Why is bull fighting still allowed?

I would imagine that it is because it is something so engrained in the culture that the majority of people who are exposed to it just don’t see it as cruel, like you may.

Another reason why some aspects of culture are damaging and not needed. They don’t know why they do it, it’s just because it’s a tradition!

And if they change it, it won’t be the same anymore. Boo freaking hoo.

Why is this a bad thing? Just because some don’t understand other countries traditions it doesn’t mean it’s a bad one. Does it matter how it dies? In the end that bull becomes steaks for a lot of people .. did you ever go to a slaughter-house or even thought of how things are done there?
Some traditions might seem weird but let’s just not point fingers and say “bad ! bad ! bad ! ”.

Where are the bulls still killed? Spain only, right? They do a lot of marginal stuff there, I hear.

@6rant6 Mexico has bullfighting.

@nullo Lots of places have bullfighting. I thought the objection was to killing the bulls.

Bullfighting happens in California, too, but the bull is not killed. I thought that Mexico had adopted non-kill laws. I can’t find any evidence of that. Perhaps there was a prohibition in Tijuana, but I can’t even find evidence of that now.

Bans are popping up everywhere – including regions of Spain. Proponents say it honors the bull. They might ask the detractors why they aren’t as outraged about slaughterhouses.

Finally, without somebody bullfighting somewhere, we wouldn’t have this.

It’s now done for the sake of tradition. Yes, it’s incredibly cruel. However, it’s not really any more cruel than how animals are treated in our society. I would very much like to see bullfighting banned, but it seems very hypocritical to me when I see people talking about how cruel bullfighting is, and know that they will go home and eat a steak, or buy eggs, or go to a rodeo.

The reason bullfighting goes on is because of our speciesist attitudes. Most humans think it’s okay to treat sentient beings as property, and to disregard their suffering when it will feed us, entertain us, or give us nifty products. We’re in no position to criticize the matadors for stabbing and antagonizing bulls when we pay men and women to slit the throats of cows, grind up baby chickens alive, and tear/slice out the testicles of piglets without anesthetic.

The sport had been glorified and turned matadores into national heros. THey are the most glorified and dignified heroes in Mexican and Latino cultures.

In some Muslem occupied Indonesian and Asian countries, they fight mountain rams
In the south they fight dogs and roosters
In other countries they use ostrich and other large flightless birds.
Some countries race camels, and others use elephants for feats of strength.
in some Ukraine regions men, actually fight bears, and in some other surrounding nations Dogs fight bears.

*Which is really FU*KED up, especially cruel, and completely insane! They remove the bears claws and file down their teeth, they muzel them and set lose two dogs onto an otherwise helpless bear and take bets on which dog will kill it.

These things are nothing new they will probably always exist and it is a shame that we walk among certain personality types that not only find it acceptible behavior, but they profit by it. It is human cruelty and ignorance at it’s most deplorable.

“Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.” Mark Twain, The Lowest Animal

http://www.humanesociety.org/news/news/2010/08/bear_baiting_082310.html

*It’s all funny until something actually get’s hurt off a fashion trend.

In some countries, it is a popular tradition.

I’d say that it’s not all that bad, as things go. You could even argue that you’re giving the bull a fair fight, a sporting chance to gore the matador, whereas at the slaughterhouse he’s just concussed, hung up, and made to bleed out.

It’ll be interesting to see how the relativists – especially the cultural relativists – weigh in on this one.

A lot of awful things are still allowed. Like child brides or FGM or honor killings.

What’s FGM?

@Blackberry Female genital mutilation.

Or breast pounding.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir An anthropologist would probably accuse you of bigotry. :D

@Hibernate They are killed slowly and tortured before “slaughtering them for steaks” so to speak.

@Jellie Sure about that? I thought that slow, painful deaths ruined the quality of the meat.

@Nullo Anthropologists, early on, were bigots themselves so I’d tell them to shut up. To a degree, yes, what I’m against can be said to be ‘just that culture’ and that I shouldn’t practice philosophical imperialism..and sure, I am a cultural relativist BUT, for me, on a personal level, I must draw a line somewhere and killing or maiming children is it.

As for the meat, it’s more about whether or not the animal is stressed upon death, lactic acid build up and such makes meat taste worse or whatever (I hate that I had to look into this before veganism).

@Nullo I was just echo-ing @Hibernate saying that they are eventually slaughtered for meat. I don’t know if they are. All I know is that each bull is used only once and either they kill him in the arena or the relatively bloodless ones slaughter them once they’re done sticking them with stuff.

Something we cannot deny is that the world has a bloody history. Our cultures and traditions reflect those ignorant and dark times. However just because something was acceptable a 100 years ago, doesn’t mean we should continue to do it now that we know better.

@Jellie I operate on the premise that there are Right things and Wrong things, and that those do not change; these are unrelated to what society thinks is “acceptable.” Societal acceptability isn’t really a basis for anything other than determining how bad it would be to be caught, since it is, as you demonstrate, quite prone to change.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I figure that there’s Culture and there’s Morality, and when the two cross, Morality ought to override Culture.
I expect that being speared a half-dozen times while chasing some guy in a cape around an arena would be quite stressful. :P

@Nullo I expect that to be so as well if only morality was easier to agree upon than culture.

@Jellie I do not support it either .. it’s just like gladiators two thousand years ago or like human versus lions in arena. But it’s a tradition in Spain. We could complain as much as we want , they have the right to do it. It’s not like we can stop them. It’s inhuman but it’s their tradition. And you should see how full are the arenas there… and how many people cheer. Now that’s inhuman not the killing part.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir An Absolutist such as myself does not think that we need to agree on what’s moral and what’s not – it’s been defined already.

Machismo. Most American men and women do not know what that is. Not that they should. Just sayin.