With the recent banning --and possible reopening-- of bullfights in
some parts of the world, a debate has been reheated with the usual
ingredients. To be fair this is a localized discussion: in the States, for
example, there is no heated debate. Around these parts we made our
mind about our moral superiority a long time ago and the spectrum of
socially acceptable reactions to anything involving animals getting
hurt is pretty well defined: shake your head, express disgust, and/or
feel outrage. Preferably over a burger.
But some echoes of the debate get here too, mainly via facebook. A
certain tedium escorts the old arguments as they pop up in the social
media, which is always ready to announce the discovery of warm
water. On one side bloody pictures go around accompanied by outraged
slogans "torture: niether art nor culture" is the cover page of
several awareness groups and something I remember hearing 20 years
ago. On the other hand, "provocative" public figures like Vargas Llosa
tell people that for centuries bullfights have been part of tradition
and other cultural figures greater than themselves loved bullfights
too. Hot water indeed, as if nobody had heard of PETA or Hemingway.
I'd like to discuss why I don't like bullfights but I don't want
anyone to think my opinion carries much moral weigth: I
consume more than a dozen animal species on my regular diet and I do
so for the taste of it. Pork, cow, chicken, salmon, octopus, and so on
are not a matter of sustenance. We kill and eat animals for our
tasting pleasure; this is the reality of meat consumption in the
industrialized world and no adult can argue ignorance of it. Moral
indignation from a person killing animals for pleasure can be hardly
taken seriously in this case.
Indeed, the fact that it looks like we're succeeding in globally
exporting our indignation for killing the pretty animals (dolphins,
whales, and bulls) while eating pork chops may be one of the hall of
fame achievements of cultural capitalism. But that's another story, my
objections here are aesthetic and cultural, or if you prefer, a matter
of sportsmanship.
Quite plainly the problem is the bull has little chance of seriously harming the
aptly named matador, and virtually no chance of killing him. There are
a few thousand corridas a year and the last great matador to die in
the bullring did so in the 80s. Meanwhile it is nearly a foregone
conclusion that the bull will be killed at the end.
Rooting for the hugely unfair favorite is the stuff of
cowards. Pretending that an unfair fight is even requires a lot of
suspension of disbelief. To chant "ole!" on a bullfight requires a mixture of
both. It is akin to that Doug Stanhope bit about somebody cheering for the
dealer at a blackjack table ("oh! 20! he bust your ass didn't he!
that's MY dealer!")
The story would be different if Man was the underdog species in the
fight: A man physically outmatched by a violent beast, steps
into the ring out of his own free will, with nothing but his skill and wits to
escape almost certain death, all in the name of sun-drenched glory. That's the
stuff ancient legends are made of and if such gladiators
existed today I would undestand the preservation of their cultural
legacy. Crazy courage has its value in our cultural aspirations.
The point that animal rights activist seem to miss is that such
fictions are necessary and people seeking them are not morally
deformed. We would be poorer if all our stories were about sharing and
fun, and we'd erase out our bloody heroes, and our taste for violence,
for metaphors of struggle and death and glory outwitting a larger
opponent. We need those, and people seeking them in the bullring are
not morally atrophied, they just need better fictions to go by.
The elephant in the room that the "cultural defense" can't admit is
that this particular format is terribly ineffective today: by our
standards a real-life bull pretty much guaranteeed to loose is a meek,
bad "monster," to send against a pack of people armed with all sorts
of advantages not the least of which is modern medicine. Tight pants and
bright colors ganging up against such an enemy don't live up to
the epic struggle of life and death they want to see or convince
others of seeing. Taking your suspension of disbelief that far, to the
point of self-deception is a bad cultural choice. Much like being a
twilight fan.
What we need is no more bullfights, but instead more copies of
Hemingway's Bullfighting epic Death in the afternoon.
--
Fabio Arciniegas A. , August 11, 2012 San Diego, CA
