In a masterful display of horrifying foreshadowing Tolstoy writes of a horse race in which one of the main characters, Vronsky, pushes so hard to win the race by a long distance that he causes his horse to fall and break her back. In addition to Vronsky’s horse, more than half of the men racing fell and were injured.
Everyone loudly expressed his disapproval, everyone repeated the phrase someone had uttered: ‘We only lack circuses with lions,’ and horror was felt by all.
And yet there is absolutely no hint of a question of whether such races should or would occur in the future. The crowd watching recognizes that there is something barbaric about unnecessarily risking injury and death of both horses and men for sport, but no one thinks to actually stop it.
It seems insane. Insanely like the way things still are. I like the idea of sports like football, but can’t help feeling like something is a bit wrong when watching some games. How much of it is good clean fun, and how much of it is morbid fascination with completely unnecessary risk of injury?
I know very little of horse racing, but reading stories such as the one in Anna Karenina makes me think that it is not such a good idea. Is it really ethical to push animals so hard for the pleasure of those watching? What about the risk to the jockey?
And then there is dog racing. It has only been two years since Massachusetts outlawed dog racing, and I don’t know about its status in other states.
At the time it was argued that the fact that the dogs were “caged inhumanely and raced to injury” mattered less than the jobs of 1,000 workers employed by the racetracks. I believe that it is quite possible to create new jobs without harming animals, but the jobs argument still made me think. At what point do we make humans suffer at all in order to avoid mistreating animals?
And if horse and dog racing seem problematic, what about cock fighting? Animal injury and death are not incidental to cock fights, they are necessary.
But while cock fighting goes against cultural norms in the United States, it provides much-needed joy in less privileged places. And while cock fighting is grotesque and violent, is it really any worse than the factory that raises and slaughters the chicken which most Americans eat without thinking?
And then there are the sports that do not involve animals. What of the significant rates of injury in sports such as rugby? Can it really be justified?
Is it a responsible use of our bodies to deliberately take significant risk of injury for the sake of a game? Is it right to provide incentive for others to play through injury for money?
How do you determine what is acceptable ethically when enjoying sports? Do you have a solid line for what you will tolerate in terms of animal cruelty? How about a reasonable level of risk for the human participants? Do you think that Western Culture today is really any better than that of our Roman predecessors with their games?
I am thankful 8/29/2010
For myself. This morning I was thinking about whether I could honestly say that I am thankful for myself. It seemed rather silly, for I simply must be thankful for myself and my existence, even if I do not spend much time thinking about it. The gift of life may not be the most important gift, but it is the most essential. I cannot be grateful for anything unless I am.
For my mother. My mother is an impressive woman. So impressive, in fact, that she gave me a very skewed view of reality. I was born a week late but it was an “easy” labor and a nice healthy big baby. I knew that my mother was unusual in her confidence giving birth at home, but it was only in the past few years that I learned that normal women were terrified of the idea of babies weighing 10+lbs.