Open Debate

(picture is of a "course camarguaise" in the south of France. The goal is to remove ribbons/strings that are tied around the bull's horns...without getting stabbed by the bull, of course. Pretty sure you lose points for that.)

Any of you who read the occasional comments that people leave on my entries may have noticed that someone left one recently expressing disagreement with my view on the Spanish variety of bullfighting. When I saw this comment, I thought initially that I would just let it be, as after all I write this blog for you, my family and friends, and not for anyone else. But the comments made irked me, and here's why--I demand precision in everything. I demand it especially of myself, a little of others, but always always demand it if it is a question of argument or debate. So if anyone is going to leave comment on what I've said in a chastizing manner, I would appreciate some precision. A comment of any form loses credibility when the issue is NOT addressed (in this case, the failure to address the torturing of bulls) and in which assumptions are made.

All of my personal annoyances aside, the most important thing is that this subject of Spanish bullfighting is extremely interesting. This particular debate raises facinating general questions about who the "we" is in any culture and what value to attach to "tradition" of any variety. My response is below, filled with some interesting facts about bullfighting, inserted in italics after the comments that were left on my page.

****I REPEAT: my comments are in italics. The rest are not.****

"El Toreo" is an art, for sure, but it's even more than that. It's like a challenge between the man and the animal.

Yes indeed. It’s “like” a challenge, because it isn’t a real challenge. Firstly,it has been suggested and supported by many sources that the bulls are compromised before they entire the ring (The following, for example, is from Luis Gilpérez-Fraile, La vergüenza nacional [The National Shame], Madrid: Penthalon Editions, 1991:
“Before entering the arena, the bull has been locked up in the toril, a dungeon wherein he has been subject to a number of horrendous brutalities: he has been beaten and battered, crushed for a night with sand-packs, his horns have been painfully lopped and truncated. At the end of that protracted torture, his feet are washed with thinner in order to make him restless while his eyes are covered with vaseline in order to impair his already very deficient eyesight. Then he is hit and jabbed with pinching instruments in order to make him enter the ring. The beast tries to escape. He only sees bright colours. Then the faenas begin. He is subjected to three `picas'.<1>Foot note 1_1 Each pica is a spear or lance ending in a piercing steel blade of 10 cm, followed by one or two disks. Most often the disk or disks enter the skin of the bull, opening a huge, bulky gap of 40 cms, breaking the bull's inner organs and causing internal haemorrhage. The bleeding is such that quite often blood outpours not only through the wounds but also through the animal's mouth. Then he is subject to the darts, also of piercing, cutting steel. Some darts end in a blade of 80 mm (these are called `punishment darts', to be fastened to the animal if he has been able to avoid one of the three picas); the other darts are a little shorter. The blades of the darts (bandelillas) are steel harpoons which provoke a harrowing pain to the bull with his every movement. The bull is subjected to being stabbed with darts many times until he is sufficientl y weakened. He is already dying when at last he is pierced with the sword. The sword may fail to dispatch him, and the puntilleros butcher him with a stab (puntilla), in a ruthless prolonged series of attempts. Sometimes, when the bull has learnt to escape from the picas, he is pushed to a hidden backyard (the chiqueros) wherein he is stabbed, pricked, bled and tortured.”

If anyone has personally worked behind the scenes in a bullring and can swear to me that none of these things are true, please speak up. That will not change, of course, what I had in mind for the "secondly" part: the fact that the bull is not given any possible chance of a fair challenge as he is first (before being 'challenged' by the main matador with his sword) badly wounded by many armed men. But still, if anyone knows these other tortures to be currently false or exaggerated, please let me know.

You have to know that the bulls live 4 or 5 years before they die in the bullring. Until that day, thet are the best of their owners's houses. They are their pride. Many livestock farmers really love their bulls, fuss over them, and fell pain for giving them to death. But it's their destiny. Their lifes are written from the moment where they are born.

Again, that’s wonderful that the bulls have such lovely lives, but the main point is still not addressed: why are they tortured? Why can’t the art and the challenge take place by either a) killing the bull after the spectacle in a swift manner (such as in Portugal) or do away with the killing all together (as in the French “course camarguaise”)? And is the bull’s destiny to be tortured before his death? I can't see the logic in this destiny argument at all. Why is it a bull's destiny to be stabbed and bled to death, but not the destiny of a horse, a cat or a dog?

We eat chickens (or fishes, or lambs, never mind) that were born to be killed and eaten by people like me and you. Not only killed, even eaten. And I'm sure that no one of you cry for it.

The usage of “we” here is patently incorrect: in this case, “we” do not eat animals. I do not and have not for most of my life. Secondly, there are strict regulations in the United States and Europe regarding how animals must be killed. For example, from an article on beef regulation in Europe: “Current European Union regulations on killing cattle for food ordain that the animals should have a painless, instantaneous death (the animal having previously been painlessly rendered unconscious, which has brought about the famous or infamous issue of canonic slaughtering according to the precepts of some religious fundamentalists); and that a number of prescriptions be complied with as regards the raising and transport of the animals in order to secure a minimum of welfare.”

Assumptions are also made here about my reactions to animals: I do get teary when seeing the wretched dens of misery and filth that most chickens live in in the United States for example, am filled with nausea and disgust when seeing the hundreds of cow carcasses in the Rungis market in Paris. But again, I repeat that these animals are NOT under any circumstances subjected to the pre-death torture that the bulls in Spanish bullfighting are subjected to. Secondly, the “we” that it seems is being used here to define the Spanish is a bit questionable as well since

1) bullfighting is banned in Catalonia, which is still Spain and
2) according to scholar Lorenzo Peña, “Most Spaniards dislike the fiesta (the Madrid bull-ring has a capacity of some 23,000 spectators; it is seldom completely full; the Madrid area has a population of almost 5 million people). Despite the heavily subsidized publicity offensive of the taurino lobby (with TV broadcasts by all channels which make it almost impossible not to watch them unless you refrain from watching TV altogether), such occasional polls as have been exceptionally allowed (the subject being taboo) show that only about 10 to 15 percent of Spaniards do really enjoy the fiesta, with an additional 20 percent looking upon it as `normal', while the majority never watch such shows or dislike them. A sociologist named Prof. Amando de Miguel, has published the results of his survey in the pro-taurino monarchist newspaper ABC, on 17-03-1996: 35 percent of Spaniards never watch corridas; 33 percent declare they dislike them altogether; 19 percent enjoy them `a little' ; 13 percent enjoy it `very much'.


Sometimes, unusually, if the bull has involved bravely, its life is forgiven and die in the country, free...

I understand that the spectacle is quite grotesque if you don't know the meaning of the different things which take place in it. I advise to read before write, and try to understand some basic things about our main tradition.

Again, these assumptions: I’ve read a great deal on this subject and only agreed to go to a bullfight at all to see firsthand if there was something that I was missing. Now, if there are “basic things” about this “main tradition” that I have missed here, I am eager to hear what they are, because presently I have not been provided with any compelling argument in support of bullfighting. In fact, my one and only complaint has not been addressed, which, as I've already made abundantly clear, is this: WHY is the torture of the bull necessary? Additionally, just because this variety of bullfighting is the main tradition of some, not all, Spanish people, does not make it something good or worthy of being revered. For example, in gladiator days, crowds watched and cheered as humans were torn to bits. That was a tradition, but was it a good one? No. In some countries, it is a tradition for young women to be “circumcised” in most cases against their will, causing most of them to be mutilated and in pain for the rest of their lives. Is that practice to be upheld and protected in the name of tradition? I think not. And for an example from the United States, proponents of slavery often argued in its defense on the basis of the master and slave relationship being a “tradition” that deserved preservation and respect. Of course that was false, and the tradition was abolished, for the undeniable betterment of society.

All of that is to say that it makes no difference in this particular discussion whether anyone calls this variety of bullfighting a “tradition.” Traditions can be bad or good and sometimes require change, as I believe, until persuaded otherwise, that this one does.