In the early 60s, I lived a kind of Huck Finn existence on the streets of the Third World. I lived in Guayaquil, Ecuador, for two years, four-and-a-half months, which as it happens was the longest I lived anywhere growing up. We moved down there in November 1962, shortly after my ninth birthday, and within three months I was fluent in Spanish. By the time we left, Spanish was pretty much the same to me as English. I thought in Spanish, dreamed in Spanish. The fact that I’ve lost that over the years is sort of like having a gaping hole in my essential self.
Anyway, we had no television — the only local station broadcast from about 4 in the afternoon until 10 or so at night. I think. We never saw any point in getting our TV out of the storage room the whole time we were there, so I only occasionally saw a TV turned on at someone else’s home. “Beverly Hillbillies” re-runs dubbed into Spanish have a limited appeal.
So we played, creatively. We built things. We dug canals in the backyard of the only kid I knew who had a backyard (most people had paved courtyards instead). My best friend Tony Wessler and I attended the local movie house, the Variedades, which showed Italian Hercules movies and “The Three Musketeers” in French, with Spanish subtitles. A double feature cost 40 centavos, which at the time was the equivalent of two cents American. We sat on wooden benches eating fried banana chips, and when we left the theater we picked up bamboo staves from a construction site (construction was totally dependent upon bamboo scaffolding) and sword-fought all the way home. We were really into sword-fighting.
We also trespassed, a lot. Property was delineated by high brick or stone walls, and the flat-roofed houses were close enough to the walls at the sides and in the back that you could run along the walls, hop up and swing onto the roof, run across the roof and drop down to the next wall, and so on across the block — or, simply travel the whole way running along the tops of the walls. We avoided sidewalks as too, well, pedestrian, preferring the direct walltop route. Occasionally homeowners would hear us and shout, but we’d be gone out of sight before they came out. Those roofs and walls were our highways, as the vines in the trees were for Tarzan.
One day, on a vacant lot that was diagonally across the street from my house, we encountered a circle of working-class men squatting in the dust, which drew us like a magnet. These vacant lots were sort of our kingdom, the usual battlefields for our swordplay, and it was unusual to find strangers on them. (It only occurred to me later how out-of-place they were in that “wealthy” neighborhood, which would have been middle-class by U.S. standards. Maybe they were some of the vendors who sold bananas and avocados from push carts in the neighborhood; I don’t know.) We had to get right up close and lean over the men to see what held their attention. It was a couple of gamecocks going at each other full-tilt, in a blur of feathers, dust and blood. The men gripped money and shouted and gesticulated, too riveted upon the fight to take much notice of us.
We didn’t stay long; I don’t recall how the fight came out. Maybe we picked up on the fact that we were out of place and that these men weren’t that comfortable with a couple of pampered gringo niños butting in on their sport; I don’t know. All I remember was that that was my one exposure to cockfighting.
And it really didn’t bother me.
Since then, I’ve worked with folks who think cockfighting is a truly terrible thing. I’ve been told that bloodsports involving animals are a gateway crime, that people who abuse animals that way will also inflict violence on humans.
And with dogfights, I can see that. In fact, as I recall, one of the movies Tony and I saw at the Variedades was a Jack London story about a dog who fell into the hands of dog-fighters, and I got the impression that it was a terrible thing. But those are dogs; dogs are the animals who have the closest relationships with humans. We know them to be capable of all sorts of noble traits upon which humans rely. I can see how a system of ethics about how to treat others easily includes dogs.
But I don’t feel the same about gamecocks. Maybe I’m wrong about that, and I’d appreciate y’all setting me straight. I don’t think it’s bad that cockfighting is illegal, but it doesn’t make me all that indignant to know the law is sometimes breached. I’m sort of lukewarm on the issue.
Anyway, I got to thinking about all that when I saw John Monk’s story over the weekend. What do y’all think about it?
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I can’t help but agree, though I was shocked to read an article in The State that was virtually pro-cockfighting. To be honest, these are chickens. They are only a quarter of a degree away from reptiles.
I guess you’re ok with the mink coat industry and baby seal clubing too. If you expect anyone to take you seriously on issues that result in the suffering and death of humans, ie war issues, you should stop commenting on animal cruelty. It destroys what tiny credibility you have on those issues. You started down the path of lost credibility by defending the utterly tastless Arial cartoon about the horrible suffering of a race horse. Frankly this explains a great deal about your disgusting pro-war attitude. Maybe you just don’t care about non-American humans either. Are they just another lower life form? I’m starting to wonder.
Cockfighting does not equal baby seal-clubbing. Baby seal-clubbing does not equal homicide. A just war does not equal murder. We even speak of justifiable homicide.
It’s important, I believe, to be able to distinguish. A finely tuned moral sense, it seems to me, requires an ability to discriminate, and to discern.
I find it disturbing when people get worked up about, say, a lobster as though it were a human being. Such excessive sensitivity, it seems to me, cheapens human life.
I’m not running down people who cherish all forms of life, such as the Jains. My good friend Samuel T. loves animals so much (and he’s certainly rescued a lot of them) that he won’t kill insects. This seems to me excessive, though.
I don’t hunt because I don’t like killing. I don’t even want to kill birds, much less things higher up the chain. But I do recognize that there are many degrees of moral worth lying between a bird and a human being.
Here’s a test. If you’re ok with dropping cluster bombs or spent uranium shells on Chicago, Memphis or West Columbia in order to expel a sadistic strong man from a Middle Eastern Country then you can state with credibility that you believe the sacrifice of human life is worth involvement in places like Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. If you cannot make that claim then if you advocate doing atrocious acts on the people of Hanoi, Baghdad or Kandihar for some vague prospect of a better future world then, by definition, you are implicitly giving a greater value to some humans (Middlesterners, Asians) vs others (Americans). That goes against the principal of pro-life.
I certainly don’t value the life of a gamecock the same as a human life but to suggest this kind of cruelty is not particularly a concern shows a disturbing tendancy to disregard suffering in a general sense. It’s not a great reach to then suggest that some human beings are not as valuable as others. The danger is a casual tendancy to ignore the very real human suffering component of optional wars.
Folks who advocate war for ANY reason other than direct self-preservation implicitly rate the value of human life. Isn’t that exactly the type of calculus made by people like Saddam? We, as Americans, should be better than that.
Ah, childhood memories:
http://www.honoluluagonizer.com/?p=1719
Yes it is, bud — it is “a great reach” between lacking great concern over gamecocks and devaluing some humans. There’s a big, fat, bright line between the two.
“many degrees of moral worth lying between a bird and a human being.”
Many degrees? So gerbil fighting might be morally acceptable, but not rabbit fighting would not? How about bald eagle bouts? Worse than cock fighting?
I fall into the “bud” camp on this one. Anyone who derives pleasure from inflicting suffering on an animal for the sake of “sport” has a screw loose.
If one of your family members was involved in the “sport” of cock fighting would you be non-plussed?
I would find it quite disturbing, Doug… although not as disturbing as if they were killing dogs. You know, something can be pretty disturbing and still have LOTS of worse things on the hierarchy above it. Or below it…
I agree that cock fighting is not equal to killing people. But I dislike using animal instinct and then enhancing it with spurs to ensure maximum mayhem, in order to provide amusement to the masses. I find it morally repulsive, and I think it speaks volumes about the the persons who engage in this sport. If these people want blood sport so much let them choose to fight among themselves. They at least have a choice. The chickens don’t. And the chickens are being maimed and killed for no need–their corpses are not being converted into dinner. This is a form of cruelty that a moral society should not tolerate.
It’s sort of like the punchline to the joke:
“We’ve established what you are, now we’re just negotiating the price”
Animal fighting is not equal to killing people–it’s worse in many respects. If two humans want to fight to the death in a cage, or whatever, and there is no coercion–swell–go nuts. Humans have a lot more autonomy and choices, even down to where they live, than roosters, dogs or other fighting animals do. A human can be a refugee from a war zone. A rooster is trapped.
This is some truly sick stuff.
I only can bring myself to support my alma mater’s mascot by thinking of Thomas Sumter, and not a bunch of roosters with knives on their legs.
I wish the mascot were the “Garnet” –like the Crimson–except that, of course, the Garnet is a blood red stone….
Isla Verde is a street in Puerto Rico. On it are some of the finest hotels in the Caribbean, along with fine restaurants like the Palm. Sitting beside the Hampton Inn, across from a Ritz Carlton is a cockfighting arena. Live fights a couple of times a a week and to make them available to a wider audience, they are televised.
Very few Puerto Ricans found the sport objectionable and many went to another fine restaurant located beside it before going to the arena to finish off the evening.
So, what does that say for our Puerto Rican neighbors who for all practical intent are Americans who cannot vote?
Personally, I don’t care for blood sports, especially dog or bull fighting but they exist in the open in other cultures. Are we to condemn them for their particular tastes or accept the difference?
Doug, I may be tempted to go to a gerbil fight. Understand those little suckers can be vicious when provoked. 🙂
Sorry, Isla Verde is a street in San Juan, close to the airport.
I agree with Bud as well.
“If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.” ~St. Francis of Assisi
Wow! What strange bedfellows…
After reading Mr. Monk’s article and viewing the comments posted here I wish to tread carefully, as it is not my purpose to offend anyone.
Primarily, Brad, I find your stance on this issue to be intellectually vapid.
In my opinion, cockfighting and baby-seal clubbing are equally bloodthirsty, stupid, and generally unnecessary for the justifiable advancement of human life and well-being, although I do agree that neither is morally equal to homicide.
Secondly, to advance the notion that a “just” war does not equal murder ignores the fact that all wars inevitably include unjust killing. I suppose it depends upon which side you support in any given war; as for me, I choose to try to keep my eyes open and recognize “war” for what it is: a lot of killing. Hopefully it’s all “justifiable homicide”, and not much “murder” or “collateral damage”.
Sometimes it really sucks to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, especially if you’re five and confused…
I think even the most finely tuned of moral senses would be severely taxed during the heat of battle.
My third point: what is it with the killing and the blood? I cannot imagine what appeal there could be in watching two animals battle to the death in an environment structured by men, with money on the line. Viscera is easy to witness, if you hunt or raise livestock for food.
If you enjoy seeing it dragged out in the midst of a battle, you have a screw loose, like Doug said.
There’s a thrill quotient present in animal fighting that freaks me out. I do not get it, and it scares the hell out of me that other people do…
I, for one, regard such other people with extreme wariness…
Uh, I think we don’t “accept the difference” when live animals are involved. They can play all the Bingo, Bunco, and what the heck-video poker they want, but when animals get hurt and people find that sporting….
It’s like the cultural differences in treating women–wear a head scarf all you like, but when it comes to genital mutilation, especially of the involuntary sort, I draw the line. You?
Exactly right, Doug and Bud. Anyone who gets their jollies watching animals (chickens, gerbils, dogs, I don’t care) suffer and die has some seriously warped sensibilities. I worry about a person who enjoys pulling the wings off flies, and cockfighting is the same thing.
Here’s why this is important. All the pro-war/surge folks have now automatically given victory status to the war in Iraq. Yet violence continues on and on and on. And the press has moved on to Afghanistan just as they moved on to Iraq in 2003.
There seems to be a huge correlation between someone who is cavalier about the suffering of animals and their propensity to support optional wars regardless of any evidence the war will actual improve our security. Much of this thinking comes from an upbringing that puts soldiers on a pedestal and creates a mindset whereby wars are needed to justify the existance of more soldiers and weapons. Gamecocks, after all, are a type of soldier. Clearly folks like this can simply block out the horrors of war and invent all kinds of nonsensical reasons to continue fighting. That kind of mindset absolutely must not be tolerated if we are ever going to become the peaceful, progressive nation that we claim to be.
Here’s an excerpt from AP concerning the latest carnage in Iraq, the war that we “won”.
Coordinated blasts hit Baghdad; kill at least 103
BAGHDAD – A series of coordinated attacks struck Baghdad Tuesday, including three car bombs that blew up near government sites. At least 103 were killed and 197 wounded in the worst wave of violence in the capital in more than a month, authorities said.
A total of four attacks, which also included a suicide car bomb on a police patrol, showed the ability of insurgents to strike high-profile targets in the heart of Baghdad and marked the third time since August that government buildings were targeted with multiple blasts that brought massive bloodshed.
“Much of this thinking comes from an upbringing that puts soldiers on a pedestal and creates a mindset whereby wars are needed to justify the existence of more soldiers and weapons.”-bud
Well said, bud. Yes, it’s the “family business.” As the daughter of a career-long employee of the Savannah River nuclear weapons laboratory, I recognize that it is easy for me to trumpet the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons and harder for me to see the potential Dr. Strangelove consequences. Here in the pro-military South, it must be doubly hard for a military “brat” to get a lot of perspective….