AZ: Child-sacrifice

[Richard Haly]

> I would always discourage any relative newcomer,
> and any child,  from dealing with this issue at all,
> until they have GREAT maturity,
> stability, presence of mind, ability to detect hidden assumptions
> and motivations behind how things are presented,
> and behind what is chosen to be presented
> and what is chosen to be omitted, etc. etc.
>
> In short, enormous sophistication.
>
> Otherwise, it ends up doing harm both to the modern
> people descended from the ancient people studied,
> and to the psyche of the student looking at the concept.

As it happens my course is an Upper-Division critical thinking course and it
is precisely this sort of thing that I aim to teach. If anyone wd like the
syllabus before making their own assumptions, I'll gladly send one.

As for modern people offended by this I believe that is mostly non-Nahuas.
Those Nahuas with whom I have spoken with for 25 years (in Nahuatl) never
seemed particularly PC about it. Nor am I. If it happened, it can/oughta be
discussed. The whole point is HOW? How can one make sense of this cultural
phenomenon? I have my ideas and evidence for my approach which I will not
necessarily bring up here given what usually happens when this topic is
broached. Hint: it was economic.

As far as cultural relativism goes, i.e. that any cultural practice is
legitimate within its own culture. That is simply our own cultural
assumption and it does not work when faced with a less tolerant culture. Try
drinking a beer on a streetcorner in Riyadh. Moreover, the "wisdom" of
cultural relativity is open to question as I can't condone female
circumcision, human sacrifice, or a certain war in VietNam just because it's
what culture does. Culture, being human, has every reason to be messed up.
Gregory Bateson's discussions of schismogenesis are apt here.

Sorry for all this, but these kinds of discussions rub me the wrong way more
than whether Anasazi were cannibals, my Irish ancestors were slaveholders
(or slaves).

Best,


Richard Haly