Welcome to a new segment of reclaiming history from the warped and crazy summaries created by unpaid (and probably sexually harassed) workers for Bill Gothard's Advanced Training Institute!
In the last post, we learned how the Inca Empire fell because of laziness, false gods, and corrupt leaders. I'm pretty sure that ALL empires past and present could be accused of all three - but life moves on even when governments fall. Just ask China, Russia, England or the USA - we've all been there.
The next empire to receive a glancing overview of skills followed by an entirely made-up reason for their downfall is the Mayan Empire. The Maya had an advanced civilization with massive building project, intensive agricultural works and a variety of written works at its height. The Classic Mayan Empire collapsed around 900 AD - some 400 years prior to European contact. The writers of the Wisdom Booklet seem to have missed this tidbit - but the Mayan Empire contacted by Europeans was much more fragmented and depopulated than it had been in the past. That Classic collapse has had a variety of theories over time - but the best supported theory currently is that an extended drought of 200 years occurred across the Yucatan Peninsula. Cities in areas where the water table dropped below an accessible point collapsed and survivors moved towards areas where water was available through rivers or cenotes - a settlement pattern seen at the time of European contact.
European contact and conquest followed a starkly similar pattern throughout the New World. The first Europeans introduced a variety of disastrous epidemic diseases to the Maya who had no previous exposure to the pathogens. Native Americans lost 70-90% of their populations in a short time prior to any incursions by European warriors. In spite of this level of catastrophic loss, it took the Spanish Empire nearly 200 years to conquer all of the existing Maya states.
One surprising advantage for the Mayans was their use of flint for arrowheads, spear tips, etc. See, flint is a rock that is easy to shape, takes a sharp point, but is easily fracturable. That fracturability greatly increased the mortality rate among injured Spaniards since the shattered flint in a wound introduced a high risk of fatal infections.
Let's get into the selected quotes:
This first sentence is the only direct placement of the Mayan culture within a timeline until the author brings up an event from Nunez de Balboa's expedition across Central America. The author straight up ignores the fact that the fall of the Mayan Empire around 950 AD is separated from the later event (which has some additional problems discussed later) by 563 years. An awful lot happens over 5.6 centuries; compare any European country in 1456 to today to serve as a comparison.
A lot of CP/QF history suffers from the same flaws as young-earth creationism (YEC). YEC often makes a statement in a way that implies that the statement is a well-supported fact when in reality the statement is highly suspect outside of believers. In this quote, Mayan civilization is casually described as being directly connected to Noah - but there is no evidence given at all for that claim. There are at least 30 Mayan languages either used today or extinct but with enough written examples to allow analysis of linguistic connections - and no one can connect those languages with ancient Middle Eastern languages. I suppose that YEC could argue that this lack of connection is due to the incident of the Tower of Babel - but that doesn't explain why population geneticists can show that humans left Africa in several different waves instead of one wave propagating outward from the Middle East.
A lot of CP/QF history suffers from the same flaws as young-earth creationism (YEC). YEC often makes a statement in a way that implies that the statement is a well-supported fact when in reality the statement is highly suspect outside of believers. In this quote, Mayan civilization is casually described as being directly connected to Noah - but there is no evidence given at all for that claim. There are at least 30 Mayan languages either used today or extinct but with enough written examples to allow analysis of linguistic connections - and no one can connect those languages with ancient Middle Eastern languages. I suppose that YEC could argue that this lack of connection is due to the incident of the Tower of Babel - but that doesn't explain why population geneticists can show that humans left Africa in several different waves instead of one wave propagating outward from the Middle East.
The section on the Mayan invention of zero deserves a better explanation. Several previous civilizations had a place-holding zero like the zero in 204 that represents 2 groups of one hundred, four ones, and no tens - but the Mayans had the first example of a zero that meant a total absence. Figuring out how to deal with nothing seems easy - but it is a breakthrough that took many civilizations a long time to figure out.
The Mayans were excellent at astronomy and determined lots of accurate future dates of astronomical events. Really, my only pet-peeve with the Mayans is the fact that they created a roughly 5,125 year cycling calendar and left behind a stone tablet. Some modern translators made a mistake when translating the stone tablet in the 1960's - and the next thing you know - I'm stuck with 30,000 questions about the world ending in December 2012 throughout the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 school years. It's not the fault of the Mayans but I still flinch slightly when Mayans are mentioned because I'm afraid I'll get dragged into a boring conversation about the end of times.
Woot-woot! The Mayans homeschooled! Woot-woot!
Of course, homeschooling wasn't enough to prevent their civilization from collapsing, was it? What do you mean that's not the takeaway message? *shrugs*
The Mayans were excellent at astronomy and determined lots of accurate future dates of astronomical events. Really, my only pet-peeve with the Mayans is the fact that they created a roughly 5,125 year cycling calendar and left behind a stone tablet. Some modern translators made a mistake when translating the stone tablet in the 1960's - and the next thing you know - I'm stuck with 30,000 questions about the world ending in December 2012 throughout the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 school years. It's not the fault of the Mayans but I still flinch slightly when Mayans are mentioned because I'm afraid I'll get dragged into a boring conversation about the end of times.
Woot-woot! The Mayans homeschooled! Woot-woot!
Of course, homeschooling wasn't enough to prevent their civilization from collapsing, was it? What do you mean that's not the takeaway message? *shrugs*
It took the Spanish nearly 200 years to control all of the Mayan states - and I suspect that historians and anthropologists could argue that the Spanish never really brought much cultural change to most areas. Oh, various officials tried hard to get taxes or resources from the population and members of the Catholic Church tried various carrot-and-stick-but-mostly-stick methods of getting people to convert - but Mayans had the advantage of remote locations and an ability to syncretize their religion to appear Catholic while still honoring their religious beliefs.
That graph is a hot mess. The vertical axis is a bit wonky - but I can kind of see it. The Mayans developed new technologies on a smooth curve before losing said achievements in two collapses. As a theoretical concept, it works - but the Mayan civilization existed - so I'm left with the feeling that the person who constructed the graph was half-assing their job by not actually determine how many technologies were lost over units of time. That feeling gets worse when I look at the horizontal axis. "Time" needs a unit of some kind. We know that the Mayans had a high achieving Classic period that lasted roughly 600 years ending around 950 AD. That could work for the top of the graph - but that means that the rest of the graph covers 1800 years and all hell is about to break loose in Central America. The other option is to declare that second drop of technological advances is roughly right for the invasion of the Spanish - but it also means that the Mayan people are still losing cultural and technological advances - which feels wrong, too.
That graph is a hot mess. The vertical axis is a bit wonky - but I can kind of see it. The Mayans developed new technologies on a smooth curve before losing said achievements in two collapses. As a theoretical concept, it works - but the Mayan civilization existed - so I'm left with the feeling that the person who constructed the graph was half-assing their job by not actually determine how many technologies were lost over units of time. That feeling gets worse when I look at the horizontal axis. "Time" needs a unit of some kind. We know that the Mayans had a high achieving Classic period that lasted roughly 600 years ending around 950 AD. That could work for the top of the graph - but that means that the rest of the graph covers 1800 years and all hell is about to break loose in Central America. The other option is to declare that second drop of technological advances is roughly right for the invasion of the Spanish - but it also means that the Mayan people are still losing cultural and technological advances - which feels wrong, too.
Next, we dive into the patently false ideas about why the Mayan Empire fell - but the false ideas do give a great deal of insight into how ATI works.
*slow claps*
Teaching kids to appreciate art from different cultures requires some patience and effort. ATI decides to avoid that extra work by declaring that art that looks ugly by ATI standards is abhorrent to God.
The Mayans used political prisoners (e.g., conquered nobles) for sacrifices. If you don't want to be sacrificed to the gods, be a peasant farmer like the vast majority of humankind. Or at least make sure you have the best trained soldiers....your choice.
It's always fun to blame the human desire for novelty for everything wrong in the universe - but most of us are simply trying to raise a family and not die horribly at a young age. That's the real human experience. Another human universal is that "things that I do" are normal and divinely sanctioned while "things that outsiders do" are abnormal and demonic. The Mayans could easily make the same claims about Christianity - and I'm disturbed that no one in ATI seems to have noticed that.
Teaching kids to appreciate art from different cultures requires some patience and effort. ATI decides to avoid that extra work by declaring that art that looks ugly by ATI standards is abhorrent to God.
The Mayans used political prisoners (e.g., conquered nobles) for sacrifices. If you don't want to be sacrificed to the gods, be a peasant farmer like the vast majority of humankind. Or at least make sure you have the best trained soldiers....your choice.
It's always fun to blame the human desire for novelty for everything wrong in the universe - but most of us are simply trying to raise a family and not die horribly at a young age. That's the real human experience. Another human universal is that "things that I do" are normal and divinely sanctioned while "things that outsiders do" are abnormal and demonic. The Mayans could easily make the same claims about Christianity - and I'm disturbed that no one in ATI seems to have noticed that.
As near as I can tell - and it took a lot of digging - this entire smear on the Mayan Empire (and the Aztecs who are mostly ignored) is roughly third-hand at this point.
Yes, when Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama, he discovered the Pacific Ocean.
Prior to that, he was moving through Central America looking for gold, silver and emeralds as a conquistador. While he was governor of Veragua, he worked at subduing the local populations through diplomacy, negotiation or force.
At the same time, there was a great deal of discussion and hand-wringing in Spain about how Native Americans should be treated. One line of thought was that Native Americans could be converted to Catholicism. Since they could be converted to Christianity, Spaniards had the duty to treat them like fellow humans who had rights in terms of governance and property. The other line of thought was that Native Americans were not really human and so Spain had no reason to treat them as humans.
With that background, the story recorded by Peter Martyr d'Anghiera was meant to reconcile actions of conquistadors with the idea that Native Americans were humans. The story goes that Nunez de Balboa came upon a group of 40 noble men who were engaged in homosexual activities so he had the men killed using his war dogs and the local people were happy that that abomination was destroyed. IOW, the evil nobles were doing wrong in the eyes of the humble peasants who knew that the gods (or God) hated immorality and Nunez de Balboa freed those peasants from evil leaders and divine wrath.
I can make the history make a certain amount of sense - within the senseless hatred of racism and homophobia that is - but the ATI workbook proceeds to take a single event in a single polity, ignores the obvious spin placed on the report by the killer, and decides to insult the rest of the empire for fun.
Oh, and they drag in the Aztecs. *rolls eyes*
Yes, when Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama, he discovered the Pacific Ocean.
Prior to that, he was moving through Central America looking for gold, silver and emeralds as a conquistador. While he was governor of Veragua, he worked at subduing the local populations through diplomacy, negotiation or force.
At the same time, there was a great deal of discussion and hand-wringing in Spain about how Native Americans should be treated. One line of thought was that Native Americans could be converted to Catholicism. Since they could be converted to Christianity, Spaniards had the duty to treat them like fellow humans who had rights in terms of governance and property. The other line of thought was that Native Americans were not really human and so Spain had no reason to treat them as humans.
With that background, the story recorded by Peter Martyr d'Anghiera was meant to reconcile actions of conquistadors with the idea that Native Americans were humans. The story goes that Nunez de Balboa came upon a group of 40 noble men who were engaged in homosexual activities so he had the men killed using his war dogs and the local people were happy that that abomination was destroyed. IOW, the evil nobles were doing wrong in the eyes of the humble peasants who knew that the gods (or God) hated immorality and Nunez de Balboa freed those peasants from evil leaders and divine wrath.
I can make the history make a certain amount of sense - within the senseless hatred of racism and homophobia that is - but the ATI workbook proceeds to take a single event in a single polity, ignores the obvious spin placed on the report by the killer, and decides to insult the rest of the empire for fun.
Oh, and they drag in the Aztecs. *rolls eyes*
*sniggers*
Most cultures have one form of astrology or another. Heck, we use astrology to place the right dates for Easter. It's another human quirk; we look at the movement of the sun, the moon, and various other astronomical bodies and try to use them to figure out what will happen next. The idea is not so crazy when you consider that watching the movement of the moon let people estimate 1/12 of the year and determine when tides and seasons would change. The biggest body orders a day, the next biggest orders the months, so why shouldn't the smallest bodies order events in human lives?
Most cultures have one form of astrology or another. Heck, we use astrology to place the right dates for Easter. It's another human quirk; we look at the movement of the sun, the moon, and various other astronomical bodies and try to use them to figure out what will happen next. The idea is not so crazy when you consider that watching the movement of the moon let people estimate 1/12 of the year and determine when tides and seasons would change. The biggest body orders a day, the next biggest orders the months, so why shouldn't the smallest bodies order events in human lives?
Conversely, the US has had various forms of astrology in use since colonial times - see your handy Farmer's Almanac for details - so if the Mayans were screwed, so are we.
The next post in this series is on why Classical Greece fell.
I assume having "God's Law written in their hearts" means that they somehow knew (one specific brand of) Christian Morals despite never encountering Christianity.
ReplyDeleteI like how moral degradation has to be the reason civilisation collapses, rather than famine, disease or invasion. Remember, God doesn't let bad things happen to good people.
Yeah, I feel like one of the authors had a momentary qualm and asked something like "But....how can God punish people for failing to uphold the Law when they knew nothing about the Law?"
DeleteThis was a poser, I'm sure, but thankfully, someone yelled out something about the Letter to the Romans. Now, if you read the entire chapter - or *gasp* the entire Letter - the overall theme is God will judge people by the method in which people know God - so Jewish Law applies to Jews and Gentiles are judged under Gentile Laws and for the love of God, stop obsessing over minutia and start helping others!
ATI, on the other hand, tore one verse away from the rest of the verses and pretended that God has already told everyone all the details they need to be members of ATI. Through Noah, apparently. Not lost during the Tower of Babel incident either - although we lost the ability to talk to each other or remember the previous handful of events in Genesis - but people have all the rest of the pertinent info. Including, I assume, the 1950's male haircut chart that Sheldon Cooper uses in a Big Bang Theory episode.
The kicker is that all civilizations fall eventually - and often more with a whimper than a bang.
ATI makes my history education with A Beka books look downtown scholarly.
ReplyDeleteRight? I'm glad most families use other curriculum as well - but there's a ton of misinformation in it.
DeleteNot only do I get humor, anecdotes and great critique from your posts, I also get history lessons. Love it :)
ReplyDeleteThank you!
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