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Ahhh..the good ole days. Articles like this always speak of these acts with almost a sense of awe or reverence. Sorry, but these societies were some of the mos

Ahhh..the good ole days. Articles like this always speak of these acts with almost a sense of awe or reverence. Sorry, but these societies were some of the most disturbing and violent ever and I find this almost giddy excitement over human sacrifice to be very off-putting.

gjkood 8y ago
Watching Mel Gibson's Apocalypto gave me chills. I don't know if there are any other movies that depict the times so realisticly (atleast from a movie watcher's perspective though not from a historian's one). The last scene showing Hernan Cortez's ship is the bridge between the old world and the "new world". The start of the decline of the Aztecs.
- tptacek 8y ago
  It's worth keeping in mind that whatever else Cortez's ship represented, it certainly wasn't the welfare of the next 10 generations of Native Americans in Mexico.
  - gjkood 8y ago
    Agreed. Hence my quotes around "new world". I wish we humans can outgrow the inherent evil in ourselves, but I doubt we ever will.
  - remarkEon 8y ago
    I think it's also worth keeping in mind that Cortez and those who got off his ships would've been rightly disturbed by the scale of human sacrifice and savagery displayed by the Aztecs. That doesn't justify enslavement, certainly, but their mindset would've been one of fear and defense and that's totally understandable to me.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      And, a generation later, their domination of the area firmly established and plainly evident, what then was their mindset? Was it their "fear" and "defensiveness" that led them to continue wholesale rape and slaughter across Central America?
      - Turing_Machine 8y ago
        Being enslaved and raped is bad, but not quite as bad as being enslaved, raped, and also being used as a source of meat. I think it was one of Neal Stephenson's characters who observed that it really brought into perspective what assholes the Aztecs were when you consider that bringing in the Spanish Inquisition was actually an improvement, vis-a-vis the cruelty of the dominant religion. The Inquisitors tortured their victims, true enough, but they didn't eat them.
        sonnyblarney 8y ago
        In addition to the 'not even comparable' level of atrocity, the scale of the direct victims of the Inquisition also paled in comparison to the full and complete systematic mass murder of the Aztec rituals. At very least the eradication of the craziest death cult in history was a bonus for everyone.
        tptacek 8y ago
        They didn't eradicate the "death cult" so much as they eradicated most of the people in Central America.
        sonnyblarney 8y ago
        No, they did not. Illness and plague wiped out most of South and Central America. Wars of conquest did not kill remotely as many in comparison. Moreover, were the Aztecs to have a land boundary to Spain, and were they able to defeat them, the Aztecs would have had no problem slicing up Spaniards and eating their beating hearts for dinner as well. So the better team definitely won in this case.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >The last scene showing Hernan Cortez's ship is the bridge between the old world and the "new world". The start of the decline of the Aztecs. And the enslavement, murder, work to death, and rape of tens of millions of natives in the cruelest ways possible... whether they were part of the Aztec culture or way more peaceful tribes... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_de_las_Casas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_de_las_Casas
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Apocalypto is a brilliant film designed as an emotional mass market play, but the production design was so great it's award worthy. Mel Gibson's films usually give some insight into the nature of power and politics, which is really fun because so few attempt to bother with that kind of stuff. Listen to the DVD voice-over with he and the director of that film, they give you some amazing information as to the backstory of the political setup of the city in which the scenes took place.
door3 8y ago
>these societies were some of the most disturbing and violent ever They weren't the ones who committed genocide on the entire continent.
coldtea 8y ago
>were some of the most disturbing and violent ever and I find this almost giddy excitement over human sacrifice to be very off-putting. Heck, until past century the crowds gathered to watch hangings, guillotines and other executions all over Europe. And just past century the Germans burned to death 6 million Jews, gypsies, leftists, and homosexuals. Then there are the lynchings as a means of justice (in the West) and for blacks in the South, plus other types of "mob justice" in which whole communities would often participate (or stand and enjoy the show). Those Aztec societies were cruel, but "giddy excitement over" death extends beyond them. And at least they have the excuse to not have had modern science, schooling, wikipedia, and all tons of culture back then...
- AlexB138 8y ago
  Executions were of condemned criminals. The Western world, and many others, mobilized to stop Nazi Germany. Lynching was an illegal act. I'm not sure those really compare to industrial scale ritual sacrifice as a cornerstone of the society.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >The Western world, and many others, mobilized to stop Nazi Germany. That was more of an effort to avoid Germany getting more powerful (and affecting them) than a humanitarian mission. Besides, half of the "western world" took side with the Nazis, including a full blown pro-Nazi government in occupied France (with tons of sympathizers pre- and during the occupation), Italy (of course), Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Norway, Ukraine, and so on. >Lynching was an illegal act. And yet few ever got into prison for it when it was practiced.
    - JackCh 8y ago
      > "And yet few ever got into prison for it when it was practiced." Unsurprising since the act was a public display of societal contempt for the legal system. Often the person to be lynched would be torn from a jail by the mob; demonstrating that the judicial system had no power when faced by the will of the mob.
methodover 8y ago
Seriously. The first thing I found myself thinking while reading the article was, what was the appropriate response to a society like that? If you’re part of a 16th century expedition, and you’ve come across a nightmare society like this, what’s the right thing to do? I’m not so quick to dismiss “conquer the country, ban human sacrifice, pave over the temples.” It might not be the worst option. :/
vinchuco 8y ago
So what? It's history. It doesn't care how you feel about it. Should we abandon the past because 'we know better'?
JackCh 8y ago
> "I find this almost giddy excitement over human sacrifice to be very off-putting." Here is the perspective of the article's author: https://mobile.twitter.com/lizzie_wade/status/1010178681334050822 https://mobile.twitter.com/lizzie_wade/status/10101786813340... I found it to be... illuminating.

gjkood 8y ago

Watching Mel Gibson's Apocalypto gave me chills. I don't know if there are any other movies that depict the times so realisticly (atleast from a movie watcher's perspective though not from a historian's one). The last scene showing Hernan Cortez's ship is the bridge between the old world and the "new world". The start of the decline of the Aztecs.

tptacek 8y ago
It's worth keeping in mind that whatever else Cortez's ship represented, it certainly wasn't the welfare of the next 10 generations of Native Americans in Mexico.
- gjkood 8y ago
  Agreed. Hence my quotes around "new world". I wish we humans can outgrow the inherent evil in ourselves, but I doubt we ever will.
- remarkEon 8y ago
  I think it's also worth keeping in mind that Cortez and those who got off his ships would've been rightly disturbed by the scale of human sacrifice and savagery displayed by the Aztecs. That doesn't justify enslavement, certainly, but their mindset would've been one of fear and defense and that's totally understandable to me.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    And, a generation later, their domination of the area firmly established and plainly evident, what then was their mindset? Was it their "fear" and "defensiveness" that led them to continue wholesale rape and slaughter across Central America?
    - Turing_Machine 8y ago
      Being enslaved and raped is bad, but not quite as bad as being enslaved, raped, and also being used as a source of meat. I think it was one of Neal Stephenson's characters who observed that it really brought into perspective what assholes the Aztecs were when you consider that bringing in the Spanish Inquisition was actually an improvement, vis-a-vis the cruelty of the dominant religion. The Inquisitors tortured their victims, true enough, but they didn't eat them.
      - sonnyblarney 8y ago
        In addition to the 'not even comparable' level of atrocity, the scale of the direct victims of the Inquisition also paled in comparison to the full and complete systematic mass murder of the Aztec rituals. At very least the eradication of the craziest death cult in history was a bonus for everyone.
        tptacek 8y ago
        They didn't eradicate the "death cult" so much as they eradicated most of the people in Central America.
        sonnyblarney 8y ago
        No, they did not. Illness and plague wiped out most of South and Central America. Wars of conquest did not kill remotely as many in comparison. Moreover, were the Aztecs to have a land boundary to Spain, and were they able to defeat them, the Aztecs would have had no problem slicing up Spaniards and eating their beating hearts for dinner as well. So the better team definitely won in this case.
coldtea 8y ago
>The last scene showing Hernan Cortez's ship is the bridge between the old world and the "new world". The start of the decline of the Aztecs. And the enslavement, murder, work to death, and rape of tens of millions of natives in the cruelest ways possible... whether they were part of the Aztec culture or way more peaceful tribes... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_de_las_Casas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_de_las_Casas
sonnyblarney 8y ago
Apocalypto is a brilliant film designed as an emotional mass market play, but the production design was so great it's award worthy. Mel Gibson's films usually give some insight into the nature of power and politics, which is really fun because so few attempt to bother with that kind of stuff. Listen to the DVD voice-over with he and the director of that film, they give you some amazing information as to the backstory of the political setup of the city in which the scenes took place.

door3 8y ago

>these societies were some of the most disturbing and violent ever They weren't the ones who committed genocide on the entire continent.

coldtea 8y ago

>were some of the most disturbing and violent ever and I find this almost giddy excitement over human sacrifice to be very off-putting. Heck, until past century the crowds gathered to watch hangings, guillotines and other executions all over Europe. And just past century the Germans burned to death 6 million Jews, gypsies, leftists, and homosexuals. Then there are the lynchings as a means of justice (in the West) and for blacks in the South, plus other types of "mob justice" in which whole communities would often participate (or stand and enjoy the show). Those Aztec societies were cruel, but "giddy excitement over" death extends beyond them. And at least they have the excuse to not have had modern science, schooling, wikipedia, and all tons of culture back then...

AlexB138 8y ago
Executions were of condemned criminals. The Western world, and many others, mobilized to stop Nazi Germany. Lynching was an illegal act. I'm not sure those really compare to industrial scale ritual sacrifice as a cornerstone of the society.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >The Western world, and many others, mobilized to stop Nazi Germany. That was more of an effort to avoid Germany getting more powerful (and affecting them) than a humanitarian mission. Besides, half of the "western world" took side with the Nazis, including a full blown pro-Nazi government in occupied France (with tons of sympathizers pre- and during the occupation), Italy (of course), Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Norway, Ukraine, and so on. >Lynching was an illegal act. And yet few ever got into prison for it when it was practiced.
  - JackCh 8y ago
    > "And yet few ever got into prison for it when it was practiced." Unsurprising since the act was a public display of societal contempt for the legal system. Often the person to be lynched would be torn from a jail by the mob; demonstrating that the judicial system had no power when faced by the will of the mob.

methodover 8y ago

Seriously. The first thing I found myself thinking while reading the article was, what was the appropriate response to a society like that? If you’re part of a 16th century expedition, and you’ve come across a nightmare society like this, what’s the right thing to do? I’m not so quick to dismiss “conquer the country, ban human sacrifice, pave over the temples.” It might not be the worst option. :/

vinchuco 8y ago

So what? It's history. It doesn't care how you feel about it. Should we abandon the past because 'we know better'?

JackCh 8y ago

> "I find this almost giddy excitement over human sacrifice to be very off-putting." Here is the perspective of the article's author: https://mobile.twitter.com/lizzie_wade/status/1010178681334050822 https://mobile.twitter.com/lizzie_wade/status/10101786813340... I found it to be... illuminating.