Heck, until past century the crowds gathered to watch hangings, guillotines and other executions all over Europe.
And just past century the Germans burned to death 6 million Jews, gypsies, leftists, and homosexuals.
Then there are the lynchings as a means of justice (in the West) and for blacks in the South, plus other types of "mob justice" in which whole communities would often participate (or stand and enjoy the show).
Those Aztec societies were cruel, but "giddy excitement over" death extends beyond them. And at least they have the excuse to not have had modern science, schooling, wikipedia, and all tons of culture back then...
That was more of an effort to avoid Germany getting more powerful (and affecting them) than a humanitarian mission. Besides, half of the "western world" took side with the Nazis, including a full blown pro-Nazi government in occupied France (with tons of sympathizers pre- and during the occupation), Italy (of course), Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Norway, Ukraine, and so on.
>Lynching was an illegal act.
And yet few ever got into prison for it when it was practiced.
Unsurprising since the act was a public display of societal contempt for the legal system. Often the person to be lynched would be torn from a jail by the mob; demonstrating that the judicial system had no power when faced by the will of the mob.
It was worse than that. The total number of holocaust victims was about 17 million, the Jews were just the biggest group at around 6 million.
I don't know if there are any other movies that depict the times so realisticly (atleast from a movie watcher's perspective though not from a historian's one).
The last scene showing Hernan Cortez's ship is the bridge between the old world and the "new world". The start of the decline of the Aztecs.
I wish we humans can outgrow the inherent evil in ourselves, but I doubt we ever will.
I think it was one of Neal Stephenson's characters who observed that it really brought into perspective what assholes the Aztecs were when you consider that bringing in the Spanish Inquisition was actually an improvement, vis-a-vis the cruelty of the dominant religion.
The Inquisitors tortured their victims, true enough, but they didn't eat them.
At very least the eradication of the craziest death cult in history was a bonus for everyone.
Wars of conquest did not kill remotely as many in comparison.
Moreover, were the Aztecs to have a land boundary to Spain, and were they able to defeat them, the Aztecs would have had no problem slicing up Spaniards and eating their beating hearts for dinner as well.
So the better team definitely won in this case.
Gold was removed in vast quantities, but has only a commercial value to those who have ascribed to it such arbitrary value. Otherwise it's just a pretty rock.
Of course - the masses who died from imported disease notwithstanding.
In fact, given > 100 000 skulls in 'one find', and we know this behaviour was common in the region over time, and that certainly not all skulls were preserved ... we're talking easily into the millions of murders, putting this 'on par' with the holocaust. Added the fact this was hundreds of years ago with a smaller population base than modern Europe, in relative terms, this cultural mass murder surpasses the holocaust in relative terms. And done on the basis of 'religion' to boot ...
The reference to 'rape' I interpreted metaphorically, and you indicated you meant it literally - which I don't think applies given the historical facts of Aztecs, Cortez et. al. in real history ... whereas one could arguably use the 'rape' in the metaphorical sense and it would in fact apply within reason, at least as a creative description.
Also, nobody has suggested Cortez was a great dude, rather, that he wasn't part of a 'death cult' that pulled the beating hearts out of hundreds of thousands of slaves, women, and children, and inserted straws for the gods to drink blood, skinned them alive and wore their skin for good luck etc. ... which is altogether another level of crazy. It requires a hefty dose of moral equivalence to even try to equate regular colonization/conquest, which is the most common type of geopolitical activity in history by far, with the 'death cult' Aztec stuff, which doesn't really seem to have any real historical parallel.
And the enslavement, murder, work to death, and rape of tens of millions of natives in the cruelest ways possible... whether they were part of the Aztec culture or way more peaceful tribes...
Mel Gibson's films usually give some insight into the nature of power and politics, which is really fun because so few attempt to bother with that kind of stuff.
Listen to the DVD voice-over with he and the director of that film, they give you some amazing information as to the backstory of the political setup of the city in which the scenes took place.
The first thing I found myself thinking while reading the article was, what was the appropriate response to a society like that? If you’re part of a 16th century expedition, and you’ve come across a nightmare society like this, what’s the right thing to do?
I’m not so quick to dismiss “conquer the country, ban human sacrifice, pave over the temples.” It might not be the worst option. :/
Here is the perspective of the article's author: https://mobile.twitter.com/lizzie_wade/status/10101786813340...
I found it to be... illuminating.
They weren't the ones who committed genocide on the entire continent.