The other side of the coin [2]: the “Last Aztec” case

I was watching the series of videos which title is “The Last Aztec”, as the story was progressing, I thought that the manner the story was narrated was quite a peculiar one, then I wondered who the narrator was. The narrator turned out to be the now famous writer DBC Pierre [bio], who although was born Australian, he considers himself as a Mexican.

Despite the unusual way of narration, which I did not like much, the story kept my interest, till I reached the following line:

“… this is part of the reason why Spaniards could take Mexico so quickly” [Part 3] ,

when DBC Pierre was giving a command to an indigenous Mexican and this Mexican complied it without questioning him or any complain whatsoever.

Many people (I guess Mexicans) reacted badly to such a comment. After some thoughtful period of time, I thought that DBC Pierre’s comment had some sense in a way. Allow me please to explain myself.

As all we know, the Aztecs have been criticized for centuries, and in various cases tagged as barbarian and evil people due to the various human sacrifices they performed at that time. Indeed, thousands of sacrifices were carried on, perhaps millions, and although many of them were performed (very likely) against the will of the person to be sacrificed, the truth is that we cannot label the Aztecs as evil. Here are my arguments:

(1) Since the Aztecs truly believed that their Gods needed to be given “gifts” in turn of rain, sun, food and more. Which other better gift than one's own life (or blood)? Their purpose, I believe, was not to harm others, but to content their Gods, so that the rest of their community could survive and stay healthy.

(2) According to [ref], the Aztecs were sensible people, who were obedient and respectful of their elders and practiced self-control. Laziness, adultery and drunkenness (crime of excess) were severely punished.

“A well-bread Aztec was, however, expected to exercise SELF-CONTROL and to behave with dignity … a person who is serious and modest, and wishes no praise, who is SOLICITOUS of others … a follower in the ways of his parents.”

“the curriculum laid emphasis on SELF-CONTROL, humility and unselfishness, for the teachers believed that those who were TO LEAD MUST FIRST to learn to OBEY”

... so can we really say they were evil?

The latter of my arguments made me wonder why (if the Aztecs were educated in such a sensible manner) is that after our Independence (and yet many years later) Mexico had not been able to be more prosperous?

Prosperity should have been expected after our Independence, since we supposed to inherit from Spain the marvels of the New World. I have been thinking this for some time and it occurred to me that: My ancestors learned just “one side of the coin”. They were never thought what to do when leaders were corrupted. They instead did what they were thought to do, to obey submissively. Then, it can be explained why many of them turned into alcohol ... perhaps, to forget and mitigate their pain of being diminished ... they were psychologically damaged, and it was never easy to recover. They passed from hardworking people, gentle and modest, to be drunk, lazy, uncultivated and in consequence discriminated. Later, after Mexico's Independence most of them did not know what to do, where to start from or how to do better, how to be more prosperous.

So although the comment of DBC Pierre may sound sarcastic to most people, it actually makes a lot of sense. Far from being evil, the Aztecs learned of self-control and beyond that they learned of how to obey and respect blindly.

The Aztecs had a totally different philosophy of life, different from today’s Mexico and of course different from the catholic Spanish people of 1520, who came across Mexican territory. Their mistake (through my own lenses):

To be one-sided-coin learners.

==

"Use your common sense, everybody should be their own leader, in other words do your thinking for yourself" [Oren R. Lyons] (A native American elder).

"COMMON SENSE, you have to use it and evaluate what some ones tell you ... all of us, we can make the transition from being a sheep to be a thinking person, that is a philosopher." [Socrates on Self-Confidence].



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