Were these activities there to support a reign of terror, or was there another motivation? I think it was Joseph Campbell who pointed out that only agricultural civilizations practiced large scale human sacrifice. If the basis of your economy depends on mysterious and capricious weather forces then it makes sound economic sense to do whatever is required to placate those demanding weather gods. As their environment degraded due to overfarming these demands would have seemed to require more and more sacrifice.
It's all just a matter of economics. How many of our global citizens are daily sacrificed to the gods of "positive GDP growth", "efficient markets" and "small government"? The Nazi's never had anything like that rationale. Regards, Saul On Saturday, May 1, 2010, sarbajit roy <sroy...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi > > Where would one place say the Taj Mahal in the context of the Mughal > (alternatively Indo-Islamic) civilisation's ascendancy? Or the Eiffel > Tower in the context of French (alternatively Gallic) civilisation? > > Mr Sabloff's observation reminds me of the old saw, "A priest, a > scientist and a mathematician are travellng on a train through France > and spot a black cow in the distance. Priest: "Behold God hath colored > all cows black. Scientist: You're wrong, only some cows are black. > Mathematician: Somewhere in a field in France there exists at least > one cow at least one of side of which is black.." > > On 4/29/10, Pamela McCorduck <pam...@well.com> wrote: >>> >>> >>> Grandiosity of civilizations is easily observed but that same >>> grandiosity >>> applies to Buildings architecture as well as death circuses. >>> The Human need for Grand Gestures may be at the root of civilization. >> >> Jerry Sabloff, the president of the Santa Fe Institute, whose >> specialty is the archaeology (and thus the life) of everyday Mayan >> civilization, gave a little talk in late December to a small group >> where he mentioned in passing that the great architectural monuments >> of a civilization are nearly always erected early in that >> civilization's ascendancy--the Egyptian pyramids, the Mayan ziggurats, >> etc. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > -- Saul Caganoff Enterprise IT Architect Mobile: +61 410 430 809 LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/scaganoff ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
