Dog Fighting, Cockfighting & Videos

What is going on with the recent revelations about rings of organized groups of animal cruelty? Is this just a media-generated awareness of long-standing behaviors, or is this a growing phenomenon?

Blood sports have always been a part of human, well, mostly male, interests. From the bull dancing in ancient Crete to the bullfights in Spain, men have danced with death to prove their manhood and entertain the masses.

The use of surrogates, of animals, to represent the masculine was a way to remove some personal peril from the sport. Then to add gambling was to put up something of value, besides one’s life. All sports are, in some ways, projection of ego—whether as a participant or a fan(atic).

Pit bulls, like guns, have become a fashion accessory, a symbol as testosterone driven as a gun, an automatic or a little red sports car—depending on the owner’s age and socio-economic demographic.

Can there be much doubt that fashion is transmitted through what passes for popular culture and that the violent videogames, movies and music videos—featuring pain, injury, threat and destruction—move the masses? How can we pass hours playing and viewing graphic violence without being influenced? To believe that these constant depictions of violence do not change us and both excite and desensitize us, is to throw away the basic premise of our economy which is built on advertising and the well-tested belief that what people see influences their choices in matters of life-style, consumption and desire. What we are seeing has a terrible effect on our children, our pets and our society.