[Aztlan] Apocalypto

[Archaeology Institute]

"Dito Morales" <ditomorales at msn.com> on Sunday, December 10, 2006 at 7:43 PM -0800 wrote:
>As I see it, this discussion dances around one of the main problems we face 
>in education today. Students are more and more confusing entertainment with 
>education.
>
>General textbooks are increasingly more reliant on slick graphics and less 
>on detailed and extensive information (text). This makes them look and read 
>more like web sites. I've heard publisher reps admit that this is 
>intentional. They want to make the books more appealing to students. This is 
>a symptom of the dumbing down of our educational system, short and simple.
>
>News programs now look more and more like entertainment programs, and their 
>content is becoming increasingly light and fluffy. Sports and entertainment 
>get similar time and depth in broadcast coverage as life and death 
>issues--which all share similarly splashy graphics and theme music. We're in 
>a "Colosseum Culture," as Howard Risatti recently called it, where spectacle 
>is replacing substance. Who can blame our students for occasionally 
>confusing spectacle and substance?
>
>Movies are movies. I liked watching some of Apocalypto. But I like the 
>entertainment of going to the movies. I'm very used to it. I also liked the 
>junk food I abused like bad drugs while watching the movie. The aftereffects 
>of both, however, left me queasy. Re-entering the 'real' world from the 
>cavernous theater I realized that the throngs passing me on their way into 
>the ritual chamber might actually believe some (most?) of that crap.
>
>I remember the strange questions I got when teaching Italian Renaissance art 
>a few years ago ("Isn't that a woman in Leonardo's Last Supper?"). Once I 
>realized a book by Dan Brown was well-read by my students, while their 
>assigned readings were not, I caught on. I was no longer working against a 
>lack of knowledge, I was working against well-learned fiction--and very 
>entertaining fiction; sweet like candy and just as nourishing.
>
>Gibson's gratuitous anti-Maya candy, as popularly grotesque as it is, will 
>force us to teach pre-Columbian culture by un-teaching Apocalypto, just as 
>we un-teach The Da Vinci Code, and un-teach Alexander, and un-teach a lot of 
>Islam, and un-teach "Cave-Man Paintings" (my personal un-favorite).
>
>But that's what we do. When we stop, they win. When they stop, we're bored.
>
>Dito Morales

Dear Dito,

	You have touched upon the very issue that most disturbs me about some of my students...particularly those who define themselves as direct decendants of the Mexika Aztec.  One such student once questioned my motives after I presented a slide show
concerned with the theme of Epiclassic warfare...and the particularly graphic mural art of the site of Cacaxtla, Tlaxcala, Mexico.  The student in question, who I might note was phenotypically more Spaniard than Mexika, but linked to an Azteca
danzante society...was particularly offended.  When I expressed concern about her apparent confusion and anger at my presentation, I asked her what it was about my presentation specifically that disturbed her...and she indicated that she was
convinced that the Cacaxtla murals were a lie, a fabrication of archaeologists and "arqueo-locos" who were attempting to denigrate her ancestors.  I informed her that I'd been monitoring the Cacaxtla excavations since they were first exposed in the
mid-1970s, and she reiterated her "belief" that the murals were "planted."  I then asked her what underlay her beliefs...in particular, which specific texts, to which she responded that she absolulely refused to read these texts as they were "filled
with the lies of archaeologists" (which of course reminded me of another discourse about "we burned them as they were filled with the lies of the Devil").  When I then indicated that I was willing to entertain other sources of information...or other
sources of discourse, she indicated that her information had come to her straight from the "elders."  When I asked which "elders," she refused to specify.  To which I then posed the question, "did you information come from the Centro del Cultural
Pre Americana" in Mexico City...she seemed surprised at my question, and refused to answer.  When I asked if she'd studied among the Nahua or other "Azteca" groups in the Sierra de Puebla or other adjacent Nahua regions...she indicated that she had
a personal relationship with the elder in question...but again refused to identify the elder in question.  As it turned out, this same student then sent out fliers some months later indicating that her "spiritual" mentor, the "elder" Ocelocoatl
would be coming to campus to speak on the topic of the "Myth of Human Sacrifice"...it became clear to me that such students had been seduced by the allure of the "Noble Savage" and peaceable kingdoms that exist only in the inner recesses of their
minds.  Please note, however, that while I fully respect the need for Latina, Latino, Hispanic, and Mexican American youth to find a "peaceable past" (particularly given the particularly violent, impoverished, and drug infested neighborhoods in
which many of us are raised), I continue to believe it a disservice to lure such vulnerable youth into a denial movement that minimizes the holocaust of blood sacrifice...and the elite culture that perpetrated such bloodshed in the name of power and
self preservation.  Ironically, many of these same youth who so promote Mexika Aztec civilization, know nothing of their own specific indigenous forebearers...many of whom constituted the very populations from which the Mexika culled men, women, and
children for sacrifice on the altars of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.

Best Regards,

Ruben G. Mendoza, Ph.D., Director
Institute for Archaeological Science, Technology and Visualization
Social and Behavioral Sciences
California State University Monterey Bay
100 Campus Center
Seaside, California 93955-8001

Email: archaeology.csumb at gmail.edu
Voice: 831-582-3760; Fax: 831-582-3566
http://archaeology.csumb.edu; http://archaeology.csumb.edu/wireless/


"Science progresses at the rate of one funeral at a time."

-Albert Einstein


"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?"

-Albert Einstein


"He who argues with a fool proves that there are two."  
-Anonymous


Confidentiality Notice:  The information contained in this e-mail message is sender-privileged and confidential information.  It is intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above.  If you are not the intended recipient, you are
notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution, electronic storage or use of this communication is prohibited.