An appetite for death

There is a long history of argument against the bullfight, but the most notable feature of the modern form is that it takes the side of the bull rather than the man. [There] is something ironic about British families sitting down to watch wildebeests eviscerated by lions after a nice joint of roast beef while deploring their Spanish cousins when they are sitting down to watch a bullfight... Bullfighting is most interesting because it does live on a borderline between right and wrong. [It] inhabits a place where two conflicting moral influences overlap: one linked to aesthetics, the other inspired by sympathy...

[One] of the greatest disservices done to the cause of fair treatment of animals is the failure to distinguish between the species... ants and chimpanzees are wildly different in their mental complexity and are treated accordingly. The Iberian bull, of the subspecies Bos taurus ibericus, is a man-made creature, measurably genetically distinct from other breeds and descended from a natural breed which was itself renowned for its aggression...

[The] key question [is] whether the level of suffering inflicted on the bull in the ring is justified by the sheer aesthetic pleasure of the bullfight. And it is an aesthetic pleasure, for the bullfight is an art form. The pomp and ceremony, the rigid structure combined with the room for improvisation by an individual performer, the emotional appeal which is not merely the gaudy sparkle of circus spectacle, or an admiration of bravery, but something much more fundamental and tragic. The one element which distinguishes the bullfight from all other performance art is the singular risk to the performer, and the intrinsic requirement of the death of the animal. As Hemingway puts it in The Dangerous Summer: “Any man can face death, but to be committed to bring it as close as possible while performing certain classic movements and do this again and again and again and then deal it out yourself with a sword to an animal weighing half a ton which you love is more complicated than just facing death. It is facing your performance as a creative artist each day and your necessity to function as a skilful killer.”

Excerpted from an article by Alexander Fiske-Harrison in ‘Prospect’

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