Living with Shanti and blogging about animal rights requires--in the service of honesty-- a re-examination of how blithely I’ve been known to shut down my receptivity to animal suffering in the past. If I can come to understand what stifles empathy, maybe I can also understand how it blossoms.
I’ve been to bullfights. Several times. The last time was in 2001 when we were on sabbatical in Spain. We had front row seats at the cozy Plaza de Toros in Sanlúcar de Barremeda, the town where we lived. The ring was small enough to hear the animals’ grunts, smell their sweat and excretions, and watch them bleed.
One of the matadoras was a beautiful 15-year-old girl named Esperanza whom my daughters knew from their art and crafts class. Her triumph that Sunday afternoon so delighted her family, friends and fans that they carried her out of the stadium on their shoulders, showered with rose petals, vivas and oles, like a princess or a saint. Meanwhile, the fresh meat of the dead bull —considered a delicacy— was sold on the spot to bargain-hunting connoisseurs.
To my daughters’ credit they both hid under the benches for the gory part. But I was enthralled, or pretended to be.
I had convinced myself that bullfighting was an art form, a spectacular celebration of Spanish and Andalusian culture, an operatic display of skill and courage. Are we perverse to enjoy it? Do we have a right to entertain ourselves with ritualized suffering and death?
I now regret being a bullfight dilettante. On some level I knew better. I knew, even as I was charmed by bullfighting, that the “sport” was only separated from Michael Vicks-style dog-fighting by the fortuitous lack of a nationalist cultural support system. And how far is it from human sacrifice, child sacrifice?
I’m not sure how we desensitize ourselves so thoroughly and casually to the suffering of bulls. Perhaps we’re indoctrinated and acculturated at a very early age, the way boys become enamored with guns before they even get to pre-school. Perhaps we so love the culture of flamenco music and the art of El Greco, Velazquez, Goya and Picasso, that we are blinded to the dark side—the cult of the bull. Perhaps we’re intoxicated by the sensuality of the bull killers —, their ballet, their passion, their eroticism. Perhaps it’s because bulls don’t scream when they die. Perhaps we view them as such profound symbols of masculine strength that we expect them to sacrifice their own lives as stoic warrior role models.
Whatever the mechanism of enchantment, it’s effective. Empathy is suppressed; families celebrate together afterwards. Life goes on. Except for the bull.
It’s odd that the spectators don’t hate the bull. He’s not the villain; he’s admired for his character. Yet at the same time, he’s viewed as an unfeeling beast. That’s cognitive dissonance for you. The bull is at once insensible to pain, a mere dumb clump of cells, a prop in a play; yet he’s also a martyr, full of passion, power and virility.
I remember loving cattle as a child. I was fascinated by their smell, sound, color and shape. They seemed so gentle, loving and peaceful. So quintessentially innocuous.
Small children take it for granted that animal life is wondrous, precious and good. How can we protect and sustain that appreciation for a lifetime? Not in the bullring.
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