The other day I found myself in SG chat and somehow ended up in a conversation about indigenous America (or, more rightly, Abya Yala). While some of you were indulging my Derrida-and-booze inspired pontifications about Mesoamerican writing, I was asked in particular about the “theory” that the Mayan calendar “ends” on December 21, 2012 and that this somehow foretells “the end of the world.” It’s apparently so popular that even that bellwether of journalism USA Today is concerned.

For those of you with canned goods and duct tape at the ready, I’m sorry to disappoint. Although the oft-mentioned principle of Fluxy’s Razor states that I should be in favor of this interpretation, my piddling background in Mesoamerican studies insists that I protest, despite how awesomely hilarious I might find websites like Survive 2012 (warning: serious tinfoil hat zone).

The calendar in question is the Long Count, a record of specific days about which entire books are written (I know this because I spent a lot of time in the UNC library’s Maya section for this article (you people are so spoiled) and whose complicated and fascinating particularities are frankly too much for the scope of this article. Wiki that business or pick up Prudence M. Rice’s Maya Calendar Origins. The part that gets the doomsdayers so excited is the cycle of 13 b’ak’tuns (one b’ak’tun being 144,000 days) which happens to end in 2012. They have interpreted the “Mayan Bible” Popol Wuj’s tale of the destruction of human races prior to our own (and similar Aztec cyclical creation traditions) to mean that at the end of this “Great Cycle,” shit’s going down.

Well, see, those crafty Maya happened to record dates that were to follow 2012. If dates are recorded that fall after the end of the 13th (actually the 12th, but this is another one of those complexities I mentioned) b’ak’tun, doesn’t it follow that this creation will persevere past that date? The Long Count isn’t evidence of some long-held Mesoamerican prophecy so much as it is evidence that the Maya were simply obsessed with dividing time cyclically. And if the “Mayan Bible” were so intent on the apocalypse, you would think that the Popol Wuj would have something akin to the book of Revelation (hint: it doesn’t (but you should read it anyway; it is a goddamned masterpiece).

In short, almost anybody who has more than a cursory understanding of both the Mesoamerican sense of reality and of the foundations of its worldview would say that this whole 2012 freak-out thing is a great, big misunderstanding.

No, the 2012 Apocalypse and its cousin, the 2012 Consciousness Shift, are creations of new agers and journalists who seem to find the complex civilization of Mesoamerica so improbable that they must assign some unusual spiritual significance to it; if those backward Indians could be so smart as to figure out the concept of zero and the solar year, they had to have some sort of magical knowledge gifted them by Kukúlcan. It’s no surprise that these books are filled with personal anecdotes, drug-induced visions, and extrapolations into non-Mesoamerican history and the current world situation (and crappy astronomy or that others try to tack their own ideas (novelty theory, the peak oil catastrophe) onto the Long Count framework. There’s not enough actual meat to support their ideas.

So why do these people who are neither Mayanists nor Mayan themselves continue to champion this great change on the winter solstice of 2012? Methinks it’s the same reason people were wrapping their pets in bubble wrap at the end of 1999. We are obsessed with the end. Figuring these dates allows us to relax our responsibility; our actions don’t matter because in four years, things are going to change. It’s actually quite Western eschatology: Christ is coming, so we’ve just got to chill. God gave us the world to turn into our own personal living room, as it were.

One of the things that fascinates, repels, and compels about the Mesoamerican cultures is their emphasis on sacrifice. The Mexica (Aztec) pantheon held gods who required quite individualized forms of human sacrifice; the Mayan kings pierced their bodies with spines. Bloodletting and human and animal sacrifice were nearly ubiquitous in ancient Mesoamerica. The gods and the earth required blood and flesh to continue. Creation was precarious; humans must sacrifice to preserve it.

We are not inclined to sacrifice. Sure, you might switch to a hybrid automobile and remember to bring a cloth bag to the supermarket, but these aren’t really sacrifices. And whether we like to admit it or not, the world cannot go on at this brisk pace. Unless we start colonizing other planets, like space conquistadors ready to plunder a truly New World, we must eventually learn to really sacrifice ourselves, albeit without obsidian blades and maguey spines. That is the real legacy of the Maya; that’s the 2012 consciousness shift. We aren’t any more likely to be struck by an asteroid or have the feathered serpent come sodomize our minds. We will however, learn to make sacrifice.

Anyway, with Valentine’s Day coming up, give thanks to the Mesoamericans while enjoying their other great legacy: fucking chocolate, dudes.

Flux will totally cyber-punch anyone who tries to get on her for “misspelling” the Popol Wuj. Bitches.