The Daily Bendiken

What are you asking me, then? “Is death or life to be regarded as preferable?” I answer: Life. “Pain or pleasure?” I answer: Pleasure. “But if I don’t agree to play a role in the tragedy, I’ll lose my head.”

Go and play that role then, but I won’t play one. “Why?” Because you regard yourself as being just one thread among all the threads in the tunic. “So what follows?” You should consider how you can be like other people, just as one thread doesn’t want to be marked out from all the other threads.

But for my part, I want to be the purple, the small gleaming band that makes all the rest appear splendid and beautiful. Why do you tell me, then, to ‘be like everything else’? In that case, how shall I still be the purple?

Helvidius Priscus saw this too, and having seen it, acted upon it. When Vespasian sent word to him to tell him not to attend a meeting of the Senate, he replied, "It lies in your power not to allow me to be a senator, but as long as I remain one, I have to attend its meetings.“ — "Well, if you do attend, hold your tongue." — "If you don’t ask for my opinion, I’ll hold my tongue.” — "But I’m bound to ask you.“ — "And I for my part must reply as I think fit.” — "But if you do, I’ll have you executed.“ — "Well, when have I ever claimed to you that I’m immortal? You fulfil your role, and I’ll fulfil mine. It is yours to have me killed, and mine to die without a tremor; it is yours to send me into exile, and mine to depart without a qualm.”

What good, you ask, did Priscus achieve, then, being just a single individual? And what does the purple achieve for the tunic? What else than standing out in it as purple, and setting a fine example for all the rest?

Another man, if he’d been told by Caesar to stay away from the Senate in such circumstances, would have replied, “Thank you for excusing me.”

But Caesar wouldn’t have tried to stop such a man from going to the Senate in the first place, knowing that he would either sit there like a jug, or else, if he did speak, would say exactly what he knew Caesar would want him to say, piling on plenty more in addition.

As humans advance beyond middle-age, some significant changes generally occur. Sarcopenia (loss of muscle cells), increased body fat, performance loss, and reduced flexibility are common effects of aging. This is largely because the average adult has a greatly reduced activity level and becomes increasingly sedentary, which leads to a loss in muscle mass (atrophy); in the totally inactive older adult, this loss is compounded by sarcopenia. The loss of functional muscle causes a loss of performance. It has been demonstrated that about 15% of performance capacity can be lost per decade with inactivity, and even when activity is maintained at a relatively high level the loss of performance proceeds with age. The logical extension of this accumulating loss in performance is ultimately the loss of functional mobility, unless steps are taken to prevent this as much as possible.

A significant aspect of the loss of muscle mass is the unfortunate fact that the loss seems to be selective for the higher-threshold motor units that contribute to power production. Coupled with the changing quality of the connective tissues comprising the tendons and ligaments, the practical result of this aging-related effect on the program is the diminished capacity to use the clean and snatch productively and the increased likelihood of tendon and joint injury during any explosive or dynamic movements. Sports such as basketball, racquetball, tennis, and soccer that active older people often enjoy begin to pose a risk – one that is fortunately mitigated by getting and staying stronger.

The loss of muscle also means the loss of metabolic machinery; muscles account for most of the calories a healthy person burns daily, and smaller muscles burn fewer calories. Most people don’t reduce the amount of food they consume as activity diminishes, and the result is an average increase in body fat of 2.5 to 3% per decade.

The loss of muscle mass has another insidious effect that becomes more perceptible at an advanced age: a loss of proprioception and balance, as well as the obvious loss of strength. The ability to process information the body receives about its position in space is important to performance for an athlete, and in an older adult it is crucial for safety. And the ability to handle the weight of one’s own body mass – keeping it in a position over the feet and handling the leverage created between its center of mass and the balance point when its position is changed – is an obvious function of strength. Both these capacities are developed and maintained with exercise that requires balance, coordination, and strength, and barbell training fits this description perfectly.

In fact, barbell training is the best prescription for the prevention of all of these age-related problems. Staying in (or getting into) the gym slows the decay in muscle mass and pushes the onset of pathological atrophy back for decades. Even in the 60- to 90-year-old range, training reduces the loss of muscle mass to less than 5% per decade. Several studies have shown that 80-year-olds who were inactive but began training with weights actually gained muscle mass and improved their strength, proprioception, and balance. This effect was directly related to the amount of leg work included in the program and the resulting improvements in leg strength. Leg strength was also responsible for improving the ability to walk faster in older people. In one study, twelve weeks of strength training was shown to increase walking endurance by 38%, something walking by itself fails to do.

Less obvious to those unfamiliar with weight training is the fact that lifting weights alone will improve flexibility. Moving through a complete range of motion serves as a very effective dynamic stretch while at the same time serving as a strength stimulus. This is most useful for older trainees with marked loss of range of motion. Osteoarthritis is a clinical condition caused by degenerative changes in joints and a loss of joint function. Patients with arthritis typically reduce their activity level to eliminate discomfort, which actually exacerbates the condition. Several studies have shown that increasing the strength of the musculature around an affected joint decreases pain and improves function significantly. A number of these studies used squats to reduce knee pain. […]

The bottom line is that unless a person has significant pathology (is terribly sick) or is post-geriatric (no longer living), that person can benefit from a weight training program similar to those used with younger populations at the same level of training advancement.

Earlier this week, I enjoyed the somewhat odd experience of speaking to the Washington chapter of the Council on Foreign Relations. I say odd because my own views on foreign affairs are anti-Establishment, while the CFR is the holy of holies of the Establishment elite. To aspiring young Establishmentarians, membership in the CFR is a Holy Grail, the equivalent of joining the Praetorians in Imperial Rome or, among the Masons, achieving the rank of High Wingwang or perhaps even Exalted Grand Wazoo.

I was there as part of a panel on 4th Generation war. The Establishment would prefer not to notice 4GW, but 4th Generation war has fastened its fangs firmly into the Establishment’s backside in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, so attention must be paid. Sometimes that means inviting us anti-Establishment types and hoping we don’t break too much of the crockery.

The other panelists were two retired Army officers, both of whom have written some good things on 3rd and 4th Generation war, and a retired Marine Corps general who served as moderator. One panelist noted the degree to which we remain stuck in the 2nd Generation, especially in what is taught in the various armed forces schools and staff colleges. Another took the neocon line, predicting a coming American century, which is about as likely as a coming Austro-Hungarian century. Surprisingly, we all agreed on one point: however good the American military may be from the battalion level down, what goes on above that level doesn’t make much sense. One panelist hit the pig right on the snout on the Air Force’s F-22 fighter; the only way we will ever be able to use it is if we first give some to whoever is fighting us.

But the most significant aspect of the session was not what any of the panelists said. It was the utter inability of the audience, distinguished members of the Council on Foreign Relations, to understand any of it. They were as bewildered as the Gadarene swine.

The problem was two-fold. First, the heart of 4th Generation war is a crisis of legitimacy of the state, and these people are the state. They are the policy elite, the people who influence or even decide what hornet’s nests we will next stick our nose into around the globe. Us, not legitimate? Mais monsieur, le état c'est nous! Who could possibly doubt our right to rule? When I suggested folks like Hispanic gang members in L.A. and factory workers in Cleveland whose jobs they are helping outsource to China and India, I got blank looks. As Martin van Creveld said to me one day in my Washington office, “Everybody sees it except the people in the capital cities.” The CFR is Exhibit A.

The second reason is yet more fundamental. Despite their degrees, résumés and pretensions, the Establishment is no longer made up of policy types. Most of its members are placemen. Their expertise is in becoming and remaining members of the Establishment. Their reality is court politics, not the outside reality of a 4th Generation world or any other kind of world. When that world intrudes, as it did in the panelists’ remarks, the proper response is to close the shutters on the windows of Versailles.

The CFR had generously allowed me to bring a guest with me into its august precincts, a young Marine major who is doing some excellent work on how to fight 4th Generation opponents. As we walked to the car, I said to him, “John, the next time you’re on an amphib off somebody’s coast, waiting for the order to go in, remember that these are the kind of people who will be making the decision.”

“From that standpoint, I sort of wish I had not come tonight,” was his reply.

There is nothing left of the vaunted Council on Foreign Relations, or of the Establishment it represents, but dead leaves and dry bones.

China is currently witnessing the largest migration in human history. Hundreds of millions of people are flooding from the countryside into the cities. And while over 300 million people have already migrated in the past 30 years, McKinsey predicts there are another 350 million yet on the way.

This urbanization phenomenon is adding an average of 18.5 million people to the cities every year. That is equivalent to adding the population of the Netherlands to China’s cities annually. Or the equivalent of adding the entire population of Japan every 8 years.

From 1980 to 2010, China’s urban population grew by approximately 400 million. That is more than the entire population of the USA. This brought the number of Chinese city-dwellers to about 700 million and the overall urbanization rate to 50 percent. However, this is still far below the 70-80 percent urbanization rate seen in Japan, the US and Europe.

In 2009, the McKinsey Global Institute published a widely cited report, “Preparing for China’s Urban Billion.” It showed how by 2030, there will be over 1 billion Chinese city dwellers. That’s the number to remember: 1 billion city dwellers. Chinese urbanization is increasing at a fairly linear rate toward this big milestone.

When this happens, China’s cities will be more populous than the entire North and South American continents combined. The implications of this are profound. And 1 billion is a good number to keep in mind. It’s also pretty easy to remember.

We can today count 160 Chinese cities with over 1 million people. In comparison, Europe has 35. And McKinsey predicts this number will increase to about 220 by 2025. So think 220 cities like Tucson, Arizona.

Some cities got a lot bigger. China currently has 14 cities with over 5 million people - and this will increase to 23 by 2025. So think 23 San Franciscos (yes, a scary thought for conservative America). And these will constitute 40 percent of the world’s cities with over 5 million people.

And finally, we are seeing the emergence of mega-cities. These cities, usually several cities linked closely together, contain 30-40 million people each. And many will reach 50-60 million people.

It used to be the case that people were admonished to “not re-invent the wheel”. We now live in an age that spends a lot of time “reinventing the flat tire!”

The flat tires come from the reinventors often not being in the same league as the original inventors. This is a symptom of a “pop culture” where identity and participation are much more important than progress.