361038?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/2
 
The book contains my conclusions, opinions and beliefs after studying martial arts for 40 years, the majority of which were with the source of the specific art I was studying at the given moment. In addition, the book contains much of my personal and family history, my political and metaphysical beliefs, my cultural opinions and desires, and wishes for a brighter future for humanity. I do not believe any of the above are separate from the study of martial arts and so have included same. If you want to know Kostas Dervenis, read the book. If you want to understand Pammachon, read the book.
 
The e-book is free and appears to be correctly downloadable from Lulu. If you like the book and want to order a hard copy, I would like to caution you that I have not yet received, or checked, my proof copy. If you want to be sure about the hard copy, wait a month after the date of this correspondence and then order the paperback book. In the meantime, the e-book is available for everyone to read, and since it is free, I would appreciate your passing on the information to other and rating it (favourably of course!).
 
I still have to execute the promised series of videos on Pammachon and expect to do that over the next few months. Once this is done, I will no longer write about martial arts (though I will maintain this blog), but concentrate on writing fiction, which is something I haven’t had the pleasure of doing for almost fifteen years.
 
Best,

Kostas

UPDATE: 11 Jan 2011. I have received a print copy of the book. The cover and print quality are surprisingly high - if I had known that, I would have submitted higher quality photographs for publication (my apologies to my readers). Lulu is actually impressive for those who wish to self-publish.