Re:What the Aztecs can teach us about happiness and the good...
by ergot_vacation on Saturday June 05, 2021 @06:16PM
(#27408857)
People call anything and everything "Nazi" in this day and age, but in this case it might be somewhat of a relevant comparison. We're not talking about the Na'vi here: the Aztec were some brutally cruel people.
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Re:What the Aztecs can teach us about happiness and the good...
by crooked-v on Saturday June 05, 2021 @06:33PM
(#27408961)
For example, it was a common practice for the Aztecs to engage in ritualistic wars against their smaller neighbors specifically to abduct captives for use in human sacrifice.
Re:What the Aztecs can teach us about happiness and the good...
by ncmncm on Saturday June 05, 2021 @08:40PM
(#27409651)
Not to whatabout anybody, but a comparison of murder rates by the Aztecs to the murders of supposed witches by the Franciscan and, particularly, Dominican Inquisitions does not show Europeans in a favorable light. But at least Europeans tortured their victims first. I think the Aztecs preferred to feed and drug them, instead.
Still, if I were looking to pre-contact America for life lessons, I would look at some more northerly tribes, first. But we don't know as much about what they thought.
Re:What the Aztecs can teach us about happiness and the good...
by requin246 on Sunday June 06, 2021 @03:26AM
(#27411421)
Your comparison is factually incorrect.
The documented death rate of the inquisitions is on the order of 4500 people over 400 years [1]. That’s a rate of 11 people per year.
Aztec sacrifice estimates are on the scale of 20,000 to 250,000 per year. [2]
In actual fact, the Aztecs are in a far worse light than the Dominicans and Franciscans. The Nazi comparison is valid. There’s no society on earth that would end innocent life on that scale for another 500 years.
[1]: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/39443/what-was-t...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_cultu...