Radical Pedagogy (2016)
Volume 13 Number 2
ISSN: 1524-6345
Antuna.pdf
The Aztec Concept of Malinalli and LGBT Pedagogical Lives
Marcos de R. Antuna
Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching
The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA
E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract
The foundational concepts of traditional Aztec metaphysics can benefit
relations between LGBT students and teachers and their heterosexual peers.
Because LGBT students and teachers suffer academic grievances at rates that their
straight colleagues do not, they are in need of sound mechanisms for redress. The
ethical stances implicit in the Aztec ontological simple teotl and the three motionchanges through which it acts – olin, malinalli, and nepantla – offer novel ways of
approaching positive socialization between groups with differing social qualities
and perceptions. Specifically, the activity of the perpetually processive teotl
through the ‘twistedness’ of malinalli promises both respect for difference and the
recognition that all individuals are inhabitants of a greater cosmos. The Aztecs
routinely conceived of malinalli as those actions that have profound transformative
and productive powers. Malinalli rituals as characterized through traditional Aztec
metaphors can serve as tools for classroom interaction that bridge the social divide
between sexual minorities and the heterosexual majority.
Keywords: Aztec metaphysics, Aztec ethics, LGBT students, LGBT
teachers, teotl, malinalli
“Process and transformation thus define the essence of teotl. Teotl is
becoming, and as becoming it is neither being nor nonbeing yet at the same
time both being and nonbeing. Aztec metaphysics, in other words, embraces
a metaphysics of becoming instead of a metaphysics of being… Because
identical with teotl, the cosmos is processive and as a consequence lacks
entities, structures, and states of affairs that are static, immutable, and
permanent.” (Maffie 2014, p. 25, emphasis original)
What roles can the Aztec1 weltanschauung play in the daily struggles of
LGBT students and teachers? The question seems outlandish at first glance, a
misguided collision of two worlds far removed from each other across time and
space. Traditional Western philosophies, however, have not provided straight
students and teachers with an ontologically fruitful platform for understanding and
actualizing others. With its Platonic heritage of essentialism and formal structure,
the analytic school of philosophical thought is especially ill-equipped to discuss the
enforced differentiation and world navigation that characterizes much of the LGBT
academic experience. When heterosexuals and sexual minorities do not see eye to
eye on rights, the metaphor is often one of oil and water; these two substances and
their opposed essences would not be available for our unthinking justification if
our identities were not such hard, unyielding Platonic things.
Happily, the conceptual legacy of Aztec metaphysics serves as a valuable
philosophical space for understanding the problems that LGBT academic lives
encounter. We can already see a flexibility and understanding in the broadly
Mesoamerican social constructs that scholars like Laura Pérez and Damián Baca
share; while the former talks about reciprocity through the Chicano-inflected ‘tú
eres mi otro yo’ (Pérez, 2010), the latter references a Mexican tradition of open
interpretation in difrasismo (Baca, 2009). The phrase ‘tú eres mi otro yo’ translates
to ‘you are my other me’, and views another individual in a palpably non-Platonic
way, “refus[ing] to reduce or translate it into the sameness that is the familiar to
me” (Pérez, 2010, p. 124). Baca’s difrasismo, which roughly translates ‘twophraseness’, recalls the delineational duality of the Aztec agonistic inamic unities,
those pairings which “stimulate, improve, and engender one another” (Maffie,
2014). These and other Chicano / Mesoamerican concepts involve an apprehension
of versatility in the self and among others, and perhaps just as crucially, echo
components of the worldviews of older Mesoamerican cultures.
The recognition, assumption, comparison, and contextualization of identities
in LGBT lives require a phenomenologically fluid ontology that establishes mutual
respect as a sort of ethical simple. Speaking from and across my dual roles of
Mexican-American teacher and gay student, the richly detailed Aztec
weltanschauung can serve LGBT individuals with thoughtful, positive classroom
interactions. To facilitate these interactions, the theoretical frameworks that
underpin the Aztec tradition, an oft-forgotten forebear of social constructs like the
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ones Pérez, Baca, and other Mesoamerican thought scholars evoke, as well as a
tradition in which a fluid metaphysics and a fair ethics are never too far apart, must
be laid bare.
Teotl and Problems of Social Perception
The Aztec teotl, that primordial and perpetually immanent force comprising
the entire cosmos (Maffie, 2014), neither entertains nor conceives of a status quo.
As an impersonal labile energy bound to no particular ontological edifice or
complex of causal relationships, teotl circulates through every being
idiosyncratically and fruitfully. The singular power of teotl to ground and
substantiate all phenomena is what separates the Aztec philosophy so thoroughly
from Western counterparts; the ontological and constitutional monism of this
system (Maffie, 2014), founded on the comprehensive investment of the world
through the ever-dynamic teotl, emphasizes the ephemerality of all substances and
hierarchies. The perpetual process-orientation of teotl cannot allow for essentialism
or dogmatism to take hold, at least not without repugnant ethical and perceptual
error.
According to Aztec tradition, teotl can identifiably manifest as one of three
species of ‘motion-change’ (Maffie, 2014). These metamorphic tendencies are
called olin, malinalli, and nepantla; each characterizes a distinct manner and focus
of becoming, at least from the human perspective. Olin describes actions that are
cyclical and rhythmic in nature; it also has a special connection with those
processes that are biological (Maffie, 2014). Malinalli refers to those actions that
glide across the context, are transformational, and can unite opposing elements. It
does so through twisting, “a species of ordering and transformative motion-change
that is in a very important sense positive, beneficial, and desirable from the
standpoint of human beings” (Maffie, 2014, p. 263). By effect, malinalli provokes
and causes thought and relation revolutions, passionately compelling the
transmission of teotl across established cycles. Without malinalli processes, olin
processes would stagnate, contradicting the eternal potential of teotl to change.
Without olin processes, malinalli processes might induce ontological chaos.
Nepantla, on the other hand, describes those actions that result from the
interaction of olin and malinalli processes. The tableau upon which olin and
malinalli consort, nepantla is “the permanent condition of the cosmos, human
existence, and indeed reality itself (teotl)” (Maffie, 2014, p. 363). As the process
that paradoxically restrains the interaction of olin and malinalli through its
template (or ‘templating’), nepantla is the closest that the Aztec metaphysics
comes to a traditional Western substance ontology. Even so, this gelatinizing
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process is also invested with teotl, and can thus never completely escape the
vagaries of perpetual creation. Nepantla is conventional and expected, but never so
uniformly that it becomes oppositional to the omnipresent dynamism of teotl; even
a condensational process evades through motion the reification that is associated
with stability.
With a predilection for the object, Western philosophical traditions
privileges hierarchy and teleology. Objects, with their measurability and discrete
boundaries, encourage comparison and ranking. Objects, with their perceived
specific connections with the world, encourage oversized notions of purpose. The
acceptance, however, of energetic change as the sole constituent of reality – as in
the Aztec philosophical tradition – could predispose humanity to respect and
appreciate difference. Implicit in this dynamic monism is the union of all varieties
of life through mutual interaction, mutual heritage, and mutual presence in the
cosmos.
It is here that teotl and the motion-changes enter into a partial opposition
with the thought of Emmanuel Levinas. While the Levinasian tradition of
engagement with other entities emphasizes transcendence as a result of dialogue
(Levinas, 1969), the Aztec tradition of engagement with other entities reveals
immanence as a unifying feature across individuals. To the Aztecs, there was
nothing beyond the here and now – the cosmos – and as such, all that is sacred and
worthy of valuation is already present and connected. Built into this notion of
unification through the omnipresent teotl is an understanding that the three motionchanges can be easily accommodated into the personal ontology. Unlike with the
Levinasian priority on the human relation – or what is socially seen as fully human,
the Aztec metaphysics is inherently ethical through and across all individuals,
whether these are socially recognized as human or not. As such, the Aztec teotl,
along with the three motion-changes, is radically egalitarian. When pursued
logically and without regard to spatiotemporally specific cultural taboos, the
ontological framework of the Aztecs reflexively recalls unity across entities. This
justification for respect and care for other people with different lives does not even
obligate an encounter; the equality of all persons, things, and beyond is a priori
knowledge, without the need for historicity or reflection on essence.
Malinalli and LGBT Pedagogical Lives
What, then, of the very real persecutions that LGBT students and teachers
face during the course of their pedagogies? After all, the lives of LGBT students
and teachers in schools across the globe are fraught with pervasive discrimination,
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prejudice, and abuse (Henning-Stout, James, & Macintosh, 2000; Donahue, 2007;
Pascoe, 2007; Mayo, 2008; Gray, 2013; Meyer & Bayer 2013; Connell, 2014;
Thoreson, 2014). Homophobia contributes to lower grade point averages (Kosciw
et al., 2012), higher rates of truancy (Seelman et al., 2012), and greater rates of
depression (Martin-Storey & Crosnoe, 2012) for LGBT students. Because teacher
perceptions of school climate affect retention rates (Grayson & Alvarez, 2008) and
the new implementation of new curricula (Beets et al., 2008), stressed and
aggrieved LGBT teachers are professionally disadvantaged when compared to their
heterosexual peers. The egalitarianism that teotl enacts simply through existing in
every facet of the cosmos is not of much service when it fails to prevent the
aforementioned hardships and injustices. Aztec people living outside of
‘traditional’ heterosexuality – the cuiloni and xochihua, among others – did not
benefit from a society that prized codified sexualities and rigorous gender role
policing (Sigal, 2011). We must be careful, however, to not confuse the
philosophical potential of the Aztec ontology with the contextualized value system
of a past sociohistorical era. Many people continue to study and apply the work of
the Stoics, even though the Roman society in which they thrived was just as
sexually codified and dually gendered as that of the Aztecs. Just as modern
scholars can separate past Western societies from the merits or flaws of their
thought, the concepts of teotl and the three motion-changes – olin, malinalli, and
nepantla – should be given a fair hearing among contemporary educators and
activists. Ironically and as is the case with many LGBT people themselves, these
traditions have not been given a chance to gainfully coexist with others. So what
could it mean to recognize and reach equality through the Aztec metaphysical
weltanschauung?
The key to comprehending potentially lopsided human-teotl interactions is
the distinction between de re perception and de dicto perception (Maffie, 2014).
Although humans can perceive teotl whenever they perceive objects and processes,
they generally do not recognize it as such. Our a priori knowledge of the
egalitarianism that teotl affords is partially hidden through human perceptual
limitations. (The Aztecs themselves, like many other peoples, were not always
cognizant of the perceptual limitations which, for example, made them perceive
other native groups and/or social classes as lesser. Be that as it may, the purported
ubiquity of teotl could be called upon as a unifying factor for both humanity and
the universe.) Maffie (2014) describes the “vertical layers of the cosmos [as]
nothing more than folds in a single, ontologically homogeneous stuff: teotl” (p.
506); he is careful to distinguish between verticality and hierarchy, claiming that
the former represents only difference, not variations in worth or reality. As
individuals with social actions that sometimes differ from those of their
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heterosexual peers, LGBT students and teachers are only vertically – but not
hierarchically – distant from their straight colleagues and friends. While the
Platonic heritage of Western metaphysics routinely supports the cursory separation
and distinction of entities, the Aztec metaphysical tradition perpetually charges
inhabitants of the cosmos to remember their epistemological limits.
As such, the practical effect of teotl and the three motion-changes interacting
with humanity in the world is ultimately one of fostering epistemic humility. The
belief that one could be limited in phenomenal understanding has a strong Platonic
pedigree (Plato, 1978), and yet is held back from its fullest expression in the West
through the same Platonic tradition of ersatz shadows and transcendent
authenticity. When the notion of perennial truths takes hold in a culture, the
individuals living within it can find themselves making credible – to their minds –
claims that they alone work towards and live according to the truest fashion.
Absolute truths breed teleologies and hierarchies of absolute conviction. Crucially,
the aforementioned Aztec emphasis on verticality asks all who interact to forswear
stationary dominant-submissive relations in the service of fruitful connection with
other layers / other beings.
Through reflection on the gelatinizing tendencies of nepantla, all humans
can remember that all present social situations are interactions between cyclical
convention – or olin – and creative iconoclasm – or malinalli. To the Aztecs, the
perpetual immanence of teotl enables the near-stability of nepantla, commonly
metaphorized through ‘weaving’ (Maffie, 2014). As there are no stable essences or
objects in the Aztec ontology, though, the ‘weaving’ is continually undone and
reconstituted through “the horizontal weft-related activities”2 of olin and “the
vertical warp-related activities” of malinalli (Maffie, 2014, p. 482). Of the three
motion-changes, malinalli could be said to respect change and difference the most.
The following quote on the transformative potential of malinalli action is worth
sharing in full:
“Twisting is therefore a species of ordering and transformative motionchange that is in a very important sense positive, beneficial, and desirable
from the standpoint of human beings. It would therefore be a mistake to
equate malinalli-twisted per se with tlazolli [filth] or with being disheveled,
unbalanced, messy, polluted, deranged, disordered, and negative. Being
twisted carries positive connotative force in classical Nahuatl discourse
(unlike contemporary popular North American discourse)”. (Maffie, 2014, p.
263)
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In the Aztec weltanschauung, that which is different relative to something
else is neither inherently erroneous nor ineffable. For the Aztecs, the passions of
the provocative malinalli rituals can disrupt current olin cycles, thereby shaping
nepantla into new gelatinous tendencies. These are represented chiefly through
metaphors of sweeping, twisting, drilling, kindling, blowing, and speaking (Maffie,
2014). The Aztecs believed that their society “require[d] tireless and uninterrupted
maintaining, attending to, arranging, and purifying” (Maffie, 2014, p. 281);
without active engagement through malinalli-motions, individuals could become
behaviorally corrupted and socially deranged. It is to these moral imperatives and
their representations that we now turn.
Malinalli Ritualism as Teotl-Recall Praxis
The ability of the ritual to allow both momentary transformation and a lived
experience as another is at the heart of the utility of malinalli for human
communities. Specifically, the metaphorical ritualism of malinalli creates
opportunities for individuals to recognize a common heritage – teotl, the dynamism
that motivations and fills all the cosmos – across social groups. Literal and
metaphorical acts of sweeping, twisting, drilling, kindling, blowing, and speaking
offered clarification of perception; the abilities of these acts to organize thought
and unite supposedly disparate elements lie in their purposive transformation of
previous matter. The Aztec ontology informed their ethical outlook as well; it is no
coincidence that one of their three major motion-changes recognized positive
potential in initiating and circulating contact.
Crucially, the reflection afforded through malinalli-motions is not confined
simply to the linguistically intelligible realm. Perceptions themselves are changed,
in a way that does not always correspond to the conscious making of knowledge;
as in the argument that the senses can immediately inform truthful judgments
(Johnston, 2006), malinalli-motions could also immediately inform the perceptual
input an individual receives, leading to a newfound knowledge – or in this case, an
acknowledgement – of teotl uniting all things. The other-oriented interactions of an
individual can uncover and dissipate her epistemological limitations to different
communities through the metamorphosis of her malinalli-instigated livedness. This
combination of perceptual unveiling and conscious (active) reflection differentiates
immanent malinalli rituals from activities that promote a basic toleration through
simple presence or conversation. Malinalli rituals do not need – although they can
still benefit from – the mediation of consciousness to promote their pedagogy
through lived experiences as others.
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So how could malinalli rituals operate in classrooms and schools with LGBT
students and faculty? Any malinalli ritual must first realize and make obvious that
difference – or ‘twistedness’ – could be positive, always leading to greater
knowledge and purpose. This is a far cry from those activities that promote only
tolerance. Both the keen attention to and acceptance of difference are implicit in
the Aztec ontology; because teotl is an ever-changing dynamic force invested in all
things, it is easily argued that people too are meant to be different in myriad ways.
Straight students and teachers must pledge to celebrate differences in sexual
orientation as a necessary element of life; there is no legitimate space for
perfunctory tolerance in a cosmos that endorses the union of all existence.
Although active celebration may be a bridge too far for some, the fullest esteem of
others cannot take place without the repeated cherishing of concrete disparities
between people.
Malinalli rituals should also be aggressive in their attempts to make
individuals live momentarily as others. Because malinalli rituals were traditionally
associated with metamorphosis through such vigorous actions as sweeping,
kindling, and drilling, there is no room in the classroom malinalli ritual for the
reaffirmation of majoritarian sensibilities or prejudices. Straight teachers and
students should be asked to live their lives momentarily as gay, lesbian, bisexual,
or transgender, experiencing the acknowledgement of their similarity to their
sexual minority peers. The key here is to have these teachers and students discover
action-oriented parts of the LGBT experience that reveal the humanity common to
both LGBT people and straight people. Students and teachers should research both
the groundbreaking and more ‘mundane’ actions of pioneering and/or famous
LGBT people, and then work to individually match the latter behaviors with those
of the learning community. So, for example, did the students know that Olympic
diver and gay man Greg Louganis trains show dogs? Do any students also train
their dogs? Did they know that renowned lesbian actress Ellen Page loves to
juggle? Do any students also love to juggle? By ‘twisting’ teachers and students
away from seeing LGBT people as strictly ‘other’, students can slowly
metamorphose into agents of connection. As a final step, students and teachers can
ask themselves two questions, neither of which need be answered out loud: ‘Do
you love?’ and ‘Could you be a member of the LGBT community?’ After the
previous activity, these questions might instinctively inspire inner malinalli-motion
– the transformative unveiling of a desire to respond to the affirmative for both
questions, and a subsequent recognition of the dynamic union of all persons.
Lastly, malinalli rituals should encourage careful speech and conspicuous
performance. The Aztecs valued proper speech very highly, even associating
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correct phraseologies and their positive transformative powers with the smelting of
gold (Maffie, 2014). Malinalli rituals valued blowing and speaking as performance,
expressing through these actions a desire to initiate appreciation and eventual
union of the supposed disparate elements of the cosmos. One pedagogical ritual in
keeping with this aspect of malinalli could involve the placement of a nondescript
brick in every student’s backpack, with only the words ‘Who are LGBT people to
me?’ written on one side. After a week of carrying these bricks to and from their
classes, as well as the engagement in various academic activities meant to highlight
the contributions of LGBT people to society, all members of that learning
community can share affirming answers to this query in front of their peers.
Straight students and faculty should speak frankly about how and why LGBT
students and teachers add to society; they should then endeavor to performatively
express their acceptance in a way that is memorable and emotionally valuable.
Once the entire student body has completed this task, the students and faculty can
paint the bricks gold and fashion them into a step pyramid reminiscent of those the
Aztecs once frequented. These imposing step pyramids were often associated with
cosmic connection (Read, 1998); in a similar vein, and as the students would learn,
the pyramid from their own learning community now represents the recognition of
connection and eventual unity across sexual orientations and gender identities.
Concluding Remarks
The incorporation of malinalli-based acceptance rituals into curricula can
achieve several important goals: the reminder that actions can ‘speak louder than
words’ – or categories, the forceful implementation of pro-minority
phenomenological exercises, and the establishment through metaphysical means of
difference as an ethical and social good. There is at times a tendency in Western
cultures to view the philosophical work of non-Western cultures as only relevant
for the social groups that the latter have historically impacted. While it is true that
malinalli rituals may have a particular and unique effect on the ethnic pride of
Hispanic LGBT students and teachers (this has at least been the case for myself), I
feel that LGBT students and faculty of all ethnic heritages and racial backgrounds
can benefit from social unification with others through recognition of positive
malinalli difference. It is time to openly affirm the intellectually rigorous and
socially perceptive philosophical scholarship of the Aztecs; there is much
thoughtful gold to smelt from these long-hidden philosophical riches, with all of
the various minorities across our planet as the potential beneficiaries.
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Endnotes
1. The use of ‘Aztec’ over ‘Nahua’ is primarily due to the greater familiarity of the
former. As a Mexican-American, though, I also personally enjoy the association of
that demonym with the affirmative symbolic power of the land of Aztlán.
2. The horizontal threads, or the weft, wind around the vertical threads, or the
warp, on any given loom. The warp progresses up and down through the cyclical
weft, in effect bridging the separated threads of the weft and providing a strong
framework for the weaving.
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