Word: mesoamericans
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...because it was so cruel -- in that regard, pre-Columbian Mexico was no worse than 20th century Europe with its wars and concentration camps -- but because its cruelty, as Paz points out in his catalog essay, was indissolubly part of its "senseless and sublime" theological and moral system. "The Mesoamerican vision of the world and of man is shocking. It is a tragic vision that both stimulates and numbs me. It does not seduce me, but it is impossible not to admire it." So might some Russian of the 3rd millennium A.D. rhapsodize about the ancient sacrificial rites of Stalinism...
...with killing and conquest, the Aztecs (a name given them by 19th century writers from the word Aztlan, their mythic home in the north) were capable of building aqueducts to bring fresh water to the capital, were skilled agriculturalists, wrote lyrical poetry, admired and preserved the artistry of earlier Mesoamerican civilizations and even kept...
Proof of Utopia. Center is not content to be merely topical, but offers some intriguing glimpses into past and future. In the current issue, Trappist Monk Thomas Merton, author of The Seven Storey Mountain, writes about an early Mesoamerican civilization that survived from 1000 B.C. to A.D. 900 without a single war. So attuned to their environment were its members, so at peace with themselves, that they simply felt no need to fight, nor their neighbors to fight with them. Here, says Merton, was a Utopian existence that was not mere fantasy...