12,750. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,032

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,032

(freshet)

There's a lot of prescience

in science. I always thought

that to be pretty funny, even

though a scientist would probably

dispute me and go on saying

how the whole idea of 'Science'

is in not knowing things

beforehand, and thus making

the conjectures and the line

experiments by which to prove

premises. I won't argue the

point; the scientist would

probably be right. By Science's

terms. Mine are different. It

always seemed to me that the

'future' is always already out

there, in front of it, and that

we just walk into it; it having

already been constructed for

and by us by the manner of

assumptions and things we do.

The trick of the best people is

in knowing it beforehand. That's

where the big hump of prescience

is. Fancy names for other things:

necromancy, fortune telling, tarot

cards, etc. Go see the Gypsy lady;

she'll tell you gladly.

-

Life unfolds its own battlements,

but they are all already there. The

pennants and flags of logic and

assumption, ritual and rite, by

which we try, as people, to claim

the field, are in place long before

we reach their meadow. Interestingly

enough, History proves this out, in

an odd way : There was a time, in

old Europe, about the early 17th

century, known now as the 'Age of

Limited Warfare.'  Restraint, it

meant, on the battlefield, as if all

the endings were already known,

and no one really wished to go

through all the groan and gore

of battle. After the bloodbaths

of the religious wars, the new

'Enlightened Age' offered Europe

a relief, less from the fighting

itself than from its worst horrors.

War was 'moderated,' through

the adaption of more formal rules

for combat and engagement by

the specialization of the military

function. Those restraints, which

made warfare less destructive

also made battles, and war, less

decisive. During the colonial

period, European history was a

story of continual, indecisive

warfare. About Euro-warfare,

Daniel Defoe remarked : "Now

it is frequent [1697] to have armies

of 50,000 men on a side stand

at bay within view of one another,

and spend a whole campaign in

dodging, or, as it is genteelly called,

'observing one another,' and then

march off into winter quarters. The

difference is in the maxims of war,

which now differ as much from

what they were formerly as long

perukes do from piqued beards,

or as the habits of the people do

now from what they then were.

The present maxims of war are

"Never fight without a manifest

advantage, and always encamp

so as not to be forced to it." And

if two opposing generals nicely

observe both these rules, it is

impossible they should ever

come to fight.'

-

I feel that to be the same sort

of shadow-dance that Science

does with its own prescience.

The play-act of sincerity and

of career undertake the genteel

pulling out of what is already

there.

-

Battles, in this period mentioned,

tended to take place on large, open

fields, where the customary rules

and formations could be obeyed.

At the opening of a battle, the

opposing forces were set up like

men on a chessboard; each side

usually knew what forces the

other possessed, and each part

of an army was expected to

perform only specific maneuvers.

Sneak attacks, irregular warfare,

and unexpected and unheralded

tactics were generally frowned

upon as violations of the rules.

I have a lot more I could put

here about battles-from-formation

and all that, but I'll just summarize

it together like this: Those Brits

coming over here, they all had

those formation-militaries in mind;

the soldiers and the settlers. They

quickly grew amazed by the tactics

of their 'Indian' native antagonists;

hiding and attacking rashly and

suddenly from behind trees and

shrubs, violent raids and sneak

attacks, a pure and vicious brutality,

often as possible sparing no one,

infants, females, and the rest.

Torture, maiming and more.

The settlers soon themselves 

 found this to be a better tactic

and in 80 years or so, when the

Revolution here came on, it was

the same irregular tactics they

used against the vain, Royalist

troops sent here to resist them. 

Those Royalists often used the

same, old, orderly Euro-means

of warfare.  The wild-fighters

of the Continentals and militias

and Revolutionaries triumphed.

Fast forward all this some 180

years, or whatever it is, and it

amazes me how simple the entire

thing had fallen back into its

own predictability in Vietnam.

In that case, OUR forces were

the equivalent of the Royalist

troops sent to another land to

fight, and the Vietcong, using

those same, crazy tactics, which

we then labelled 'guerilla' forces

and 'guerilla' ambush tactics, 

bested' us; in much the same 

form of wear-down attrition 

that we'd done to the British.

Those 'guerillas,' in 12 years

had turned out forces into

bedraggled, drunk and drug

addled commissars of a losing

battle with no end in sight

and no way out. Instead of

continuing to fall apart and

kill each other, fragging

officers, and pop-blasting

at will, the fool's game was

called off, and the team 

went home. Frantically.
-
Yeah, well, we all got hit,
I suppose. A freshet is the
flood that comes after a heavy
rain or a large melt of snow.
I always felt that this was
all akin to that.