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> Given his own cultural frame, and what he witnessed This type of fashionable moral relativism can be used to justify any atrocity. From an objective point of

by knolax 6y ago

> Given his own cultural frame, and what he witnessed This type of fashionable moral relativism can be used to justify any atrocity. From an objective point of view, he could've stopped the child sacrifices without committing genocide, both cultural and literal. Sure, it may be that from his perspective that the genocide was necessary, but that is the case for every perpetrator of genocide in history. I take it that many in this forum feel no connection to the Maya people, and are therefore comfortable empathizing with their abusers. I have seen your exact same logic used to express sympathy for the Nazis by people who have no personal connection to the West. If that bothers you then you should reconsider your perspective on what happened to the Mayans.

Retric 6y ago
You’re mixing cultural genocide with actual genocide. Going from the other direction, if all information on Nazi ideology where removed from history, would we have Neo Nazis today? That may seem abhorrent and or impossible, but other ideologies have been erased from history and outside of the academic context that could be a net positive. Ideology’s that promote ritual human sacrifice could be inherently dangerous by attracting a tiny number of people to actually carry through with such acts. Diverse cultural history has real value, but those cultures can come with heavy baggage.
- knolax 6y ago
  > You’re mixing cultural genocide with actual genocide. The Spanish conquest of the New World was undeniably a genocide in the literal mass murder sense. In a sense it was a continuation of the same genocide against Muslims and Jews that the Spanish committed during the Reconquista. However you want to categorize what he and other Spaniards did, it was undeniably and objectively morally wrong. > Going from the other direction, if all information on Nazi ideology where removed from history, would we have Neo Nazis today? Your analogy does not hold, the equivalent to de Landa's actions would be to destroy the entire Western canon and any written trace of the German language in response to the Holocaust. From your comments you seem to treat the entirety of Maya culture as atomic and inseperable from human sacrifice, while conversely you have conveniently seperated out Nazism from the whole of German culture. This double standard where the faults of Western cultures are treated as redeemable while the faults of other cultures are treated as immutable traits inherent to that culture is what led to de Landa's actions in the first place.
  - Retric 6y ago
    An individual priest did a specific thing which is separate from an actual genocide that took place. He could have just as easily done something else which would not have impacted the genocide. It’s simply sloppy thinking to associate them. Maya culture is a sub set of South American cultures. So, the scope is narrower than your suggesting. Still let’s go with removing all of Germanic culture and language, the point still stands.
    - knolax 6y ago
      Fine, an individual priest committed cultural genocide and torture. It's still morally wrong and indefensible. It's even sloppier thinking to somehow justify this by treating one small aspect of a culture as immutable and inherent to the whole of that culture, while hypocritically not doing the same for a culture you're more familiar with. EDIT: GP added a second paragraph. > Maya culture is a sub set of South American cultures. So, the scope is narrower than your suggesting. Still let’s go with removing all of Germanic culture and language, the point still stands You have no point. Nazism has been removed without the destruction of German culture and language, human sacrifice could've been removed without the destruction of Mayan culture. And no, the scope is not narrower. Mayan culture has as about as much in common with other South American cultures like the Inca as Western culture has to do with East-Asian culture.
      - Retric 6y ago
        We are talking about a continuation of a huge line of the same thing that happened in Europe of thousands of years. It’s not really a question foreign cultures, just the clash between different cultures. > Nazism has been removed without the destruction of German culture and language Nope, you can still read Mein Kampf today and many still believe in it.
        knolax 6y ago
        > We are talking about a continuation of a huge line of the same thing that happened in Europe of thousands of years. It’s not really a question foreign cultures, just the clash between different cultures. I'm not really sure what you're referring to by "the same thing", but if you're referring to the cultural genocide committed against pagans in Europe by Christians, then ironically that helped fuel the type of German nationalism that gave rise to Nazism. The Nazis famously used the Massacre of Verden committed by Charlemagne against the Saxons as historical justification for their ideology[0]. > Nope, you can still read Mein Kampf today and many still believe in it. Nazism is not practiced to any significant extent, unless you want to argue that the existence of neo-Nazis warrants the destruction of all Germanic languages. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Verden https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Verden

by knolax 6y ago

Retric 6y ago

You’re mixing cultural genocide with actual genocide. Going from the other direction, if all information on Nazi ideology where removed from history, would we have Neo Nazis today? That may seem abhorrent and or impossible, but other ideologies have been erased from history and outside of the academic context that could be a net positive. Ideology’s that promote ritual human sacrifice could be inherently dangerous by attracting a tiny number of people to actually carry through with such acts. Diverse cultural history has real value, but those cultures can come with heavy baggage.

knolax 6y ago
> You’re mixing cultural genocide with actual genocide. The Spanish conquest of the New World was undeniably a genocide in the literal mass murder sense. In a sense it was a continuation of the same genocide against Muslims and Jews that the Spanish committed during the Reconquista. However you want to categorize what he and other Spaniards did, it was undeniably and objectively morally wrong. > Going from the other direction, if all information on Nazi ideology where removed from history, would we have Neo Nazis today? Your analogy does not hold, the equivalent to de Landa's actions would be to destroy the entire Western canon and any written trace of the German language in response to the Holocaust. From your comments you seem to treat the entirety of Maya culture as atomic and inseperable from human sacrifice, while conversely you have conveniently seperated out Nazism from the whole of German culture. This double standard where the faults of Western cultures are treated as redeemable while the faults of other cultures are treated as immutable traits inherent to that culture is what led to de Landa's actions in the first place.
- Retric 6y ago
  An individual priest did a specific thing which is separate from an actual genocide that took place. He could have just as easily done something else which would not have impacted the genocide. It’s simply sloppy thinking to associate them. Maya culture is a sub set of South American cultures. So, the scope is narrower than your suggesting. Still let’s go with removing all of Germanic culture and language, the point still stands.
  - knolax 6y ago
    Fine, an individual priest committed cultural genocide and torture. It's still morally wrong and indefensible. It's even sloppier thinking to somehow justify this by treating one small aspect of a culture as immutable and inherent to the whole of that culture, while hypocritically not doing the same for a culture you're more familiar with. EDIT: GP added a second paragraph. > Maya culture is a sub set of South American cultures. So, the scope is narrower than your suggesting. Still let’s go with removing all of Germanic culture and language, the point still stands You have no point. Nazism has been removed without the destruction of German culture and language, human sacrifice could've been removed without the destruction of Mayan culture. And no, the scope is not narrower. Mayan culture has as about as much in common with other South American cultures like the Inca as Western culture has to do with East-Asian culture.
    - Retric 6y ago
      We are talking about a continuation of a huge line of the same thing that happened in Europe of thousands of years. It’s not really a question foreign cultures, just the clash between different cultures. > Nazism has been removed without the destruction of German culture and language Nope, you can still read Mein Kampf today and many still believe in it.
      - knolax 6y ago
        > We are talking about a continuation of a huge line of the same thing that happened in Europe of thousands of years. It’s not really a question foreign cultures, just the clash between different cultures. I'm not really sure what you're referring to by "the same thing", but if you're referring to the cultural genocide committed against pagans in Europe by Christians, then ironically that helped fuel the type of German nationalism that gave rise to Nazism. The Nazis famously used the Massacre of Verden committed by Charlemagne against the Saxons as historical justification for their ideology[0]. > Nope, you can still read Mein Kampf today and many still believe in it. Nazism is not practiced to any significant extent, unless you want to argue that the existence of neo-Nazis warrants the destruction of all Germanic languages. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Verden https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Verden