'Carmen' and bullfighting: productions and problems.   Slipped Disc: 'The Mighty Ones.'  

Introductory images

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Above, 1.  Sleek, sophisticated and attractive: part of the Metropolitan Opera building. 2. Hideous, barbaric, ugly: a picador's horse, disembowelled. The dark mass below the horse is the horse's intestines spilling out, one of the countless horses disembowelled in the bullfight before the adoption of protection for the horses in 1928. The bullfight in Carmen belongs to this barbaric world. The violent image comes from this very violent video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCTrLWncSjs&list=
PLEB32230D46060ADD&index=46&ab_channel
=guilledh

- a form of violence not just relevant to Carmen but embedded in Carmen, inseparable from Carmen, but a form of violence not recognized by the vast majority of the opera houses which have presented the opera. 3 and 4. More images showing the cruelty to horses in those times. 5. An attempt to kill the bull with a sword has failed. The descabello'is used to stab the bull in the spine. It may well take many thrusts before the attempt succeeds. 6. An alternative weapon to finish off a bull - a dagger, the puntilla. 7. Parade of the picadors. 8. Picador stabbing the bull with his lance. This stabbing, or more than one stabbing, marks the start of a whole series of wounds. 9. The protective mattress doesn't guarantee protection for the horse. Here, a picador's horse has fallen and is trapped for the time being. Even when there are no physical injuries, the terror of the horses can easily be imagined - but not easily imagined by bullfighting supporters, I would think. 10. The horses of the picadors are blindfolded. The protective mattress isn't very thick. The protection it offers is very far from being complete. The terror experienced by these horses can easily be imagined - but not by people whose capacities for imaginative compassion in the case of animals are limited, such as bullfighting supporters.

Admiral Lord Nelson, the victor at the Battle of Trafalgar,  was obviously no sentimentalist, not someone with no experience of injuries and killings, but this is what he wrote after attending a bullfight in Spain with some of his men.

‘We felt for the bulls and the horses … How women can even sit out, much less applaud, such sights is astonishing. It even turned us sick, and we could hardly go through it: the dead, mangled horses with their entrails torn out, and the bulls covered with blood, were too much. We have seen one bull feast, and agree that nothing shall ever tempt us to see another.

In the bullfight of Nelson's time and Carmen's time and well into the twentieth century, in fact, until 1929, the number of horses killed in each bullfight amounted to as many as forty or more. Six horses might be  provided for each of the six bulls to be killed. If more horses were needed, men were sent out into nearby streets to buy some working horses to be sent into the bullring.

As the bullfight proceeded, as each of the six bulls was killed, more and more horses were killed or injured, bleeding profusely. The injured ones might be dragged away or made to stand and remounted, their blood drenching the sand. By the end of the corrido - the bullfight - the horrific scene in the arena would resemble the aftermath of a battle.

A very graphic video which shows a badly injured horse. This horse was injured in a race, not a bullring. Quite quickly, a humane killer was used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uwkPq_F-ho&ab_channel=tetice%C3%

1oyuca

The treatment of horses in the bullfights of Carmen's time was utterly different, completely callous, showing horrific cruelty.  No matter how badly injured they were, if they were still alive, they were pulled to their feet.

Productions of 'Carmen' never show the bloody scene in all its horror. It would be impossible to do that, of course. There must be very few productions which show any blood at all. The blood is simply hinted at, if that. An exception is the production at Deutsche Oper (the link is to the section in the column to the left which gives some information about this notorious production.)

This is a painting by JL Gérôme  with the title,  'La Fin de la corrida,' 'The End of the Corrida.'  It was painted about 1870 and so at a time when the horses of the picadors were unprotected and suffered horrendous injuries in very large numbers. The picadors' horses were given protection (but not complete protection) some sixty years later. An image of another painting by him is in the section What if ... Carmen loves a gladiator?

If the typical treatment of the bullfight in productions of 'Carmen' is a sanitized one, this is a work which, in its own sphere,  is not quite so sanitized, but the painting is evasive. This seemingly realistic painting is far from realistic. There would be far more horses lying on the sand - and there is no blood shown at all! None of the tracks show any signs of blood. In the black-and-white images above which show dead and dying horses, blood is not shown, but this is for obvious reasons.

No horse intestines are shown in the painting.. The majority of the injuries which caused the death of the horses would be disembowellings and the mass of the intestines near to the horses and the intestines dragged by the horses along the sand in a bloody track would be impossible to ignore. But this particular artist has ignored all this.  

This is a strange and very evasive painting. In their very different ways, the  directors of 'Carmen' productions have been just as strange and evasive.

An extract from the French translation and an English translation, Act 2 of the opera:

... this is the moment!
The bull comes bounding
out of the toril!
He charges, comes in, strikes!
A horse rolls over, dragging down a picador!
"Ah! Bravo bull!" roars the crowd;
the bull turns, comes back,
comes back and strikes again!
Shaking his banderillas,
maddened with rage, he runs about!
The ring is covered with blood!

... c'est l'instant
Le taureau s'élance en bondissant hors du toril...
Il s'élance, il entre, il frappe, un cheval roule
Entraînant un picador.
«Ah bravo toro!», hurle la foule.
Le taureau va... il vient... il vient et frappe encor!
En secouant ses banderilles,
Plein de fureur, il court!
Le cirque est plein de sang;

Emphasis in the final line supplied by me. No attempt will be made in traditional stagings of the opera to show or suggest 'The ring is covered with blood,' 'Le cirque est plein de sang.'

To return to the previous images, the image of the disembowelled horse is followed by two images of a number of dead or dying horses which will have received  horrific injuries, followed by an image of a 'rejoneador,' a bullfghter who stabs the bull on horseback.. The horses in this form of bullfighting are unprotected and are sometimes disembowelled. The Las Ventas bullring, like others, has a team of veterinarians. These attend to the the horses injured in the bullring. They offer no help to the bulls.

Then there's an image of a bull about to be stabbed in the spine with the descabello, perhaps many times. As usually happens, the sword intended to kill the animal has failed to kill it. The sword is embedded in the bull and the handle is visible. The number of stabbings a bull receives in the contemporary bullfight  is always a minimum of eight - the first stabbing with the lance of the picador, six stabbings with the banderillas and a stabbing with the sword of the matador but it's very often many more. In my page on bullfighting I give a case of a bull which was stabbed by the lance of the picador, the banderillas and the sword of the matador - which failed to kill the animal. Then, it  was stabbed 17 times in the spine with the descabello. Another weapon used to finish off a stricken bull by stabbing it in the spine is a dagger called the puntilla. Again, multiple blows are often involved.

The final image in this series shows a bull with sword embedded in its back but still very much alive, about to be stabbed in the spine with a short knife, the 'puntilla,' perhaps many times. The image shows a bullfight in San Marcos, Mexico. Bullfight believers will regard San Marcos as an important cultural centre in Mexico. Not so, not in the least, opponents of bullfighting. The Wikipedia entry for the place gives this information about the

'Feria Nacional de San Marcos:'

 'The fair is host to a large range of activities, of which bullfighting and cockfighting are the most popular.'

In the 'Carmen bullfight,' the bull was always stabbed far more than eight times. The picador's lance was lighter than the one used in the contemporary bullfight and there were always multiple stabbings with the lance.

The fictional Carmen was obviously a woman who could sit out and applaud such sights, multiple stabbings, multiple disembowellings, a woman who wasn't sickened by the violence of the bullfight, a woman who could applaud the dead, mangled horses with their entrails torn out and the bulls covered with blood. 

 From the libretto of the opera, referring to Escamillo the matador, Escamillo, the bull-killer - who, far more often than not, will have left his sword embedded in the bull and left the bull very much alive, needing much more work before the bull was actually killed:

'Long live Escamillo! Ah bravo!'

'CARMEN
Ah, I love you, Escamillo. I love you.'

To choose such a woman as a feminist icon is a grotesque choice, and very disturbing.

What if ... Carmen loves a gladiator?

We know a great deal about what went on in Roman amphitheatres, what went on in bullfighting arenas, what happens now in bullfighting arenas (some of them dating from Roman times and  used for killing, killing of a much more varied kind, as I point out.) Despite all the differences, there are similarities between the Roman spectacles of cruelty and the spectacles of bullfighting cruelty:

the intoxicating, delirious responses of the crowd, so often, vivid colour ('the ring is covered with blood' (from 'Carmen'), the use of music to 'enhance' the experience, the rules that constrain the action in the Roman amphitheatre and the bullfighting arena, whilst freely permitting atrocious cruelty, the women who fell for gladiators, the women who fell for a bullfighter (for example, Carmen), the women who still do.  The appeal is memorably expressed by the Roman poet Juvenal:

'What was the youthful charm that so fired Eppia? What hooked her? What did she see in him to make her put up with being called "the gladiator's moll"?'

She was infatuated with a bullfighter called 'Sergius.'Juvenal makes it clear that Sergius was very unattractive.   'But he was a gladiator. That word makes the whole breed seem handsome, and made her prefer him to her children and country, her sister, her husband. Steel is what they fall in love with.'

This, from Act 2 of the opera, is the claim of the bullfighter Escamillo:

The ring is packed, it's a holiday,
the ring is full from top to bottom.
The spectators, losing their wits,
yell at each other at the tops of their voices!
Exclamations, cries and uproar
carried to the pitch of fury!

...

Toreador, on guard!
And remember, yes, remember as you fight,
that two dark eyes are watching you,
that love awaits you!
Toreador, love awaits you!

With the replacement of 'toreador' by 'gladiator,' this, from the bullfighting festival of cruelty would fit the Roman festival of cruelty exactly.

From Act 4 of the opera, beginning with the Chorus:

It's the Matador, the skilled swordsman,
he who comes to finish things off,
who appears at the drama's end
and strikes the last blow!
Long live Escamillo! Ah bravo!
Here they are! here's the cuadrilla! etc.

ESCAMILLO (to Carmen)
If you love me, Carmen soon
you can be proud of me.

CARMEN
Ah! I love you, Escamillo, I love you,
and may I die if I have ever loved
anyone as much as you!

TOGETHER
Ah! I love you!
Yes, I love you!

Is this really love, or infatuation brought on by the poisonous and mistaken allure of a bullfighter-killer for Carmen and the not in the least deep approximation of feeling shown by the bullfighter-killer Escamillo for Carmen? The quality of the music is what will convince the audience, or most of the audience or some of the audience - in a musically successful production - or get the audience to believe something which isn't shown by the non-musical side of the production.

What if the Romans had worked on the sadistic acts carried out in their arenas, had taken care to add a certain artistry, to make the sadistic acts far more than acceptable to sophisticated people?  The retarius was a gladiator who could use his  net to try to entangle his heavily armoured opponent and who could then stab him with the three-pointed trident he carried, or with his knife. The tactics were quite varied and relied upon speed and agility. It would have been quite easy for the retarius to use the net in a graceful manner, with similarities to the use of a cape in bullfighting. The retarius could have pranced around the ring and adopted poses with similarities to the antics of bullfighters. The music could have been improved - although no attempt has been made to improve the music played at bullfights.

The procession of the gladiators into the amphitheatre could have been improved, to make it into a spectacle which matched the spectacle of the bullfighters entering the arena. This, from 'Carmen,' would apply to the Roman event, with the change from 'banderilleros' to 'gladiators.'

Look at the banderilleros!
See what a swaggering air!
See them! See them!
What looks, and how brilliantly
the ornaments glitter
on their fighting dress!

More could have been made of the final sword thrust or dagger thrust which ended the life of a defeated opponent in the ring - something similar to the 'moment of truth' claimed for the killing of the bull is killed. But I point out that the very quick, almost instantaneous killing of the bull is quite uncommon in the bullring. The reality is far more often much more extended, involving attempts to get the sword in the bull's back to move, to reach a vital spot, and / or hacking at the spine, often, many times. The killing of a defeated gladiator in the Roman arena would have been far quicker and more dependable.

But no 'artistic' innovations could possibly have redeemed what went on in the Roman arenas. It tainted Roman 'civilization.' Abolition was an absolute necessity. Although the cruelty of the bullfighting arena is very different, despite some similarities, abolition of the corrida is an absolute necessity. 

Please see also the section below

Bullfighting as an art form. Bullfighting and tragedy  which includes discussion of the Roman arenas, what went on in the arenas - much more than fights between gladiators. 'One picture is worth a thousand words' but a thousand words, or less but often far more, may be needed to correct the misleading impressions which can be given by an image.

All the images in this section  are misleading. All of them, including the first, don't convey the realities of the killing in the Roman amphitheatres, their degrading  horrors. Images of bullfights (or 'bull-stabbings') and the even worse bullfights of the past ('bull stabbings with horse disembowellings) do convey, in most cases, the realities of killing in the bullring. If colour photography and filming had been available when horses were disembowelled in very large numbers in bullrings then the realities of horse killing would be presented very, very forcefully but the existing monochrome records present it powerfully, as do written records. Empathy can work with very limited records.

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Images above: information

1. Painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 'Pollice verso,' the turned thumb signifying the bloodthirsty crowd's call for a defeated gladiator to be either spared or killed. The bloodthirsty crowd includes vestal virgins, the women in white shown in the painting. women in white are vestal virgins. After the 'reforms' of the emperor Augustus - these were not strongly enforced - women were confined to the upper rows of an amphitheatre. Only the Vestal virgins were seated lower down. An image of another painting by him, 'La Fin de la Corrida' is given in the section above Introductory images.
2. Painting by Jose Moreno Carbonero, 'Gladiators after the fight.'
3. The Colosseum, where gladiators fought gladiators, gladiators fought wild animals, wild animals were hunted and where executions, including mass executions took place.
4. The Roman amphitheatre at Arles, where gladiators fought gladiators, gladiators fought wild animals, wild animals were hunted and where executions, including mass executions took place, where bulls were slaughtered and horses disembowelled in the corrida and where bulls are still slaughtered, but not in the least by the instantaneous killing of humane slaughter.
5. Spear head found in the the gladiator barracks at Pompeii.

6. Bullfights have bands and there were bands  in Roman amphitheatres. Shown in this image, musicians with trumpet (tuba), water organ  (hydraulis), and horns (cornua). From the gladiator mosaic  at Nennig, Germany.
7. Gladiators, including gladiators  fighting other gladiatars and gladiators fighting animas. Part of the Zliten mosaic  from Leptis Magna, Libya.

8. Mural of a hunt, showing a venator attacking a lioness, from the amphitheatre at  Mérida, Spain. The amphitheatre is in ruins and has not been converted into a place to hold bullfights.  It did have a place to hold the animals before they were sent into the arena to be killed, just as present day bullfighting arenas have places to hold the bulls before they enter the arena. 

Bullfighting as an art form. Bullfighting and tragedy

The first picture here shows the ancient Greek theatre at Epidauros. The second picture shows the Roman theatre at Augusta Raurica near Basel and one of the most important archaelogical sites in Switzerland. There are also the remains of an amphitheatre in Augusta Raurica, which is the earliest known Roman site on the Rhine.  The third picture here shows the Roman arena at Nîmes in France, constructed when it was  part of the Roman Empire. These places represent  vastly different aspects of civilization, at vastly different levels of achievement, the amphitheatres the shameful and  diseased dead end, or what should have been the dead end - bullfighting has continued the line -  the theatres  growing points, part of the history of theatre - and opera is an immensely rich and varied and complex form of theatre, a summation, the most diverse of all art forms, of course, uniting word, orchestra, staging, design, sombre design as well as colour and spectacle - but spectacle which, unlike the spectacle which is part of the bullfight, is untainted by its association with  the gross cruelty which is inflicted.

A sign in English in the arena at Nîmes gives information about events there in Roman times: 'All day long, to the roars of the crowd and the sound of trumpets, the arena staged one show after the other: animal fights, hunts, executions and, topping the bill, gladiatorial contests. 'French arenas dating from Roman times, the one at Nîmes and the one at Arles, are used for an activity which is in a clear line of descent from the past: for the spectacle of killing.

More images of the theatre and its long and eventful history - which includes opera. Music was part of the theatrical performances in ancient Athens. We have no record of this music but we can be certain that it was incomparably less developed and important than the music of the operatic masterpieces and the operas which are far from being masterpieces. 

More images: simple reminders of some theatres and some masterpieces. The first image shows a theatre constructed in Roman times, the second and third images show the Estates theatre in Prague, the setting for the first performance of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni,' which contains violence, but violence which has no linkages with the violence of  bullfighting arenas.

The Roman arenas were used for diverse spectacles, all of them brutal and bloody, of course. Gladiators fought each other, very often  to the death, gladiators fought and killed wild animals - lions, tigers, bears, bulls, elephants and others - and there were executions, which were sometimes conducted with a degree of depraved 'artistry.'  Katherine E. Welch, 'The Roman amphitheatre from its origins to the Colosseum:'

' ... condemned criminals dressed up as characters from Greek mythology ... were forced to perform and, at the performance's climax, were put to death ... The difference between these mythological executions in the amphitheatre and Greek dramas in the theatre were commented upon by Martial as an improvement.'

Bullfighting is very different from the gladiatorial combats against wild animals (the 'venationes') but is clearly descended from them. Instead of a variety of wild animals, the bull is the only animal to be put to death. The death of the gladiator who fought the wild animals in the amphitheatre was very common, the death of the bullfighter in the bullring very uncommon. The more sensitive members of the Roman audience might justify the barbarity they were witnessing with the thought that they were also witnessing displays of skill and courage. More sensitive members of the bullfighting audience at Nîmes and Arles may justify the barbarity they are witnessing with the thought that they too are  witnessing displays of skill and courage - and 'artistry.' I examine the supposed 'artistry' of the bullfight here, and in my main page on bullfighting.

It would have been perfectly easy to have made the combat of Roman gladiators into something with claims to artistry just as good as the claims of the modern bullfight, the artistry of both (at the lowest possible level) undermined by their moral depravity. To claim that a practice is 'art' is far from justifying it. If Greek tragedy had developed in such a way that there was  the actual death on stage of performers, the emotion of the spectators might have been heightened, but of course at ruinous cost. The Greeks never took  this step. In classical Greek drama, when a killing  took place it was shown behind the 'skene,' as it was thought inappropriate to show a killing on stage, giving us our word 'scene.' 

Italians decisively abandoned this, the worst part of the Roman heritage, after the Colosseum became a ruin.

'In 1332 Ludwig of Bavaria visited Rome and the authorities staged a bullfight at the Colosseum in his honour. It was the first time in more than eight hundred years that such an event had been witnessed, so naturally the public turned out to watch in great numbers, though no one, not even the organisers, seems to have realized that this had been one of the Colosseum's original functions.' Peter Connolly, 'Colosseum: Rome's Arena of Death.'

What have the Italians done with the Colosseum? The Colosseum has been used for something which is imaginative, something which marks a complete break with its past, something in which Italians can take great pride. As another page on this site makes clear, I actively oppose the death penalty (but not in all circumstances) and the Colosseum's new use as a symbol of opposition to the death penalty pleases me no end. When a country abolishes the death penalty or the death sentence of a prisoner is commuted, the Colosseum is lit up. The Roman amphitheatre at Verona is often used for staging opera and other musical performances.

The Romans devised brutal spectacles with bullfighting as the only modern descendant. Greek theatre was incomparably richer, incomparably more important, no less than the creation of tragic drama and comic drama, and works, by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes, of remarkable artistry. The range of the surviving works is astonishing, expressing pathos, harshness, human savagery and cruelty, sympathy for the victims of human savagery and cruelty, grandeur, beauty, wonderment, tenderness, gentleness, chance, unexpectedness, parody, crude humour and sophisticated humour, eroticism, fun and mature vision, excess and restraint, and so much more, of course, and so much more than the cramped and primitive world of bullfighting.

The full range of civilization's achievements should be defended, promoted and of course extended - not just civilization's abolition of past cruelties and efforts to abolish present cruelties but so much else as well, including a vast treasure  of subtle insights and  nuances. It will always be to the credit of this country that it continued the fight to end Nazism  - and also that it  decided not to neglect every aspect of civilization which didn't contribute to the country's physical survival. In desperate circumstances, at the low point of 1940,  for instance, cultural and scholarly publication continued. Amongst the works published in that year was the ninth edition of the monumental Greek lexicon of Liddell and Scott, the current edition, which enhanced the study of Homer, Thucydides, Aristotle and the Greek dramatists and the rest of ancient Greek achievement in words.

If the legacy of the Roman amphitheatre is bullfighting, the  legacy of Greek theatre  includes, of course, the tragedies and comedies of Shakespeare and other dramatists, and non-dramatic comedy for that matter. If the literary artistry  of Greek theatre is its main claim upon our attention and most deserves our admiration,  there were other aspects of Greek theatre which came to have enormous influence too. Greek theatre was a spectacle as well as a form of literature, combining words with music and dance. The ancient Greeks never attempted opera - its invention  was an Italian achievement - but by their use of music they paved the way for opera.

What aspects of human life and experience does bullfighting leave out? Almost all. The 'artistry' of the bullfight has to be compared with the rich, radiant, complex, powerful, sometimes transcendently beautiful art-works which have been created in painting, architecture, theatre, instrumental music, vocal music, opera, music, literature, the ballet and other arts. Schiller referred to the stage as 'Die Bretter, die die Welt bedeuten.' 'The boards that signify the world.'

Hemingway, 'Death in the Afternoon:' 'Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death.' I would emphasize a different aspect. Bullfighting is the only art form where the artist inflicts suffering and death, the only art form which is morally wrong. Bullfighting is the pariah amongst the arts. Suffering and death have enough power. An art should do nothing to increase it. In other arts, suffering and death are confronted, explained, found impossible to explain, raged against, transcended, balanced by consolation and joy, not inflicted. In my main page on bullfighting, I examine in detail Hemingway's claim and show that the risk of being killed in the bullring is very, very low. Millions of ordinary (and extraordinary) people have faced vastly greater risks in time of war. Mountaineers face vastly greater risks - without any of the ridiculous posing of bullfighters and their supporters.

Hemingway, 'Death in the Afternoon,' of bullfighting: 'If it were permanent it could be one of the major arts, but it is not and so it finishes with whoever makes it.' Hemingway thinks of bullfighting as a minor art form, then, not a major one. His view of the performing arts - and if bullfighting is an art, then it's a 'performing art' - is open to question. Great performances in the true arts are surely something of major, not minor, significance. What I would assert is that amongst the performing arts, bullfighting is at rock bottom.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, 'The Great Gatsby:' 'The other car, the one going toward New York, came to rest a hundred yards beyond, and its driver hurried back to where Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her thick dark blood with the dust.'

Although the cause of death is technologically advanced, death by motor vehicle, this fictional account seems, at first sight, to resemble  the much older world of the Iliad, the Homeric character dying in the dust. When Homer recounts a violent death, he makes frequent mention of dust. One of many examples is Iliad 13: 548.

In her fine introduction to Anthony Verity's fine translation of 'The Iliad,' the classical scholar Barbara Graziosi writes, 'Vivid, painful, and direct, the Iliad is one of the most influential poems of all time ... This poem confronts, with unflinching clarity, many issues that we had rather forget altogether: the failures of leadership, the destructive power of beauty, the brutalizing impact of war, and - above all - our ultimate fate of death.' Its many readers 'have turned to it in order to understand something about their own life, death, and humanity.'

I've already given reasons why it's an act of callousness, gross ignorance, contemptible stupidity to think of the death of horses as comic. I focus now on tragedy. Here, bullfight apologists are on no surer ground.

'Tragedy' has a very wide meaning now. Almost all human deaths are 'tragic' apart, that is, from the deaths of very old people.The word has come to mean not much more than 'very sad' and 'very regrettable.' The clam that the death of the bull is tragic goes beyond this. Bullfight apologists don't claim that the death of the bull is 'very sad' or 'very regrettable.' If they did, they would want to avoid the death by abolishing the bullfight. What they are doing is claiming a linkage with literary tragedy. The study of literary tragedy is the essential background to any claim that the bullfight is a tragedy. Certainly, I'd expect bullfight apologists to have done the necessary study, before any mention of the death of the bull as 'tragic.'

Bullfight apologists tend to have a simplified understanding of tragedy, focussing attention on the solitary death of the tragic protagonist, identified in bullfighting with the bull. In fact, very many tragedies don't end with the death of the protagonist. If the protagonist does die, the death of the protagonist may be quiet and uneventful, lacking the distinctive characteristics of tragic death. Other characters may die together with the protagonist, so that the effect of a solitary tragic death is blunted.

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance and the influence of Aristotle's 'Poetics,' despite its brevity, as an examination of tragedy, although tragedy is only one of its themes. My comments here are necessarily brief. Very much to be recommended is reading the 'Poetics.' One accessible version is published by Penguin Classics, with an illuminating introduction by the translator, Malcolm Heath, which will be instructive reading for the average bullfighting supporter, naively convinced that bullfighting is a tragic form and the bull a tragic protagonist. In the brief extracts below, though, I use my own translations from the 'Poetics.'

In the analysis of tragedy, plot is the primary element for Aristotle. He devotes chapters 7 - 14 almost entirely to his analysis of plot. He distinguishes simple from complex plots, claiming that complex plots are superior. Examining the many complex tragic plots which were familiar to Aristotle and which date from after the time of Aristotle, we can appreciate and admire, their lack of uniformity, their very great differences, their subtle differences, the richness of this one part of cultural history: the enormous differences between the fully-achieved tragic worlds of Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Oedipus the King, Agamemnon, Medea and the rest.

The plot of the bullfight is simple, primitively simple, and repetitious. Bullfighting supporters love the special terms in Spanish which give them the feeling that they are insiders, that they know the meaning of potent special words, one denied to outsiders. So, both Hemingway's 'Death in the Afternoon' and A L Kennedy's 'On Bullfighting' include Glossaries of these Very Important Words. Although an outsider, very much an outsider, I use some of these terms here.

The primitive plot  of the bullfight  consists of these three 'Acts:'

First Act: Suerte de Varas, 'The Act of Spears' in which the bull is stabbed with the lance of the picador.

Second Act: Suerte de Banderillas, in which the bull is stabbed with six barbed darts.

Third Act: Suerte de Matar, also known as the faena, 'The Act of the Kill,' in which the matador kills the bull with a single sword thrust, more than one sword thrust, or by hacking at the spine once or repeatedly.

People who pay money to see one 'performance' will see the Suerte de Varas, the Suerte de Banderillas and the Suerte de Matar repeated six times, since six bulls are killed. Anyone who sees 100 bullfights will see these Acts repeated 600 times.

The complexity and richness frequently found in the plots of literary tragedy are so often accompanied with complexity and richness of character - the hesitations, doubts, deviousness, goodness, moral badness, the whole inner life and all the actions of the protagonist and the other characters. Although bulls are varied, 'cowardly' or 'brave,' predictable or unpredictable, with a degree of individuality, Oedipus, Hamlet and King Lear are infinitely more varied, more richly varied, and the tragedies in which they appear are infinitely more varied, more richly varied, than any bullfights. Again, the bullfight is primitive by comparison with a work of achieved literary tragedy. Bullfighting apologists make a great deal of the 'knowledge of bulls' possessed by the bullfighters and the better-informed elements of the audience. But again, this knowledge is surely pitifully limited in comparison with the knowledge and the insight needed to appreciate adequately the masterpieces of literary tragedy.

In the bullfight, the fate of the protagonist, the bull, is rigid and predictable - the bull always dies, except for those rare occasions when pardoned, and everything in the bullfight leads up to the death of the bull. The death of the tragic protagonist which is central to the bullfight plays a less important role in literary tragedy in some cases.

Aristotle hardly mentions death in tragedy in the 'Poetics.' His examination of tragedy was based upon a much greater number of Greek tragedies than the ones available to us, of course. At the beginning of his discussion, he gives a definition of tragedy, which makes no mention of it. The account, including its important terms, require extended analysis. Below, I give particular attention to 'magnitude,' μέγεθος

'Tragedy is an imitation of an admirable action, which has completeness and magnitude, in language which has been made a source of pleasure, each of its species separated in different parts; performed by actors, not through narrative, and giving through pity and fear the purification of these emotions.'

ἔστιν οὖν τραγῳδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ 
τελείας μέγεθος ἐχούσης, ἡδυσμένῳ λόγῳ χωρὶςἑκάστῳ 
τῶν εἰδῶν ἐν τοῖς μορίοις, δρώντων καὶ οὐ δι᾽ ἀπαγγελίας, 
δι᾽ ἐλέου καὶ φόβουπεραίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων 
παθημάτων κάθαρσιν.

The surviving Greek tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides are in accordance with Aristotle's discussion: the death of the protagonist is far from being invariable or if it does occur is not necessarily a distinctive tragic death.

A few examples, from each of these tragedians. Aeschylus' 'The Persians' takes place at the court of the Persian king. A messenger arrives to announce the Persian defeat at the hands of the Greeks - this based on historical fact. King Xerxes arrives, a broken man, and the play ends with him a broken man. The first play of Aeschylus' Oresteian trilogy portray the death of Agamemnon, the second the death of his murderer Clytemnestra at the hands of Orestes, but the third play, 'The Eumenides,' portrays the acquittal of Orestes and is without a tragic death. In Sophocles' 'Oedipus the King,' Oedipus survives. When he does die, in 'Oedipus at Colonus,' his death is quiet, not a violent tragic death.

Sophocles' 'Philoctetes' has a 'happy ending.' (See my examination of Seamus Heaney's version of the play which includes my own translations and comments on the production of the play.) Euripides' 'The Women of Troy' portrays the sufferings of a group of women from a captured city awaiting slavery. The tragedies of the seventeenth century French dramatist Corneille, like 'Philoctetes,' end happily.

The tragedies of Shakespeare do show the death of the protagonist, but although each of these takes place in what is obviously a tragedy, I'd argue that they are not necessarily tragic deaths, deaths with the distinctiveness of tragic deaths. In Hamlet, for instance, the death of Hamlet lacks tragic distinctiveness because it is part of a general blood-letting - Shakespeare to this extent repeating a notorious aspect of Titus Andronicus with vastly greater and more mature artistry. In a short period of time, not only Hamlet dies but Gertrude, Laertes and Claudius. The entire royal family is finished off. The death itself may be strangely muted, at least in comparison with the highly charged and dramatically momentous events which have preceded them, as with the deaths of Othello, Macbeth and King Lear. The death of King Lear has a linkage with the quiet death of Oedipus.

The three 'Acts' which end with the death of a bull, repeated six times in a bullfight, last altogether about a quarter of an hour or a little longer. I write about this time-scale in my page aphorisms:

'There are no great theatrical masterpieces which last only a quarter of an hour. They need longer than that for their unfolding, to have their impact. '

Aristotle, in the 'Poetics,' wrote that 'Tragedy is an imitation of an action that ...possesses magnitude.' (Section 4.1) The word he uses for 'magnitude' is μέγεθος,  and it expresses the need that the dramatic action should be imposing and not mean, not limited in extent. Aristotle's view here isn't binding, but it does express an artistic demand which more than the so-called 'unities' has a continuing force. The 15 minutes, approximately, which elapse from the entry of the bull until its death are far too little for the demands of a more ambitious art. The complete bullfighting session is simply made up of these 15 minutes repeated six times, with six victims put to death. This repetition doesn't in the least amount to magnitude, to 'megethos.' The scale of bullfighting doesn't have adequacy. The scale of Greek drama does have adequacy. Shakespearean themes needed a drama with much greater scale for adequacy.

The history of tragedy has been very long and eventful, but we have to reckon too with the death of tragedy, or tragedy changed out of all recognition. In contemporary conditions, the tragic sense is modified, blunted, often overturned. We are forced to become critical, to become suspicious.

Contemporary life gives us so many examples of deaths and sufferings which can be avoided, by the advances of science and technology, as well as deaths and sufferings which are brought about by science and technology. In both cases, human decisions, plans and mistakes are fundamental. Deaths in car crashes, like the death of Myrtle Wilson described above, are so often avoidable and easily avoidable - just take care to use a seat-belt, to observe speed limits, and so on. These risks can be lowered by passing suitable laws.

The dangers, sufferings and deaths of the bullfight, we are reminded, aren't eternal, part of the tragic lot of humanity and the animal kingdom, but easily preventable - just ban the bullfight, and they are gone. Although death is inevitable, death at a certain time and place is very often anything but. The only reason why a bull dies in the late afternoon on a certain day at Arles or Nîmes or some other centre of cruelty is because the bullfight hasn't been abolished. When we read words to the effect that the bull was 'born and bred for this moment' (the moment of death in the bull-ring - not that the death usually takes only a moment) then we have to protest that this wasn't a destiny, it was far from being an example of tragic inevitability, it was the result of a decision.

Modern scepticism has to be taken into account. There's a parallel with the scepticism which illusions bring to sensory experience. Not everything that people see or hear has to be acknowledged as real. Under certain conditions, people can see towers, trees or other objects which don't exist. The fact that some people experience hallucinations, like the experience of optical illusions, lead us to treat the senses with scepticism, suspicion, even if we have grounds for thinking that not all sensory experience is untrustworthy.

Similarly with the intense emotions, intense aesthetic experiences and the pleasure and satisfaction which bullfight apologists claim to experience at a bullfight. They have to be approached with complete caution. Not all emotions are checked by scepticism any more than sensory experience - the emotions of mountaineers not at all, except for those emotions with a clear origin in pathology, such as ones brought on by oxygen starvation. But many emotions, sincerely and uncritically felt, don't withstand scrutiny.

Nietzsche, 'Thus spake Zarathustra,' Part 3: 'For man is the cruellest animal. At tragedies, bullfights and crucifixions, he has hitherto been happiest on earth...' People are denied the intense emotions of a crucifixion for very good reasons: not due to modern squeamishness or sentimentality, but due to a real ethical advance. Ethical advances in our attitude to animals make the strong emotions of the bullfight just as wrong.

Michael Jacobs, in his book 'Andalucia' is one of those writers who have described the silence before the bull is killed, a time of intense drama - supposedly. He claims that there isn't only 'butchery' in the arena. At times, bullfighting becomes 'one of the more moving and mysterious of human activities.' These intense experiences melt away with just a little attention to the disastrously misguided ethics of the killing. (Completely relevant too is the fact that whilst the audience is appreciating this 'moving and mysterious' experience, the picador's horse may well be shaking, in agony, after being charged by the bull and hit by the bull with full force.)

A comparison: Richard J, Evans, in his 'Rituals of Retribution,' which is concerned with the history of capital punishment in Germany (and a very important work of 'humanitarian history') gives information about executions in Leipzig in the 1680's, at a time when Bach was composing there. The scene has to be imagined. 'There was a precise order laid down for the procession to the scaffold.' There was often beautiful music to accompany the procession, performed to a high standard (even if there's no record that Bach himself officiated.) One can imagine the malefactor awaiting the blow from the executioner's sword, the silence before the blow fell, the consummate emotion.

 These things may have been felt, but they could not be justified. High emotion isn't self-justifying. Of course, the victim may have been guilty of theft rather than murder, may have been innocent of the crime altogether. The silence, the intensity of emotion, were present at the execution of an innocent victim just as at another execution. In modern conditions, in liberal countries, the public beheading of a guilty murderer is unthinkable, no matter what the emotional loss for the spectators, the denial of their opportunity to feel 'spiritual' intensity as the head of the victim falls with the swoop of the executioner's sword.

Intense emotion may be due simply to ignorance, lack of knowledge. Someone who knows nothing about wine drinks a sample and feels something like ecstasy. With further experience, the memory of the ecstasy becomes embarrassing. The wine was one-dimensional, crude. Someone becomes interested in music and is delighted by a performance or a recording - which become hopelessly limited and crude with the growth of understanding.

These insights can lead not just to an appreciation of the better and the worse within an activity but to the rejection of the activity itself: to the rejection of bullfighting as an activity, in this case. In 'Death in the Afternoon,' Hemingway discusses appreciation of wine, but doesn't allow for the growth of consciousness which would lead to the rejection of bullfighting. Although there can be 'better' matadors and 'worse' matadors, in the opinion of aficionados, bullfighting will be found hopelessly crude in comparison with developed art forms.

George Steiner's book, 'The Death of Tragedy' is concerned with the literary genre of tragedy. He argues that a genre which includes some of the greatest works of literature - including the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the tragedies of Shakespeare - is exhausted, at an end. I don't agree, but his discussion is interesting.

George Steiner traces the decline and fall of tragedy in detail, and gives various reasons. For example, 'It is not between Euripides and Shakespeare that the western mind turns away from the ancient tragic sense of life. It is after the late seventeenth century.' The seventeenth century marks the beginning of the scientific revolution. 'It is the triumph of rationalism and secular metaphysics which marks the point of no return. Shakespeare is closer to Sophocles than he is to Pope and Voltaire...The modes of the imagination implicit in Athenian tragedy continued to shape the life of the mind until the age of Descartes and Newton.'

There is also the impact of changes in social conditions. 'In Athens, in Shakespeare's England...the hierachies of worldly power were stable and manifest. The wheel of social life spun around the royal or aristocratic centre.' The tragic heroes of the ages of literary tragedy include King Lear and Oedipus the King. In actual fact, George Steiner does claim that literary works of tragic feeling were created subsequently, but now, tragic death and suffering were democratic. He claims that Büchner's Woyzeck 'is the first real tragedy of low life.' And, 'Büchner was the first who brought to bear on the lowest order of men the solemnity and compassion of tragedy.'

Alban Berg's decided to write an opera based on Woyzeck after attending the first production of the play in Vienna, on 5 May, 1914.  The opera, 'Wozzeck,' is, of course, immensely important.

The semi-mythical status accorded to the bull in so many accounts of the bullfighting apologists, the stress upon the bull's power, seem to be an attempt to equate the bull with the tragic hero created before the seventeenth century. In contemporary conditions, this is archaic and cannot work.

A part, probably a large part, of the supposed artistry of the bullfight comes from the work with the cape, the swirling and flowing of the cape. If there were no death and cruelty involved, it might be fine, impressive, like those displays of flag swirling, but by no stretch of the imagination a major art form. Skiers can make beautiful, exhilarating patterns in the snow with their carved turns - and 'extreme' skiers, who can lose their life with one single mistake, are certainly engaged in a far more hazardous activity than bullfighters. The Telemark turn of downhill cross-country skiers '...is so elegant and graceful that onlookers often say it looks like a waltz.' (Steve Barnett, 'Cross-Country Downhill.') I used to be a cross-country skier, with a particular interest in cross-country downhill. But skiers don't generally claim that their turns amount to an art form. I wouldn't claim that in the least.

The technique of bullfighting, such as the action of the wrists, is surely not nearly as subtle, intricate and complex as the technique of a developed skill such as violin playing, which makes extraordinary demands on neuro-muscular co-ordination, not just of the fingers and hand but the shoulder, arm, elbow and wrist, requiring intense, arduous and protracted study. Working at just one aspect of technique (and emotional expression) such as the vibrato, requires long and patient study. (I play the violin and viola.) Both bullfighters and musicians practise, bullfighters, for example, by sticking banderillas into a target on wheels or practising killing with a 'killing carriage' but  even amateur musicians are surely practising skills which are vastly more complex than those of the bullfighters. My own studies with the Hungarian violinist Rudolph Botta have left an indelible impression. My page

https://www.linkagenet.com/phd/cello-violin-viola-proms.htm

includes some material in the first column of the page.

The appreciation of music demands insights and emotions of a vastly greater range, vastly more subtle and complex, than the appreciation of the crowd at a bullfighting.  'The Rough Guide to Spain' on aficionados: 'a word that implies more knowledge and appreciation than "fan"' - but, I'm sure, far less knowledge and appreciation than that needed for a developed art. In my page Poetry: linkages with music I provide discussion of some  issues.

Bullring ballet

One of the comments on this Youtube video, 'Toro vomitando sangre,' 'Bull vomiting blood'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Y194Y7I3M&feature=g-vrec

'Don't be deceived by your eyes. Just keep saying to yourself, "This is a beautiful art like ballet." '

To many defenders of bullfighting, including  this comment-writer on the Youtube film, my revulsion at the blood pouring out of this bull's mouth will seem hopelessly crude and misguided.  According to this perspective, the  blood and  stabbings, including the vomiting of blood after stabbing with the sword, are incidental, not the essence of the corrida: the corrida requires an appreciation of nimbleness, agility, dexterity, poise, grace, delicacy as well as strength and above all beauty. Some aficionados regard the corrida as having linkages with accomplished ballroom dancing - bullring dancing - but more often linkages with ballet - bullring ballet. Daniel Hannan writes, ' 'The Spaniard is watching, not a contest, but a ritualised dance: a relationship so tender and tragic that it might almost be called love.'

I'm completely familiar with this viewpoint. Anyone with any knowledge of the writing of aficionados will be aware of it. But I believe that it's a  grossly misleading viewpoint and can't possibly justify the corrida. Treating the violence of the corrida, its spilling of blood as incidental, amounts to active distortion and  falsification. No bullfighter can guarantee that he (or she) will kill a bull instantly. A bull vomiting blood is a common, not a rare occurrence.

The focus of attention here is on bullfighters on foot, not mounted bullfighters, 'rejoneadores.' In their case, it's the highly-trained horse which makes the agile and graceful movements.  Clicking on this link shows the end result. The hideous photograph shows, in the words of the caption, 'Spanish 'rejoneador' or mounted bullfighter Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza  celebrates his kill during his bullfight at the Santamaria bullring in Bogota, Colombia ...'

The agility and nimbleness of the banderilleros are striking, but unlike ballet-dancers, their choreography is subject to powerful moral objections. Their nimble steps take them up to the bull and allow them to evade the bull, but the act of stabbing the bull with the six banderillas is no incidental matter. Hemingway acknowledges the suffering caused by these stabbings, but writes of the bull, 'I keep my admiration for him always, but felt no more sympathy for him than for a canvas or the marble a sculptor cuts or the dry powder snow your skis cut through.' This is aestheticism without ethics, an evasion, the failure to take into account  the crucial and obvious difference between canvas, marble, snow on the one hand and the bull on the other: the bull is a sentient being, with the capacity for pain. Alexander Fiske-Harrison acknowledges the pain caused by the banderillas too, but only in his internet writing, not in his book. (His description of his killing of a bull makes it clear that the bull took some time to die: it's not in the least unlikely that this bull too was vomiting blood, like the bull in the film.)

No aficionado makes any claim for artistry in the work of the picador who spears  the bull in the first 'Act' of the bullfight, but the injury to the bull, the sentient being, is far from incidental in this case too.

The  'matador,' like the banderillero, does attempt a kind of ballet and of a more ambitious kind. The choreography in both kinds is necessarily improvisational and the circumstances make completely unattainable any developed artistry fit to be compared with ballet. The word 'matador' means 'killer.' Aficionados may prefer to think of the  bullring as  the stage where the ballet is being performed but the bullring is after all a slaughterhouse. If nimbleness, agility, dexterity, poise, grace, delicacy as well as strength and above all beauty are the essence of the bullfight, then aficionados would find all these qualities in bloodless displays featuring performer and bull. Blood, violence and injury are intrinsic aspects of the corrida, central and not peripheral.

The corrida's linkages with the Roman venationes are obvious. The Romans watched these fights between men (sometimes women) and wild animals in their arenas. If, in Roman times, these fights against wild animals, like the gladiatorial combats in which men and sometimes women were killed, had developed to stress 'artistry,' and Romans had appreciated the choreography of the wild animal killers and the choreography of the gladiators, then the ethical objections to the wounding and killing would be left undiminished.

An aficionado could be described, not just as a person who appreciates the corrida in a 'knowledgeable' way, but as a person who, amongst other things, discounts and evades these intrinsic aspects of the corrida. When aficionados decry, from their superior knowledge, the use of the term 'bullfighting,' they are surely evading a central aspect. Hemingway refers to 'bullfighting' and 'bullfighters' throughout 'Death in the Afternoon,' but some aficionados would be unwilling to grant that Hemingway was an aficionado at all. The back cover of Alexander Fiske-Harrison's 'Into the Arena' mentions 'bullfighting,' 'the bullfight' and 'fighting bulls.' The 'true essence' of the bullfight is described as 'man against bull in a life or death struggle from which only one can emerge alive.' (But this is misleading. The bull is overwhelmingly likely to emerge dead, the bullfighter overwhelmingly likely to emerge alive, despite any impression of comparable risks.) As in the case of Hemingway, Alexander Fiske-Harrison uses throughout his book the terms 'bullfight,' 'bullfighting' and 'bullfighter,' in a way which may well offend refined aficionados who prefer not to associate their art with violence or even with what Daniel Hannan describes as 'contest.'

The account in which Daniel Hannan claims that 'The Spaniard is watching, not a contest, but a ritualised dance: a relationship so tender and tragic that it might almost be called love' also contains this, 'The bull took two pics, the second of which went in repeatedly and way off to one side. After the banderillas, as the bull stood spurting fountains of blood ... ' there was  'a miserable excuse for a sword-thrust into the bull’s flank.'

I'd prefer to use the term 'bull-stabber' rather than 'bullfighter.' There are three kinds of bull-stabber: the picador, who stabs the bull with a lance, the banderilllero, who stabs the bull with barbed banderillas, and the matador, who stabs the bull with a sword. But on this page, I use the established word 'bullfighter.'

Any claim by aficionados that the anti-bullfighting activist is bound to have an 'external,' view of bullfighting, or, as they would prefer, the 'corrida,'  that the activist can't possibly understand the world  of the aficionado or the matador, is very much mistaken. We're not in the least fated to understand only those things we support and appreciate or to fail to understand those things we oppose. Readers have access to many, many worlds at great {distance} from what happens to be their own world, worlds provided by the great novelists and writers of non-fiction and worlds it's possible to understand by our own insights: the worlds of Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Raskolnikov, Malone, of fictional and non-fictional politicians, shopkeepers, financiers, labourers, criminals, detectives and of course so many more worlds - including the worlds of aficionados and matadors.

The aficionado who feels superior to bullfighting supporters who are non-aficionados and very much more superior to opponents of bullfighting relies amongst other things on superior knowledge of the correct terms - 'the corrida,' instead of 'bullfighting,' for example, and may well feel that correcting the misconceptions of others amounts to a confirmation of the importance and legitimacy of the activity - not so. The aficionado has a knowledge of these terms, and many more (the quotation is from 'Into the Arena,' Chapter 17):

'Using the language of the first matador, Pedro Romero, you need parar, templar and mandar. Parar means 'to stop' or 'to stake' - as in poker - and refers to the matador standing his ground. Templar means 'to temper' or 'to tune', adjusting the cape to the bull's charge and / or adjusting the bull's charge with the cape. Mandar means 'to send', with the sense of command, and refers to sending the bull safely away from the body to the place of your choosing.' There follows a discussion of a further term, cargar la suerte, which he translates as 'to load the dice'. (The Club Taurino of London proudly displays these terms on the Home Page of its Website.)

John Gordon's account 'Morante de la Puebla:my Morantismo, his Tauromaquia' (published by the Club Taurino of London in 'La Divisa')  is a fairly representative account of intricate and technical aficionado writing, more so than anything in Alexander Fiske-Harrison's book, or Hemingway's, for that matter. An instructive quotation: ' ... not only are his molinetes quite belmontinos, but his kikirikís are reminiscent of Gallito and his naturales de frente are his particular tribute to the post-war toreo of Manolo Vázquez.' He has an aesthete's as well as a technician's viewpoint, assessing the 'technical and aesthetic' performance of the matador Morante, commenting amongst other things on the common passes and the less common passes, including the 'media chicuendina. ' He discusses named individual passes and the linkage ('ligazón') of passes [not an aspect of linkage which appeals to me at all], and the various actions, such as swivelling, pivoting, leaning, the shifting of weight.

Tristan Wood, also writing in 'La Divisa, in a very matter of fact way about another bullfighter:' '  'At Barcarrota, he [José Luis Moreno] gave his opening Sepúlveda toro some decent verónicas [passes with the cape, the caape held up in front with both hands] before watching it savage the picador’s horse in a huge derribo, [knocking over] the bull rolling the caballo [horse] as it lay on the ground and inflicting a cornada [horn wound] in its right flank.' Tristan Wood is the author of 'How to watch a bullfight.'

As soon as it's realized that  watching gladiators fight to the death in the Roman arena would no more be legitimated by technical terms and 'knowledge' than bullfighting (or the 'corrida') then the aficionado's pride and status are  suddenly shown to be without any foundation. If the Romans had developed the 'aesthetic' aspect of gladiator-fighting and had developed 'artistic' moves, instead of stressing brute force, skill and courage, then the {separation} of the aeesthetic and the ethical would be clear (I don't of course deny that there are linkages.)

John Gordon notes that 'Morante is very poor with the sword in his hand, and this is surely the most mediocre side of his toreo. It is only necessary to watch the way he lines up for the kill, his right arm seemingly contorted and in the wrong place. What is worse, he goes “out” away from the bull before he has even reached the jurisdiction of the morrillo. [morillo: the large muscle mass in the region of the bull's neck.] Ultimately, there is a lack of conviction when he goes in for the swordthrust, and, when one does not enter believing that the sword will go in, more often than not, the result will be a pinchazo.' A pinchazo is the term for the sword hitting bone. There may be repeated pinchazos and when at last the sword sinks into the bull without hitting bone, the bull may not be killed. John Gordon writes purely as an aesthete, completely indifferent, it seems, to the fact that the bulls Morante attempts to kill so badly will be suffering intensely. He refers to 'the delicate grace that underlines his aesthetic personality.' John Gordon's account, like the account of other aficionados, is subject to extreme {restriction}. It takes no note of the moral dimension. In the same way, the gourmet-aesthete finds some foie-gras 'mediocre,' some, allegedly, 'heavenly,' and can supply some plausible taste-terms,  without giving any thought to the moral dimension.

It's often argued that aficionados deplore some common events in the bullring - bulls left weak or almost helpless when they have been lanced by the picador too vigorously, bulls which take a long time to die when the killing sword is used. Their objections have nothing to do with humanitarian ethics at all. They are simply thinking of their own enjoyment, with the limited perspective of the aesthete rather than a moral being. It would be possible to eliminate tampering with the bull before it enters the ring but once it's in the ring, it's impossible to eliminate these absolutely common events, since the picadors, banderilleros and matadors are never able to stab the bull in the 'correct' places, in the conditions of the bullfight, and even if they were, moral objections would remain.

Aficionados'  knowledge of  the bullfight and its technical terms,  the much lesser knowledge of almost all opponents of bullfighting, prove nothing about the moral status of the bullfight. If an opponent, unlike the aficionado, is unaware that the sword thrust is intended to pierce the aorta of the bull not its heart and is unaware that the sword thrust is called an 'estocada,' unless it hits bone, in which case the term is 'pinchazo,' then the act of killing is in no way legitimated by  the superior knowledge of the aficionado. In the same way, the traditonal Roman Catholic doctrine of hell isn't legitimated by the superior knowledge of the Roman Catholic theologian and the misconceptions of the atheist, who may be unaware of the distinction, for example, between mortal and venial sins.

The technical terms of bullfighting aren't to be equated with the technical terms of ballet. They're the technical terms for one or another instances of gross cruelty or its accompaniments. The aficionado knows that a mounted bullfighter is called a 'rejoneador' and that the rejoneador uses  'rejones de castigo' ('lances of punishment') before using the banderillas and eventually the  'rejón de muerte' ('lance of death), the 'descabello' being used on the spine after that in many cases. Opponents of bullfighting who know only that the bull is stabbed repeatedly  before being killed have  enough knowledge to come to an informed view of the morality of the acts - something which the  superior knowledge of the aficionado doesn't guarantee in the least.

Bullfighting has linkages with ballet, but ballet is an incomparably more developed art than bullfighting. Aficionados like John Gordon can point to a  repertoire of movements in bullfighting, ones which they see performed very well or not nearly so well, but the actions of ballet are incomparably more intricate, skilful and varied. The predominant motion of the bullfight, on which other movements are superimposed,  is monotonously elliptical to a considerable extent. The bull is forced to move around the bullfighter in  approximate more or less elongated ellipses, more often ragged than smooth, again and again. The actions of ballet are anything but monotonous. (But bullfighting isn't objectionable primarily on aesthetic grounds such as these.)

Aficionados who now feel an urgent need to supplement their 'knowledge' with an understanding of  ethical dilemmas and ethical debate in general, have at least and at last begun to appreciate the enormity of their task, but are surely untypical. 'Afición' is generally knowledge of one sphere and shocking ignorance of other spheres of direct relevance to the continued existence of the activity they support.

Bullfighting and 'duende'

He went and saw it often, Lorca:
the bulls' as they stumbled and died
suddenly glazed eyes,
as if no longer able to comprehend
the Spanish arguments for death and torture.

From frantic sun to shade,
overshadowing the dazed end
of Lorca's 'poetic' lies -
fated to be scythed
and doomed to fade.

(My poem 'Lorca')

Lorca, the Spanish poet, gives us his thoughts on 'duende' and death in his essay 'Theory and Function of the Duende:' the full text of the essay in English translation.

He writes of duende that 'its most impressive effects appear in the bullring.' Duende, he claims, isn't needed for all phases of the bullfight, but 'in the work with the cape, while the bull is still free of wounds, and at the moment of the kill, the aid of the duende is required to drive home the nail of artistic truth.' And, 'Spain is unique, a country where death is a national spectacle, where death sounds great bugle blasts on the arrival of Spring.' He refers, of course, to the start of the bullfighting season at Easter, but his reference to Spanish uniqueness is obviously wrong, ignoring the bullfighting traditions in Southern France and Latin America.

Duende encompasses the death of people as well as bulls. I give statements from one short paragraph of Lorca's essay, on separate lines, so that their profundity, or stupidity, stands out more clearly, depending on the views of the reader:

'In every country death has finality.
Not in Spain.
A dead person in Spain is more alive than is the case anywhere else.'

The dead of the Somme, Passchendaele, Verdun and Auschwitz and the other extermination camps, being almost all non-Spanish and dying far from Spain, are denied, then, the consolation of being 'more alive' enjoyed by, for example, the Spaniards who died in the Spanish civil war, the Spanish women who died in childbirth before the development of modern medicine, the victims of the Spanish Inquisition, as well as their torturers and executioners.

So many of Lorca's claims are superficially deep, reminding us of the 'dark gods' of D H Lawrence at his worst: 'the duende has to be roused from the furthest habitations of the blood,' and 'quoting the Spanish composer Falla: 'all that has dark sounds has duende.'

Lorca sharply distinguishes duende from the Muse, 'which stirs the intellect' and the Angel. The Muse, according to Lorca, 'lifts the poet into the bondage of aristocratic fineness, where he forgets that he might be eaten, suddenly, by ants, or that a huge arsenical lobster might fall on his head - things against which the Muses who inhabit monocles, or the roses of lukewarm lacquer in a tiny salon, have no power.' In a similar style, he refers to 'that other melancholy demon of Descartes, diminutive as a green almond, that, tired of lines and circles, fled along the canals to listen to the singing of drunken sailors.' This from someone who has a towering reputation in European culture.

He goes so far as to give a definition of duende, one of the most useless and empty definitions imaginable: 'a mysterious force that everyone feels and no philosopher has explained.' As is shown by the fact that the definition was originally drawn up by Goethe to describe the violinist and composer Paganini.

How does an Andalucian with the Anadulucian view of death regard those who do everything they can to save life? Grudgingly? I think that the Andalucian attitude, like the acceptance of Rilke, fails. With apologies to the people of Andalucia who aren't so limited as to share these obsessions and confusions.

Bullfighting and seduction

'From the Website of the French anti-bullfighting organization 'Alliance anti-corrida,' 'Bullfights use the very perverse effects of seduction: colours, costumes full of light, brass bands, sunshine. Everything is set up in order to mask the bloody reality. To this list could be added the haughty or grimly determined look of the bullfighter in his (or sometimes her) colourful costume. Although these are completely familiar, I include an image. It evidently shows a bullfighter superimposed on a separate image of a bullring background but the image of the bullfighter is important here, not the background.

The morality of the bullfight can never be confirmed by any of its outward trappings. The costumes of the matadors,  the procession before the bullfight,  the language ('the moment of truth'), the music, to some people (but the brass bands may well be found completely unseductive) convert some people to the substitute religion or supplementary religion of the bullfight, they make the bullfight acceptable to many, many people, or far more than 'acceptable,' but that is all they are - trappings, appearances.

If  horses and  bulls were treated in the bullring in exactly the same way as now but the bullfighters were people in nondescript clothes who made no attempt to pose, if 'the moment of truth' were to be described as 'the attempt at killing,' then the immorality of bullfighting would be even more widely recognized.

Bullfighters and bullfighting supporters aren't 'Nazis' - this is a word that has to be used very carefully - but there are linkages in the use of seduction and propaganda and in their mythologizing. Nazi Germany understood very well how to seduce the senses and mask the reality of its brutal and degraded regime: torchlit processions, the vast displays of might at Nuremberg. Leni Riefenstahl's film 'Triumph of the Will' shows the Nuremberg uses Wagner's 'Götterdämmerung, the beating of drums, the singing of the Horst Wessel-Lied, the shadow of Hitler's plane, the consecration of Nazi Party flags, a giant swastika, silhouetted men, vast numbers of men. Ethical depth so often requires looking beyond the seductive appearance and if most Germans at the time never did so, some Germans were never fooled, and often paid with their lives.

The Roman Catholic Church has brought many into its fold and kept many within it despite any doubts by its very often masterful use of visual spectacle, the visual appeal of priestly vestments, by the musical and architectural riches which are part of its heritage, by the evocative language of the Mass. But again, it's necessary to look beyond any seductive appearances. Roman Catholic theology - including the ban on artificial methods of  contraception and abortion in all circumstances, the concept of mortal sin, until not so very long ago the belief that unbaptized babies could never enter heaven, the belief in hell, and the rest - cannot possibly be confirmed by any of these outward trappings.

Cultural stagnation

The attention given to the bullfight in Provence, Seville, Madrid  and all the other places is a sign not of colourful tradition but of stagnation. Any region or country with vitality tries to preserve its strengths and reduce its weaknesses. To be unchanging, to be oblivious to the better intellectual and cultural currents of the age, is a sign of weakness.

Great Britain, but particularly England, has a very high regard for tradition but it has at least recognized that tradition can be a sign of weakness as well as strength. It's remarkable that Britain, with all its faults, transformed itself from a bull-baiting and bear-baiting and fox-hunting country, one with no real tradition of animal welfare, to one with such a care for dogs, cats, and injured wildlife, and one which has achieved a very great deal in the abolition of factory farming, although not nearly enough.

Countries, as well as people, are not condemned to repeat the past, to perpetuate traditions that have become unacceptable for very good reasons. Practices that seem deeply embedded in a society, too much a part of its tradition to be reformed or abolished, can be ended.

Hanging by the neck is an ancient English tradition that has gone. It might have been expected that Spain's fondness for the death penalty would have been reversed with more difficulty. Not so. Execution by garotte and shooting was ended in Spain in a dramatic way. To their credit, not one member of the Spanish parliament voted against abolition. Before bad practices are ended by legislation, though, they may wither away, regarded as obsolete, as an embarrassment. This will be an essential preliminary to the abolition of bullfighting in the bullfighting countries.

Andalucia, along with Castilia, is the European region most closely associated with the bullfight. It's argued - more often, simply stated - that Andalucia is so receptive to bullfighting because of the attitude to death there. Northern Europeans, and others, are supposed to confess their limitations at this point, to confess, helplessly, that they can't possibly understand death like the Andalucians, being so much more superficial. That's why so many Northern Europeans, and others, are outraged by the bullfight. They lack this sense of life mysteriously interlinked with death. And how does an Andalucian interpret and make sense of, from the depth of Andalucian insight, those vast repositories of death outside Andalucia, such as the Somme, Passchendaele, Verdun, Stalingrad, and Auschwitz and the other extermination camps?

Martin Seymour-Smith is a writer I appreciate.  I quote him in a number of places in this site. Yet he supported the bull-fight (whilst opposing fox-hunting). His biography of Robert Graves has a photograph which shows the two of them attending a bullfight, Robert Graves looking very worried, Martin Seymour-Smith with a look of evident appreciation. He was a man of contradictions, although of course hardly alone in this. Goya was an ardent supporter of the bullfight and drew pictures of bullfighting scenes, but he is obviously a great painter, as in his unforgettable series of pictures 'The Disasters of War,' and from such masterpieces as 'The Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid' and 'Saturn eating his son,' Goya had deep insights into the violence of the world. I regard his failures in regard to bullfighting are failures in what I refer to as {adjustment}.

I've digressed to make it clear that I see the need to recognize that bullfight supporters are not necessarily to be condemned totally, given no credit for any strengths. Their strengths may be very substantial.

Arrival in Provence for the first time from Northern Europe. Impressions, the experience of countless travellers: the heat of the day, the wonderful warmth of the evenings, the powerful leafy scents, the quality of the light, the blue skies, the cypresses, the unexpected wildness of the landscape, French spoken unexpectedly, with a different accent. Is not the ordered bullfight just another sign of local distinctiveness? To abolish it to make a reduction of contrast?

In other places in this site, I've made clear that reduction of contrast can't be regarded mechanically as always good. It has to be evaluated. There are many, many colourful customs, distinctive of a region, which have involved unnecessary harm to men, women or children, as well as animals. Their loss has been a gain.

If we carry out a ((survey)) of a region, or a whole country, we find that there is so much to interest us. Provence has so much to interest any traveller that the loss of the bullfight would be insignificant. A survey of the pleasures available would include so much - a very partial list would include the pleasures of eating, of wine, of emotional intensity, sexual intensity, of the landscape, of nature, of the genuine arts, the true arts not fatally compromised by any dependence on the infliction of suffering and death. The bullfight apologist might even discover that the world of animals becomes an absorbing interest.

The English writer V S Pritchett describes the pleasures of life in Spain in 'The Spanish Temper' and 'Foreign Faces.' In 'Foreign Faces,' he gives a memorable portrait of Seville, the city of Figaro and Don Giovanni. The overwhelming impressions as he enters the city: 'Inside the city white walls are buried in bougainvillea and wistaria and all climbing flowers, geraniums hanging from thousands of white balconies, great lilies in windows, carnations at street corners, and roses climbing up the walls and even the trees so that all the gasps and hyperbole of pleasure are on our lips.' He goes on to describe momentous, thrilling, dramatic aspects of life in Seville. As for the bullfights held there, '...this spectacle has its terrible periods of boredom...There are plenty of people in the crowd coming away from the bull ring complaining of the enormous prices charged, the commercialisation of the show and the decline in its quality.' The 'decline in its quality:' V S Pritchett judged the whole thing purely in terms of human pleasure. He was uncritical, a gifted but limited writer.

Animals: appreciation and abuse

The Italian poet Umberto Saba on the pathos of one animal, the original followed by my translation

La capra

Ho parlato a una capra.
Era sola sul prato, era legata.
Sazia d'erba, bagnata
dalla pioggia, belava.

Quell'uguale belato era fraterno
al mio dolore. Ed io risposi, prima
per celia, poi perché il dolore è eterno,
ha una voce e non varia.
Questa voce sentiva
gemere in una capra solitaria.

In una capra dal viso semita
sentiva querelarsi ogni altro male,
ogni altra vita.

The goat

I talked to a goat.
He was alone in the field, tethered,
fed up with grass, soaked
with rain, bleating.

That same bleating was brother
to my sorrow. I answered, first
as a joke, but then because sorrow's for ever,
has a voice and never varies.
This voice I sensed
moaning in a solitary goat.

In a goat with a semitic face
I sensed all ills lamenting,
all lives.

There's a linkage between bullfighting, surely, and a pitifully limited appreciation of animals and care for animals, a linkage between bullfighting and other abuses of animals, even if there may be exceptions. Bullfighting apologists do, genuinely, appreciate the power of the bull, the magnificence of the bull (both the power and the magnificence are destroyed by the punishing power of the picador's lance and the banderillas, so that it's a shadow of the magnificent animal, an animal weakened by injury, loss of blood and pain which faces the final act.) Bullfighting apologists are far less likely than so many other people, surely, to appreciate, to sympathize with, to commune with, to feel pity for, to want to help, all the animals which lack the power and strength of bulls but which have grace, charm, usefulness, or which have no particular appeal to any human preferences but which simply have mysterious 'otherness:' to feel the compassion of Umberto Saba, or of Thomas Hardy. This is from Thomas Hardy's poem, 'Afterwards:'

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, 'He strove that such innocent creatures should ...come to no harm,'

Feelings like these, present in bullfighting countries but surely in stark contrast with the predominant ethos of a bullfighting country, are infinitely more valuable than the grandiose posturing which is  bullfighting's depraved contribution to the world.

As with life-enhancing feelings, so with opposition to organized mass cruelty, it could confidently be predicted that the bullfighting countries would not be in the forefront of opposition to the cruelties of factory farming. When the European Union voted to phase out the battery cage (although the so-called 'enriched cage,' a slightly larger battery cage, is a very poor compromise), the only country which voted against was - Spain.

Bullfighting and mono-culture

The 'culture' in 'monoculture' refers to the growing of crops, of course: monoculture is cultivation of one crop to the exclusion of all others, or the overwhelming dominance of a single crop. Monoculture has severe disadvantages. It may entail the loss of genetic diversity, aesthetic loss, loss of interest, the monotony of uniformity, and practical loss, such as the loss of plants which feed beneficial insects and other creatures.

The term 'monoculture' is sometimes used without reference to agriculture. In this case, the reference is almost always to dominance, not to the complete exclusion of alternatives.  I use the hyphenated term 'mono-culture' where the 'culture' refers not to cultivation of crops but to aspects of artistry, major or minor, and, to an extent, the wider world of 'ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge' (Collins English Dictionary).

It seems to me  that in the areas of Spain where bullfighting is actively pursued, there's a mono-culture of bullfighting which is unhealthy. Bullfighting doesn't exclude all other forms of 'culture,' obviously, in these areas, but it does have  dominance. In Andalucia, for example, cante jondo flourishes, to an extent, but is less prominent than bullfighting and has linkages with it.

The mono-culture of bullfighting is uninteresting as well as unhealthy. Nature writing in English is one of the glories of English literature - the nature writing of  American writers such as Thoreau as well as  such English writers as Gilbert White, in 'The Natural History of Selborne,' Richard Mabey and of course so many others, and  in other countries as well as these, including a host of superb lesser-known writers.

I'd include in this number Jennifer Owen, who wrote 'Garden Life.' She writes of swifts, 'In July, swifts wheel and scream in the sky above the garden. Their elegant, black silhouettes, tracing ever-changing patterns against the clear blue of early morning or the opalescent glow if evening, lift the spirits of the most earthbound gardener.'

Many of these writers have revealed the glory of humble creatures, such as moths. They are prominent in 'Garden Life.' Thoreau writes in the closing section of 'Walden' that 'Every one has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New England, of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf of an old table of apple-wood, which had stood in a farmer's kitchen for sixty years ...'

Spain's natural history is  richer than England's in many respects, but the English have made incomparably more of their heritage of natural history than the Spanish, I'd claim. The mono-culture of bulls has surely impoverished Spanish nature writing. Apart from its cruelty, the  mono-culture of bullfighting in large areas has impoverished Spanish culture.

If it's conceded that nature writing and appreciation of nature are strengths of English culture but argued that English culture, unlike Spanish culture, largely ignores death, and that this is an obvious weakness of English culture, then I'd argue in turn that this is a gross distortion. The Spanish preoccupation with death can easily be paralleled in earlier English culture. English parish churches - important to many an intransigent atheist, including myself - are full of reminders of 'memento mori.'  English culture has far more of classical balance now: remembrance and grieving rather than a preoccupation with death which could be called obsessive, the public and private  remembrance of our war dead, including those who died fighting against fascism, and the countless acts of private remembrance and grieving obviously observed to a greater or lesser extent in every country, not only in Spain.

The biography section of a very comprehensive library or a very comprehensive bookshop contains biographies and autobiographies  of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, explorers, travellers, poets, novelists, essayists, politicians, generals, soldiers, sailors, airmen, painters, architects, financiers, administrators, nationalists, anarchists, communists, conservatives, comedians, gardeners, ordinary people with ordinary or extraordinary lives -  obviously, the number of categories is immense. It may even include, in the case of very comprehensive libraries, the biographies of a few bullfighters.

Are the claims to importance made by bullfighting supporters to be believed in the slightest? Is the adulation in the least healthy? Would the biography section of a very comprehensive library or a very comprehensive bookshop be anything other than pitiful if it contained not much more than biographies of bullfighters or books such as Alexander Fiske-Harrison's 'Into the Arena,' which belongs to the genre of autobiography?

Does bullfighting really encompass a large part of what is important in the world, or so much that's important?

Miriam Mandel is the editor of 'Hemingway's Dangerous Summer: the complete annotations,' a scholarly pro-bullfighting work - but its accumulated detail undermines the bullfighting case. There's revealing information about the extent of 'afeitado,' tampering with the bull by 'horn shaving.' Miriam Mandel shows the usual aficionado's awe-struck and credulous opinion of bullfighters, extending even to bullfighters' biochemistry and physiology, or at least the biochemical and physiological processes concerned in wound healing. These, it seems, are different from those of lesser people: 'Injuries require a bullfighter to absent himself from the ring, but these enforced absences are often surprisingly short (bullfighters seem to heal more quickly than other people).'

An account: unprotected horses in a bullfight

An extract from the account  of a spectator who was sickened by what he saw at a bullfight, Sir Alfred Munnings. It comes from his autobiography, published in 1955. The account is based on what he saw at a pre-peto bullfight. Carmen was obviously not sickened by what she saw at bullfights. She liked what she saw.

'I have sat at dinners given by the American Ambassador in Spain with a titled Spaniard as my neighbour, hearing things of bullfighting not written in books. Have we read in those novels extolling the matador, of living skeletons - once horses - ridden not only to slaughter but in a tawdry procession? Have we read of punching, horning, or weeks of durance between Sundays, with flies crawling over festered wounds, as the victims, not killed, await in the stables NEXT SUNDAY’S SPORT? Watch such a procession, and see some fifteen sorry steeds, doomed, starved, carrying heavy, stuffed out picadors. No wonder the horses are hurled to the ground, overweighted, weak and half-dead.

'Passing the tall archway, I had seen a little white horse. To my surprise it was in the procession, carrying a great picador, and the next thing we saw was the little white horse and another in the ring. This humble white horse stood there blindfolded, his ears stuffed and tied, little knowing what he was there for. Oh, little white horse; Little White Horse!’ I kept repeating to myself, as the bull put a long horn right through the little horses neck, just above the windpipe.

'Imagine the fright of the horse, blindfolded and deaf, at the sudden stab. Then the bull, his horn through the neck of the horse began dragging it slowly round with him, the picador dismounting and others in the ring trying to free the horse, now no longer a horse, but a holiday victim,  the blood running down its white jaw and neck.

'When cleared, and the picador remounted,  the bull charged,  hurling man and horse backwards with a crash against the wooden barrier. ‘Oh little white horse.’ I said to myself and, the picador being rescued, and the bull attracted away, they beat the horse to its feet  with blood streaming from a wound in its chest, down its white legs. The time was up for the horses, and the white horse and the other - a starved emaciated bag mare were led  out to come in again. The little white horse's end came later.

'The bay, its teeth chattering with fear, having been in before, stood near the barrier below us, the motley red and white striped bandage over its offside eye, its ears stuffed with tow, and tied with what seemed to be old electric wire. The Bull made short work of the bay horning the horse from behind. The picador cleared, and the horse beaten to its feet by red-shirted attendants. There, from the underpart of its belly hung a large protuberance of bowels. With head outstretched a man hauling it along on the end of the rein, another hitting it with a stick, it was led out.

'Not a soul cared, excepting ourselves.

'But what of the white horse? He too was lifted and hurled on his back, to the cheers of the crowd,  and when beaten to his feet was stomping on his own entrails, which stretched and split like pink tissue paper.'

Pro-bullfighting views. Freedom of expression

I've never at any time attempted to suppress pro-bullfighting views, Anti-bullfighting activists who do try to suppress pro-bullfighting views are very much mistaken - not mistaken about bullfighting, obviously, but very much mistaken in opposing the free flow of ideas.

All attempts to suppress pro-bullfighting books or other printed materials, to suppress pro-bullfighting films or internet materials, to suppress pro-bullfighting talks and lectures, are  misguided. In 'the marketplace of ideas,' The anti-bullfighting case needs no censorship of pro-bullfighting views at all.

The principle that there should be a free flow of ideas, information and evidence is a principle under attack. It's essential to defend it. I know of one organization which called upon a bookseller to remove a pro-bullfighting book from sale and was successful. This was a bad mistake on the part of the organization and the bookseller. There are many threats to freedom of expression, threats which may be veiled or violent.  They come from believers in  political correctness, radical Islamists and many others, including animal rights activists.

 Before I could read Alexander Fiske-Harrison's Into the Arena it was necessary for me to buy a copy. The idea that I should be expected to criticize Alexander Fiske-Harrison's defence of bullfighting on the basis of a few things I'd heard, without having read the book, is repugnant. My very critical discussion appears in my page on bullfighting.  It includes  information about Alexander Fiske-Harrison's censorship of my own comments but I include a further example here.

Alexander Fiske-Harrison writes on his blog, 'By the way, I have noticed that various animal rights protesters are complaining that I have blocked their comments on this blog. Well, that’s easy enough to answer: I will post any comment that is civil and unthreatening.'

This is simply not true. One comment I sent to him simply gave some of the material in the previous paragraphs about the importance of supporting freedom of expression for writers on bullfighting such as himself. That comment was blocked, perhaps because it included this: 'I regard anti-bullfighting arguments as decisively, overwhelmingly superior to pro-bullfighting arguments. The anti-bullfighting case needs no censorship of pro-bullfighting views at all.' The comment I submitted was completely civil and unthreatening, and all the other comments I submitted have been completely civil and unthreatening, but have been censored by him, except for a much earlier set of comments, very brief, simply  stating my intention to discuss 'Into the Arena.'

I showed that his reaction to one comment could easily be explained - he'd simply not read most of what I'd written, by his own admission. He was condemning what he hadn't read. He refused to post this as well. I'd raised one particular issue which he seems determined not to discuss openly - the fact that the bull he killed had blunt horns and  had apparently been subjected to the procedure called 'afeitado,' judging by the photographs in 'Into the Arena.'  This would have made the bull - which was in any case far from being a full-sized animal - much less risky to fight.

After this mention of suppression of views by Alexander Fiske-Harrison, I  return to suppression of views by some anti-bullfighting activists.

The British bullfighter Frank Evans planned to give a talk at a bookshop in Manchester. It was cancelled because of the threat of disruption. Again, this was a bad mistake. Alexander Fiske-Harrison was  invited to give a talk at Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford, death threats were made, allegedly, and the talk was rescheduled. I obtained a ticket for the event.

On his Website, Alexander Fiske-Harrison writes, 'I am happy to announce that unlike Salman Rushdie, I will actually be talking at my venue - Blackwell’s of Oxford – regardless of protests.' It would have been better if he hadn't invited readers to compare his situation with that of Salman Rushdie. The danger in which Salman Rushdie found himself was incomparably more serious than the dangers facing Alexander Fiske-Harrison.

As in the case of his exploits in the ring, Alexander Fiske-Harrison  exaggerates  the dangers he faces. The animal rights movement (for the record, I'd describe myself as involved in animal welfare, as one activity among many, not animal rights) includes dangerous as well as deluded people, but their dangerousness (their lethal intent) isn't to be equated with the fanatics who were out to get Salman Rushdie and anyone associated with his book, 'The Satanic Verses.' In that case, lethal intentions were followed by lethal results. Destruction of property in the name of animal rights is quite another matter. It has been far more extensive than media reports would suggest.  I discuss briefly the Animal Liberation Front and its misguided and ineffectual tactics in my page Animal welfare: arrest and activism.

Then Alexander Fiske-Harrison posted this on his blog:  Following the temporary cancellation of my Oxford talk on my book Into The Arena and vastly exaggerated reports of death threats etc. abounding in the Oxford Times and Oxford Mail ... ' If so, why did he make any comparison with Salman Rushdie? In his case, the death threats weren't exaggerated.  Now his talk has been cancelled, since hardly any tickets had been requested.

Whatever the level of threats to the author, if bookshops have been put under pressure not to stock Alexander Fiske-Harrison's 'Into the Arena,' (or such books as Hemingway's 'Death in the Afternoon') then is this to be only a starting-point? I discuss the cruelties of foie gras production in the section Three Spanish Restaurants. Bookshops (and libraries) may have many books on their shelves which 'promote' the use of foie gras, particularly books on French cookery, and not just ones on  haute cuisine. Are they to be removed? There are many animal rights campaigners who would agree with or use the slogan 'Meat is murder.' I don't agree with the slogan at all. But most of these people would have the sense (I hope) to realize that removing all but vegetarian and vegan cookery books from bookshops and libraries is an impossible (as well as undesirable) objective.

No bookshop can be anything like as comprehensive as a large library, of course. Are large libraries -  including the largest of them all in this country, the British Library - not to include on their shelves 'Into the Arena,' Hemingway's 'Death in the Afternoon' and other books defending bullfighting? Published books have to be made available, to scholars, to readers of all kinds - including opponents of the views expressed in some of these books. A good bookshop should give hints of comprehensiveness, at least.

Supplementary information, but the most comprehensive library of all, an imaginary library, is described in a short story by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, 'The Library of Babel.' This contains 'all that it is given to express, in all languages. Everything ...'

Running a bookshop is a demanding activity, now more than ever. It's completely wrong to pressurize a bookshop for any of these reasons. If the owner or manager of a bookshop has scheduled a talk by a pro-bullfighting writer for the near future and is approached by a person or an organization asking for the event to be cancelled, what is the owner or manager to do? Abandon all but the most essential duties and spend an intensive week or two studying as many aspects of the issue as possible as thoroughly as possible before coming to a decision? Not forgetting to read  'Into the Arena.' Or assume that the objector's arguments (which are unlikely to be detailed ones - the objector is very unlikely to have read the book) are correct and cancel the event immediately?

The anti-libertarian, pro-censorship 'principle' of 'no platform for ...' doesn't usually take the form of 'no platform for bullfighting supporters.' It's usually no platform for 'racists,' and a variety of other human rather than animal issues (and we're supposed to take it for granted that the objectors are correct in their understanding  of 'racist' and 'racism,' that their intelligence and freedom from bias are beyond dispute. They may describe people who want to set limits to immigration into this country as 'racists.')

Similar issues are raised when people who advocate boycotts of Israeli products approach the owner of a shop or the manager of a supermarket which stocks Israeli products. Again, is this owner or manager expected to examine the arguments and evidence in depth before coming to a decision?  Or is the owner or manager to assume that the boycotters' case must be correct and clear the shelves of Israeli products at once?

My page on Israel gives detailed information about another attempt to enforce a boycott of Israel. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was due to play at the Proms. Pro-Palestinian activists called for the performance to be cancelled. What were the management to do in the week or so after receiving this call? Study the relevant history of the Middle East, and in particular the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, make a comparative study of human rights in Israel and other countries of the Middle East, such as Iran, Syria and the Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, make a further comparative study of war and conflict and of the action which has been taken by democratic countries, totalitarian countries and  countries with other forms of government in waging war, including such issues as blockades and  protection of non-combatants, study the international legislation concerned with these issues, study  the arguments and evidence deployed by supporters of Israel and opponents of Israel, do a little research into moral philosophy and the different approaches to deciding difficult moral issues, such as consequentialism - whilst continuing the intensely demanding task of coordinating the nightly concerts of the Proms season?

Or was the management simply to assume that the pro-Palestinian activists must be correct and to cancel the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra's concert without delay - and to add the task of explaining the action to aggrieved concert-goers and defending themselves in the courts for breach of contract to their work-load? In the event, the management stood firm and the concert went ahead, but was disrupted.

Anti-bullfighting censors are far outnumbered by censors of a very different kind, such as radical Islamist censors,  They may well be unaware of the context, or indifferent to it: the assaults on freedom of expression from many different directions.

In my page on Israel I write: 'Countries that can be considered free have been surrendering more and more of their freedoms. Complacency and lack of resolve have allowed them to slide towards an Age of Post-enlightenment. Most often, freedoms have been eroded by the growth of informal censorship, self-censorship, strong disapproval, but sometimes by new legislation.' 

Kenny Hodgart writes well about one such piece of legislation in this country:

'Freedom of speech was hard-won in the West; the freedom only to speak inoffensively is no freedom at all ... Never mind the freedom to speak offensively: people have been invited to believe there is such a thing as the right not to be offended. Never mind that 'incitement to hatred' is a grey, disputable thing, and a different thing to incitement to violence, which was already a criminal offence. Never mind that most ideas are capable of giving offence ... And never mind that in the marketplace of ideas, 'hate speech' can be challenged, debated or ignored. What we now have is moderated free speech at best.'

Nigel Warburton, in his 'Free Speech: a very short introduction,' writes, 'Defenders of free speech almost without exception recognize the need for some limits to the freedom they advocate.' I think this is true, and well put. I'm a libertarian in matters of free speech but not an absolutist libertarian. In the terminology I use, I recognize {restriction}: (free speech). I discuss {restriction} and the {theme} theory of which it forms a part on other pages.

Nigel Warburton writes, again very cogently:

'Holmes, like Mill, was committed to defending freedom of speech in most circumstances, and, explicitly defended the value of a ‘free trade in ideas’ as part of a search for truth: ‘the best test of truth,’ he maintained, ‘is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market’. Holmes wrote passionately about what he called the ‘experiment’ embedded in the US Constitution arguing that we should be ‘eternally vigilant’ against any attempt to silence opinions we despise unless they seriously threaten the country – hence the ‘clear and present danger’ test outlined in the quotation above. Holmes as a judge was specifically concerned with how to interpret the First Amendment; his was an interest in the application of the law. Mill in contrast was not writing about legal rights, but about the moral question of whether it was ever right to curtail free speech whether by law, or by what he described as the tyranny of majority opinion, the way in which those with minority views can be sidelined or even silenced by social disapproval.

'Both Mill and Holmes, then, saw that there had to be limits to free speech and that other considerations could on occasion defeat any presumption of an absolute right (legal or moral) to freedom of speech. Apart from the special considerations arising in times of war, most legal systems ... still restrict free expression where, for example, it is libellous or slanderous, where it would result in state secrets being revealed, where it would jeopardize a fair trial, where is involves a major intrusion into someone’s private life without good reason, where it results in copyright infringement (e.g. using someone else’s words without permission), and also in cases of misleading advertising. Many countries also set strict limits to the kinds of pornography that may be published or used. These are just a selection of the restrictions on speech and other kinds of expression that are common in nations which subscribe to some kind of free speech principle and whose citizens think of themselves as free.'

I'd make the point that 'permitting' is obviously different from 'approving.' 'Permitting whilst loathing' will often be a response in a free society. It expresses  my response to Alexander Fiske-Harrison's stance on bullfighting - and his killing of a bull - but I see the need not just to 'permit' the publishing and sale of his book and talks by the author but  a passionate upholding of the principle of free expression, if not expression without some {restriction}.

In a wide range of moral and other issues, some of the most fatuous objections often come from people who mechanically point out an alleged inconsistency and ignore the most significant differences. 'You object to bullfighting, but you eat meat!' Alexander Fiske-Harrison, a meat-eater himself, argues along similar lines. (I point this out, as a vegetarian.) 'You object to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. But Britain has nuclear weapons! (Ignoring the vast differences in political responsibility and restraint.) If German research in atomic physics had been more advanced before the end of the Second World War, then the argument, equally idiotic, might have been, 'You object to Germany acquiring nuclear weapons. But the United States has now acquired nuclear weapons!'

So much for these tidy and unformed minds and their reflex responses.

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