[Aztlan] Perspectivism

[Sam Edgerton]

Listeros:
         As some of you know, I am an art historian also specializing in 
the Italian Renaissance, with particular interest in the advent of 
geometric linear perspective.  Recently, while preparing a new book on that 
subject (now in press) I googled up the word "perspectivism" thinking it 
had something to do with my topic.  To my surprise, the term had no 
relation to art at all, but  rather identified a wholly different 
"perspective" discipline that immediately aroused my curiosity.  I've just 
now learned  that  the term was invented long ago by Friedrich Nietzsche to 
explain how (I'm quoting here from the Wikipedia definition) "all 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideation>ideations take place from particular 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_%28cognitive%29>perspectives...[that 
is from] many possible 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_scheme>conceptual schemes...which 
determine any possible judgment of 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth>truth or value that we may 
make...[which] implies that no way of seeing the world can be taken as 
definitively "true"...."
         Such a definition, it occurred to me, seems to embrace exactly 
what we AZTLAN listeros love to argue about. Perspectivism might even offer 
a clearer prism through which to "view" our subject since it also purports 
to avoid the usual politicized mantras of  cultural relativism.
         Anyway, I've already  introduced perspectivism to the AZTLAN list 
in response to a recent assertion that Aztec eagle warriors might actually 
have been able to fly.  I was especially intrigued because this idea, 
however outlandish it may sound at first, links to a longer thread that has 
quite frequently provoked AZTLAN discussions, namely that ancient Native 
Americans did possess secret capabilities which we moderns today assume 
were only the later benefits of Western science. Before pursuing this 
further, let me unequivocally state that there is no scientific possibility 
that any heavier-than-air Aztec, Maya or anyone else in the world (not even 
Leonardo da Vinci) could physically  fly like a winged bird - that is 
before the Wright brothers discovered the aerodynamic principles that 
finally made it possible..
         Nonetheless I have no doubt that the native cultural 
contemporaries of those Aztec and Maya eagle knights sincerely believed 
their heroes had such supernatural powers. This was not a foolish delusion. 
They were responding to their own traditional cultural perspective in the 
same archetypal way as our own modern visionaries who claim as avidly to 
have eye-witnessed flying saucers.  Only today's archetypal myths are less 
concerned with divine intermediacy and more with invading Martian 
cosmonauts. Even though I'm just as skeptical of the latter as I am of 
Aztec bird-men and think it's healthier within the perspective of our 
modern science-nurtured paradigm,  to "see" and then believe, I'm also 
humbly aware that it's just as innately human to believe and then to "see."
         Finally, here's another provocative "perspective" by the same 
native chronicler of the Annals of Cakchiquel, continuing his description 
of the war between the K'ich'e and the Spanish invaders. Just before the 
confrontation between Tecum Uman and Alverado, the chronicler related how 
other Indian captains also "flying as eagles" tried to kill the Spanish 
leader,  but were repulsed by a "very fair maiden.....As soon as [the 
Indians] saw the maiden they fell to the earth and could not get up from 
the ground, and then came many footless birds...[which] surrounded this 
maiden, and the Indians wanted to kill the maiden and those footless birds 
defended her and blinded them....[next] an exceedingly white dove [flew] 
above all the Spaniards..." causing the native attackers again to be 
"blinded and fall down."
         From my art history-nurtured perspective, I "know" what the 
K'ich'e "really" saw:  the Spanish conquistadors frequently carried banners 
into battle depicting the Virgin Mary and other Christian images including 
the dove as symbol of the Holy Spirit. Such images would often be 
surrounded by little flying cherubs, represented as disembodied baby heads 
with wings.  Now, as an advocate of perspectivism,  I'm just as curious to 
"know" what the K'ich'e "really saw" from their peculiar point of view.
         How indeed, fellow listeros,  can we "really" get behind the eyes 
of peoples from other civilizations, and behold the  world through the 
million synapses of their own culture-nurtured brains - and then be able to 
transfer their unique impressions into our own culture-nurtured mind's eye 
-  without patronizing prejudice or romantic sentiment?
Sam Edgerton