Even savages have complex world views at times that fact does not justify anything. And a society as advanced as the Maya and Aztec is anything but savage. Their urban development was far ahead of anything in Europe at the time. Not to mention their astonomical knowledge.
Correctly describing Marxism as a complex economic theory does not make it right or moral or anything else.
If you actually study the theory behind the Nazi persecution of the Jews it is very complex far more than merely blaming the Jews for Germany's problems. And stating that it is complex is in NO way a defense of mass murder.
But I understand how desirable it is for some to make knee jerk attacks on the Leftwing scum who populate our universities. One can hardly find a more loathesome crew.
Yes, the Maya sacrificed humans to the gods, but these rituals were part of a complex worldview: the Maya believed that their bodies, their blood, were created by the gods and that they occasionally needed to repay this debt with human life. "The gods need you," explains David Carrasco, professor of religious history at Harvard. "They depend on human life for their own existence, there's this kind of reciprocity." In sacrifice, he adds, the people are becoming like gods.
Now my deconstruction:
You get the classic "Yes, ... but" defense.
I hate that defense. I know someone is going to try and bamboozle me with soft words. We hear this when CAIR talks about islamic terrorists, and we hear this almost any time the ACLU opens its mouth. Its the subtle movement away from absolutes. 'Sure, Culture X skinned babies alive, but they were really quite advanced in many ways, and what seems to us to be cruel torture, in reality was based on a very complex philosophy ... blah ... blah, and blah blah...
Now the good professor doesn't actually go out and defend the acts of human sacrifice -- however he leads the reader along the path of acquiescence to the idea that these viewpoints are defensible. He plants the seed in the readers mind that this was a complex society (and ...'who am I to judge').
There is a pervasive movement in our culture to champion the idea that there are NO absolutes:
'Who are we to judge?'.
'You are looking at things from a narrow Christian viewpoint'...
We have to understand that evil will always attack the doctrines of light (the Bible) -- and deadening one's sensitivities to evil is one such approach.
I hold to my original statement: A culture that has forgotten God will fall into incomprehensible depths of wickedness. Evil is evil -- and no amount of 'buts' are going to change that fact.