The Big Lie: Delusion and Denial at the at the Heart of Western Civilization:

The Aztecs created and enacted a sacrificial ritual. Subsequent to the conclusion of a battle, a captured soldier was taken to the top of a pyramid where his heart was extracted and fed to the sun-God.

The Aztecs--as well as the other Mexican city-states--believed that the sun-God would stay alive only if fed with the hearts and blood of sacrificial victims. The Aztecs were aware of the fact that they were enacting a sacrificial ritual. They were not unconscious of the meaning of Mexican warfare.

Western societies created and enacted a similar sacrificial ritual, 1914-1918, which consisted  of asking soldiers to get out of trenches and to run into artillery shells and machine-gun fire. Their bodies were torn apart in "no-man's land."

The Western nations pretended--and historians still pretend--that this strategy was undertaken in the name of "winning." Unlike the Aztecs, most Western people remain unconscious of the meaning of their own history. The big lie: delusion and denial at the heart of Western civilization
 
Aztec Ritual Sacrifice Western Ritual Sacrifice
Aztec Sacrifice. Post-Conquest Nahua Painting, c. 1560. (Priests hold excavated heart to sun atop teocalli) c. 1650 ref 1500 Aztecs Spanish Conquest. French soldiers charging, in the open, toward a German position during the early weeks of WWI. Most would be slaughtered by German machine guns and artillery.