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Every nation has hoards of full-on soccer fans. Germany, Italy, Poland, Korea all worship their sports stars.

In Mexico City, if the Mexican national team or even the a local team wins a big game, thousands of revelers celebrate around the Angel of Independence with such fervor that people are often stamped to death.

After a Pumas-Ámerica match, fanatics hurl flags and beep horns until after 5 a.m. in nearly every central neighborhood.

But not just in sports. When it comes to anything involving spectacles and crowds - e.g., music, theater, fiestas, parades - Mexicans seem to behave in a strangely intense way.

Who would have guessed that in a conservative, Catholic nation, over 18,000 people would remove their clothes in a photo-shoot in the capital's main square? Spencer Tunick, the photographer, said he was shocked.

It was the largest nude spectacle ever recorded - not because Mexicans are avid nudists (on the contrary) but because they have a knack for transforming spectator-ness to spectacle.

So I took notice when posters went up several weeks ago soliciting "dance volunteers" to show up at Revolution Plaza to honor Michael Jackson. The organizer's goal was to break the world record.

That’s when I started thinking about why being a spectator seemed so important to Mexicans.

When I slept that night, I dreamed of warriors preparing for battle while crowds of admiring, frightened people watched.

Suddenly I found myself seated at a stone amphitheater in front of young men running barefoot with shocking intensity. I sensed their ferocity and could nearly smell their fear but  - strangely - what I remember most was how privileged I felt to be watching a win-or-die ball game.

That was when I thought about the Aztecs, about their beliefs and the thousands of people chosen to climb atop pyramids to be slain in the name of their gods.

As they marched to their deaths, the common people peered up toward the bloody altars.

All of them were spectators.

In fact, this seemed to be perhaps the Aztec's greatest weapon: control people’s minds in a way that fixed them with their own vision.

Through spectacle more than war, they conquered.*

On Saturday, Aug 29, the gathering at Revolution monument took place to honor the so-called king of pop.

The Guinness Book of World Records later reported that 50,000 people had gathered, and nearly 12,000 had danced to Thriller.

This handily broke the record for the World's biggest ever Michael Jackson dance.

As a Mexican friend of mine said the next day: "What a show!"

 

* Until they themselves were conquered by the spectacle of a Spaniard posing as a feathered God.

 

"The main reason education often is not educating is because it finds it difficult to give meaning to human experience. Time and again, curriculum specialists inform us that because we live in a world of rapid change, the conventions and practices of the past have become outmoded, outdated or irrelevant. Present educational fads are based on the premise that because we live in a new, digitally driven society, the intellectual legacy of the past and the experience of grown-ups have little significance for the schooling of children.  [...]

 

The discussion of the relationship between education and change is frequently overwhelmed by the fad of the moment and with the relatively superficial symptoms of new developments. It is often distracted from acknowledging the fact the fundamental educational needs of students do not alter every time a new technology influences people’s lives. And certainly the questions raised by Greek philosophy, Renaissance poetry, Enlightenment science or the novels of George Eliot continue to be relevant for students in our time and not just to the period that preceded the digital age.  [...]

The idea that we live in a qualitatively different world serves as a premise for the claim that the knowledge and insights of the past have only minor historical significance. In education it is claimed that old ways of teaching are outdated precisely because they are old. Knowledge itself is called into question because in a world of constant flux it must be continually overtaken by events. Policy has become so focused on keeping up with change that it has become distracted from the task of giving meaning to education.

The fetishisation of change is symptomatic of a mood of intellectual malaise, where notions of truth, knowledge and meaning have acquired a provisional character. Perversely, the transformation of change into a metaphysical force haunting humanity actually desensitises society from distinguishing between a passing novelty and qualitative change. That is why lessons learned through the experience of the past are so important for helping society face the future. When change is objectified, it turns into spectacle that distracts society from valuing the truths and insights it has acquired throughout the best moments of human history. Yet these are truths that have emerged through attempts to find answers to the deepest and most durable questions facing us, and the more the world changes the more we need to draw on our cultural and intellectual inheritance."  -Frank Furedi

This dinosaur, perhaps.