Talking To The Maya

The Scots Philosopher MacFinn

Back when I spoke to the Maya, I used to complain about their sacrificial religious rites. The entire business of ripping people's hearts out was really not a sign of spiritual advancement, but on the contrary was a sign of a vicious indulgence in a corrupt spiritual vision gone badly awry. Of course, given their history of bloodletting, from human sacrifice to the ritual bloodletting of kings, they merely looked at me, shook their heads, and smiled to each other, much as if I were the chimpanzee in "Jungle Jim", who had stopped by to supply everyone a much needed laugh. They pointed their index fingers at the sides of their heads with a circular motion, saying "chowen", and laughing lots, this apparently being "mad as a monkey", and equivalent to "looney tunes". At this point, I realized why I have so much trouble speaking to Americans about violence in society: there's way too much lovely history of bloodletting in which we wrap ourselves in comfortably like a warm duvet on a winter's morning. It may have, indeed, troubled us once upon a time - such things as the pictures and the words of evil hitherto inexpressible being heralded into our living room from cable TV - but we have grown used to it. In fact, violence is the constant. The morality which gives rise to moral outrage when a truly outrageous violent event occurs is the exception. We live with a Punctuated Christian Morality; it exists only in pieces. First comes the Vision Quest. First the 40 days in the desert, fasting. First you come to God. After that, you may sit around an argue about what is good or bad for a society. St.Paul tells us that what we think is True and Clear Vision and Insight is nothing more than straining to see through a glass, darkly. In this present day of religion and ritual and atheism and power......we see only as if through that dark window. Therefore, religion and ritual and all the trappings of our Rationality and Reason and Power and Governance..., they are all exigencies of people who are lost and cannot find their way. We cannot make decisions as long as we are immersed within the prisons of our dark, unseeing visions of the world. Just as the Maya, we cannot understand that violence and bloodletting should be the rare exceptions, not the rule. We are fish, and violence is the water in which we swim. What is beyond our little sea?