Thanks Mike. I land in a place similar to you, and appreciate your sensitivity to cultural imperialism and hypocrisy as a meat-eater. It occurs to me that if the bulls for fighting are indeed raised away from humans, they might have a far better quality of life than so many factory farm animals...
I don't know what's best for anyone else, including animals, and just do my best with those I interact with. I think I am more on Christy's side of I am not interested in going. When I took my children to movies they would tell me when to cover my eyes. I learned something, and I smiled as I did, and I find your blog often to be a lovely combination of the two, thank you!
I'm with you Mike in that I'd rather see bullfighting as a thing of the past, but am not here to press my outside cultural wishes. And sure, it was almost a century ago, but Lorca romanticized the bullring, at least in the context of how death was a curtain that opened, not closed, in his Theory and Play of The Duende with:
...the youth of Salamanca, recently killed by a bull, who cried out:
Friends, I am dying: / Friends I am done for. / I’ve three scarves inside me, / And this one makes four…
We have a bullring here, and it's quite an impressive and massive structure, but as far as I know, it's no longer used. I've never seen any activity as I've gone by.
Such an intrinsic part of Mexican culture. I wasn't aware that bullfighting is now banned in QRoo.
On the Yucatán backroads, no matter what little pueblo you went through, there'd always be a bull ring, often made from chit and local woods. The history will definitely live on. Good article!
Mike. Fair presentation. I have no desire to hurt animals. But when you defend something like this, you always get labled by people who don't really know all the story. I don't know a lot, but correct me if I'm wrong here. These bulls would not even exist if it weren't for bullfighting. Is that right? They are not friendly to humans and not really good to eat. They are not mistreated, but in fact are fed well and treated with respect for their entire life. When the end comes, it doesn't come in terror being hauled off to a slaughterhouse where they are tortured and killed to feed humans, who never get to see the suffering. They die doing what they would do by their nature. They want to fight to the death. I'm not trying to justify anything to anybody. I'm just suggesting that the story about these bulls isn't necessarily what the public relations people on the animal rights side say it is. It is far more complicated than good and evil. It's far more complicated than right and wrong. It's much more of a story than an indictment. Am I not seeng this clearly?
Thanks Mike. I land in a place similar to you, and appreciate your sensitivity to cultural imperialism and hypocrisy as a meat-eater. It occurs to me that if the bulls for fighting are indeed raised away from humans, they might have a far better quality of life than so many factory farm animals...
isn't the history of bullfighting Spanish, not indigenous Mexican, in origin? I feel like there is something interesting there as well.
I don't know what's best for anyone else, including animals, and just do my best with those I interact with. I think I am more on Christy's side of I am not interested in going. When I took my children to movies they would tell me when to cover my eyes. I learned something, and I smiled as I did, and I find your blog often to be a lovely combination of the two, thank you!
I'm with you Mike in that I'd rather see bullfighting as a thing of the past, but am not here to press my outside cultural wishes. And sure, it was almost a century ago, but Lorca romanticized the bullring, at least in the context of how death was a curtain that opened, not closed, in his Theory and Play of The Duende with:
...the youth of Salamanca, recently killed by a bull, who cried out:
Friends, I am dying: / Friends I am done for. / I’ve three scarves inside me, / And this one makes four…
We have a bullring here, and it's quite an impressive and massive structure, but as far as I know, it's no longer used. I've never seen any activity as I've gone by.
Such an intrinsic part of Mexican culture. I wasn't aware that bullfighting is now banned in QRoo.
On the Yucatán backroads, no matter what little pueblo you went through, there'd always be a bull ring, often made from chit and local woods. The history will definitely live on. Good article!
Mike. Fair presentation. I have no desire to hurt animals. But when you defend something like this, you always get labled by people who don't really know all the story. I don't know a lot, but correct me if I'm wrong here. These bulls would not even exist if it weren't for bullfighting. Is that right? They are not friendly to humans and not really good to eat. They are not mistreated, but in fact are fed well and treated with respect for their entire life. When the end comes, it doesn't come in terror being hauled off to a slaughterhouse where they are tortured and killed to feed humans, who never get to see the suffering. They die doing what they would do by their nature. They want to fight to the death. I'm not trying to justify anything to anybody. I'm just suggesting that the story about these bulls isn't necessarily what the public relations people on the animal rights side say it is. It is far more complicated than good and evil. It's far more complicated than right and wrong. It's much more of a story than an indictment. Am I not seeng this clearly?
All I know about my stance is that I have no interest in going to one. I can barely watch PG movies where animals suffer!