[Aztlan] Perspectivism

[Anasazidogs at aol.com]

Thank you Sam,
 
Yep, time to remind people about being careful  not to use  Western thought 
patterns when dealing with people who had very different  perception of 
reality. Not all, but many of these  views have  vanished forever. What remains is 
often carefully hidden from people who might  not be able to understand so 
vastly different a world view. My favorite is  Kluckhohn's view of Navajo witches. 
(Look it up.) As a person who has seen a  Navajo witch in action and the 
result, I can vouch for the possibility of one  group seeing a flying warrior and 
the opposite  group seeing Santiago on a  white horse causing it to rain at 
just the right time. What is the  difference?
One cultures'' religious power can be another cultures'  conundrum.
 
 
DODY Fugate
 

 
In a message dated 1/11/2009 12:41:48 P.M. Mountain Standard Time,  
Samuel.Y.Edgerton at williams.edu writes:

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







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