--- In [email protected], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], Vaj <vajranatha@> wrote: > <snip> > > Bizarre! Post what could've been an interesting discussion on > > the mechanics of samadhi, written by someone they don't know, > > and it automatically becomes an attack on TM! As I've said here > > before: if it weren't so sad, it would almost be funny. > > > > I'm almost waiting to find a Jack Chick-style tract in my mail > > box. > > > Oh, are Jack Chick tracts where you learned the > technique of quoting criticisms and then pretending > you weren't the one doing the criticizing?
I'm not quite sure what 'Jack Chick tracts' are myself, but I'm pretty sure I've seen the technique you describe above. It looks a lot like the following, doesn't it? [ Thread title, embedded commentary in brackets, and final commentary at the end by the thread's author. Everything else is "quoted criticism." ] Mel Gibson, Christian bigot (title by Judy Stein) >From Salon.com: Maya in the Thunderdome By Marcello A. Canuto Dec. 15, 2006 | As a scholar of the Maya civilization, I was anxious to see Mel Gibson's portrayal of the Maya in "Apocalypto." Of course, I realize the movie is not a documentary and was mindful of the director's artistic license. I was happy to see that Gibson got some details right, like personal adornment, tools and body decoration. Although the main actors are native North Americans, I applaud Gibson's use of some Maya actors, as well as his decision to have the characters speak in a native Maya language, Yukatek, still heard in Mexico. While these are brave and ambitious choices, they also imply that "Apocalypto" is a sincere depiction of Maya society. In fact, the movie is not an accurate portrayal of the Maya at all; rather, it is a reflection of Gibson's own feverish imagination.... ...The movie focuses on Maya society on the eve of Spanish contact in the 16th century. Yet the Maya city portrayed in the movie, central to its plot, dates roughly to the 9th century. This is akin to telling a story about English pilgrims founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and showing them living in longhouses described in "Beowulf." In fact, Gibson incorporates Maya images from as far back as 300 B.C. Throughout the movie, these anachronisms make Maya civilization seem timeless, and undermine the idea that the Maya could and did respond to change.... Whatever the causes, the collapse [of Mayan civilization] was primarily of a system of governance, not a self-immolating culture. The movie misses this important distinction by creating a spurious contrast between a rural idyll and an urban miasma of excess and violence. The truth is that within several generations of the Classic Maya collapse, other regal cities with different forms of government would flourish in other parts of the Maya area. Over several millennia, the Maya underwent many cycles of growth and decline, each with its own major cities. The idea, proposed by the movie, that Maya civilization was at the verge of final self-destruction makes for good drama, but does not reflect the depth of this civilization's resilience and history.... ...[The hero] flees through the jungle, and with only two pursuers remaining, he bursts out of the forest onto a beach. There, where the land ends and the water begins, both he and his tormentors witness Spanish galleons and rowboats ferrying Spaniards and Christianity to the lands of the Maya. His pursuers, as if in a trance, walk weakly toward the arriving Spaniards. Their pursuit is now irrelevant, as their world is about to end.... In "Apocalypto," the arrival of the Spanish signals "a new beginning." Remarkably, the event is portrayed as tranquil, as if the Spaniards are the adults who have finally come to rescue the "littleuns" stranded on the island of William Golding's "Lord of the Flies." In reality, the arrival was anything but serene.... ...If there were ever an apocalypse in the history of the Maya -- and herein lies the ultimate demoralizing irony of the movie -- it would be because of European contact. But in the movie, after two hours of excess, hyperbole and hysteria, the Spaniards represent the arrival of sanity [i.e., Christianity--JS] to the Maya world. The tacit paternalism [and bigotry--JS] is devastating. After many centuries of misguided and simplistic views of the Maya, recent scholarship has shown the complexity and historical depth of their civilization. In Maya society, as in all civilizations, violence, surfeit and disparity were balanced by accomplishment, restraint and illumination. Gibson's feverish vision of a childish Maya society sacrificing itself to extinction is more than inaccurate, it works against the progress of decades of diligent scholarship to restore to present-day Maya people a heritage of which they are proud, and from which we have much to learn. I can only hope that audiences seeing this movie will be motivated to learn about the Maya -- present and past -- rather than be sated by Gibson's sacrificial offering at the altar of entertainment. Read the whole piece, with many more details, here: http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2006/12/15/maya To highlight what the writer tactfully leaves implicit, Gibson has slandered the Maya and mangled history for the purpose of exalting the purported superiority of Christianity.
