
Aztec Political Thought (2013) - benbreen
http://abandonedfootnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/aztec-political-thought.html
======
cobbzilla
This mind-blowing article is a book review of Inga Clendinnen's "Aztecs: An
Interpretation". The Aztecs really are hard to love, but even understanding
the simplest things about their culture requires some comprehension of their
deepest foundations, because in many ways those foundations are very different
from our own.

Thinking about culture as a largely collective and continuous act of creation,
one wonders how and why any culture develops the way it does; what truths it
holds dear; what virtues it praises; what vices it damns; what metaphysical
stage all of these play upon.

From a circumstantial perspective, without defending the morality of either
the Aztecs or the Spanish, there was just this _vast_ cultural divide between
them.

While what happened when they met was inevitable, there is still a ton of
stuff you can learn watching a car crash in super-slow motion from all angles.
As a "clash of cultures", this one was pretty intense. This article provided
good insight on some of the contours of that impact, not from a
military/physical perspective (that's been done and is easier), but from a
psychological/cultural perspective. I'm getting the book.

~~~
nestorD
On that subject (following a recommandation on HN) I started reading the
Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo [0]. It is an account
from a conquistator that was a member of the expedition that discovered the
Aztec written in a surprisingly modern style and full of nuggets.

[0]:
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32474](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32474)

~~~
digikazi
Oh wow, that bought back memories. My aunt got that book when I was quite
young (about 7 or 8), and she started reading me from it. At the time I was
going through a phase when I was fascinated by Aztecs and the Conquistadors
and I absolutely loved that book - I remember hearing the unpronounceable
names of the gods (and trying to memorise them to impress my peers at school),
the gory sacrifices, the battles and the mundane bits of everyday life. It's
one of the books that I blame for starting a lifelong fascination with
history. Many, many years later I found the book again in a charity bookshop;
I bought it, read it from cover to cover and enjoyed it just as much; this
time around however I was older and had a better understanding of the events
described.

Thank you for the wonderful trip down memory lane.

~~~
nestorD
Reading it I actually thought that it would be a perfect bedtime story for a
child old enough. Thank you for your story.

------
JoeDaDude
I did not realize the Aztecs (or Mexica) had a written Pre-Columbian history
until I read an excellent summary contained in this book: A Rain of Darts by
Burr Cartwright Brundage.

[https://books.google.com/books?id=HptBCwAAQBAJ&printsec=fron...](https://books.google.com/books?id=HptBCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false)

------
nyolfen
be sure to check out the wiki for the codex that illustration is from:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Borgia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Borgia)

there's a really excellent podcast series i listened to a few months ago about
the conquest of mexico a few months ago, beginning here:

[http://historyonfirepodcast.com/episodes/2017/5/25/episode-2...](http://historyonfirepodcast.com/episodes/2017/5/25/episode-20-the-
conquest-of-mexico-part-1-people-of-the-sun)

it's genuinely one of the most incredible stories in human history. if you,
like me, only possess a cursory awareness of the events, i can't recommend
listening through the whole thing enough.

and a supplementary podcast series about human sacrifice particularly by the
aztecs (though quite meandering, in an enjoyable way):

[http://www.martyrmade.com/8-how-to-serve-man-sacrifice-
canni...](http://www.martyrmade.com/8-how-to-serve-man-sacrifice-cannibalism-
pt-1/)

~~~
perseusmandate
Even more absurd to me than Cortes' conquest of Mexico was Pizarro's conquest
of the Incas, an empire which was larger than both the Mayans or Aztec.

IIRC Cortes had ~1500 conquistadors on his side and Pizarro had ~500

~~~
spanxx
Both conquistadors were helped by native fighters, so these numbers only show
the Spanish warriors not their massive allied army.

------
clarkevans
There is a relatively new, philosophical take on this topic that may be of
interest -- "Aztech Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion by James
Maffie."

~~~
nyolfen
can you give a brief account of what it argues?

~~~
abrowne
From the blurb on the Amazon page [https://www.amazon.com/Aztec-Philosophy-
Understanding-World-...](https://www.amazon.com/Aztec-Philosophy-
Understanding-World-Motion/dp/160732461X/)

> _In_ Aztec Philosophy _, James Maffie shows the Aztecs advanced a highly
> sophisticated and internally coherent systematic philosophy worthy of
> consideration alongside other philosophies from around the world._ [...]

>

> Aztec Philosophy _focuses on the ways Aztec metaphysics—the Aztecs’
> understanding of the nature, structure and constitution of
> reality—underpinned Aztec thinking about wisdom, ethics, politics, and
> aesthetics, and served as a backdrop for Aztec religious practices as well
> as everyday activities such as weaving, farming, and warfare. Aztec
> metaphysicians conceived reality and cosmos as a grand, ongoing process of
> weaving—theirs was a world in motion._ [...] _Maffie argues that Aztec
> metaphysics maintained a processive, transformational, and non-hierarchical
> view of reality, time, and existence along with a pantheistic theology._

------
gumby
What a fascinating exposition. I definitely want to read the book!

As alien as “lord, our executioner, and our enemy” is it has echos today, in
particular in the Locke-infused North America.

If you are fascinated by these kinds of models I encourage you to read about
the Bronze Age Greek societies which were also profoundly weird and utterly
unlike their depiction in contemporary culture (more ISIS than EU).

~~~
jaratec
What books do you recommend on bronze age in general and greek bronze age in
particular? There doesn't seem to be much material available. I have a book on
Linear B queued up for later reading.

~~~
gumby
Well you should read the Odyssey (the Lattimore translation is quite good and
accessible to the modern reader; don't know if it's still in print) and if you
have the patience, the Illiad. The motivations of Hector, Odyssius et al are
pretty obscure when viewed through a contemporary western perspective, but
make more sense when viewed through the prism of their "cousins" in medieval
Indian hinduism (or that some of my relatives in the Indian countryside back
in the 1980s :-( ).

Some things that will seem clear and obvious through a modern lens are in fact
utterly obscure, even, or perhaps especially, in translation. For example the
famous Homeric line, "the wine-dark sea"...well it doesn't mean anything like
you could imagine, for their whole model of colour utterly different from
ours. Ironically this code was cracked by, of all people, Gladstone: here's a
good essay on this though his monograph is quite readable:
[https://www.spectator.co.uk/2010/06/fathoming-the-
winedark-s...](https://www.spectator.co.uk/2010/06/fathoming-the-winedark-
sea/) \-- notice this essay also references Vedic literature so my comment
about Hinduism is not random. This kind of thing was quite puzzling to me as a
high schooler trying to struggle through Homer and knowing that I would be
immediately found out and screwed if I tried to use one of the translations to
get a sense of the story...you get the plot in translation but can only dimly
see the social order.

I also recommend Plutarch's Lives, although (or perhaps because) he attempted
to bend the Greeks' actions to what we might consider a more modern frame,
that of Rome. In particular though read Solon, Pericles (!!) and Alcibiades
for clues into how they lived.

As for the Spartans in particular: basically any movie you've ever seen on the
subject might as well be science fiction. The closest modern model I could
come up with would be some Nazi fantasy crossed with Trotsky. The Spartans:
The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and
Collapse by Paul Cartledge's "The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of
Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse" is probably the best for
the lay reader and will probably blow your mind.

Ancient Greek is worth learning IMHO and has opened up much more intellectual
opportunity to me than the parallel years of Latin ever did. Both are Indo-
European (aka "Indo-German" in German!) languages so pretty easy to learn.

HTH

~~~
nonbel
> _' "the wine-dark sea"...well it doesn't mean anything like you could
> imagine, for their whole model of colour utterly different from ours.'_

Doesn't seem like everyone agrees with this speculation:

> _" I'm even less impressed by Gordon's argument: it relies on oinops meaning
> 'wine-dark'. The trouble is, that's not a firm foundation. Strictly
> literally, the phrase straightforwardly means 'wine-faced sea', from οἶνος
> 'wine' \+ ὄψ 'face'."_ [http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2016/01/colours-
> in-homer-2...](http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2016/01/colours-in-
> homer-2-wine-dark-sea.html)

~~~
gumby
Indeed, these things are complex and incomplete. However I mentioned it as a
non-obvious example of how we can be lured into inaccurate interpretations due
to our contemporary assumptions.

(by the way I say "inaccurate" but not "wrong" as the point of contemporary
reading of classic texts (or any text) is to find insights into your own
states, unless you're a historian or historiographer).

~~~
nonbel
It seems more likely to be a translation issue to me. This is the first I've
heard of it but I'd guess "wine-faced" refers to the shimmering surface rather
than the color.

Going with "dark" though, Mare Tenebrosum ("Sea of Darkness") was an ancient
name for the Atlantic ocean: [http://atlantipedia.ie/samples/mare-
tenebrosum/](http://atlantipedia.ie/samples/mare-tenebrosum/)

------
pavlov
It’s not difficult to see why the Catholic priests believed Atzecs were devil
worshippers: Tezcatlipoca sounds literally like the Christian devil.

~~~
TomMckenny
What must the Aztecs thought of the Spaniards whose holiest emblem is a man
being publicly tortured to death.

If the history passes through the conquers, it might be shaded. The actual
codices would be the most reliable.

~~~
otabdeveloper2
> What must the Aztecs thought of the Spaniards whose holiest emblem is a man
> being publicly tortured to death.

The meaning and symbolism would have been blindingly obvious to them. In
general, Christian and pagan theology is basically the same. Christianity is a
direct development of pagan thought.

The modern thought framework for 99.9% of modern people is Gnostic, not
Christian. Both Christianity and paganism is thus completely impenetrable and
incomprehensible for pretty much every person alive today.

------
mooreds
My first introduction to pre Columbian life and thought was 1491 by Charles
Mann. Definitely worth a read for a survey of the landscape:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_Americas_Before_Columbus)

------
bouvin
The Aztecs were a fascinating people. If you are looking for a short, but good
book on the topic, I can recommend _The Aztecs: A Very Short Introduction_
([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12164067-the-
aztecs](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12164067-the-aztecs))

------
mooreds
The author mentions idly wondering at the genesis of the Aztec activities--I
think that would be fascinating historical fiction.

------
dforrestwilson
This reada more like a cult than a polity, to me anyway...

~~~
twoquestions
A cult is a kind of polity at it's heart, and it's horrifyingly fascinating
how they built an empire on top of these kinds of cultish practices.

~~~
baybal2
Polities are the cults, it's the other way around

