[MUSIC] As we examine animals in sports, entertainment and education, I want to point out that although we can think about these topics separately, they often intersect in practice. For example, as we discuss animals in sport, you'll see that sport is rarely just about the competition. It usually has spectators, so it hasn't entertainment aspect. Moreover, the educational value of sports is always been promoted, especially team sports which were long claimed to make boys into men and build character. This overlap with entertainment and education highlights the social significance of sport. Humans have involved animals in sport for thousands of years. The public spectacles in ancient Rome are some of the best known. These often involve exotic animals captured throughout the Roman Empire and wild animals captured in rural areas. In Rome, these animals shows involved displays of combat, resulting in animal slaughter. They are known as blood sports, which the sociologist Linda Kalov defines as combative sporting rituals that involve animals being killed or hurt to make the people watching or taking part feel excitement. As this definition states, understanding why people engage in animal sports requires considering the role of violence in modern societies. The connection between sport and violence might not be immediately clear, but it will be by the end of this lesson. To be sure, not all sport involving animals ends in slaughter. So let's clarify what we're talking about when we talk about animal sport. In one category, we can think about sports that pit animals against other animals, such as dog fighting, cockfighting, dog racing and also baiting which is illegal in this country, but still takes place in other countries. It's where one animal is tide up and others are sent into attack that animal. Bears were often used as the bait animal with dogs set up on them. In another category, we have contests involving human versus animal, such as both fighting, alligator wrestling and many of the events in rodeos, such as steer wrestling, bullriding and bronc riding. This category also includes sport hunting and fishing. Finally, we include human animal teams, such as dog sledding, horse racing. Some rodeo events, such as barrel racing and cutting were a rider and horse separate or cut a cow from a herd. An equestrian events, such as show jumping and ruszaj. Now that we've seen how we involve animals in sport, let's consider why we involve them. Here I'll introduce the term the civilizing process. The term was introduced by the sociologist Norbert Elias. He used it to trace the many social changes that had to take place to bring European societies out of the Middle Ages and into Maderna T. The subtitle of his book is the History of Manners and State Formation Civilization. So that gives you an idea of the scope. The argument holds that is societies modernize. Violence increasingly becomes unacceptable in every day life. As maternity brought people from increasingly varied backgrounds into contact with one another, their economic and other interactions required rationality, steadiness and predictability. This doesn't mean that violence ended altogether. And without going on a tangent, I'll say that Elias pointed out that this required that the state had a monopoly on the use of violence. But overall, social norms encourage people to control extreme emotions and curtail the use of violence. As part of this trend, there was growing opposition to blood sport of all kinds, especially among the upper class and those who aspired to that status. According to this argument, people still need a way to let off steam as the expression goes. I need acceptable means through which to express their negative emotions, such as anger and aggression. People thought outlets in leisure activities. This explains the role of sport in society. Think of the emotions associated with a football game where the talk is to kill, destroy or crushed the opposing team. That team is thought of as the enemy in a way. You can see how sport is mimetic. Meaning, it imitates or represents something else. The something else is combat. In sport, a team stands in for a city or group and it engages in war-like competition in which our team is going to symbolically kill your team. The spectators feel the excitement, anxiety and other emotions associated with violence and the participants engage in it in an established setting with rules governing it. This is the sense in which sport deroutinize is every day life. It serves as an arena in which the tensions and frustrations experienced in other areas of life are worked out temporarily, if not resolved altogether. From this perspective, sport is institutionalized violence. Because not everyone is interested in engaging in or being the target of violence, we have often used animals to stand in for us. We use them to engage in killing by proxy. One example of this is found in foxhunting. Originally, the fox was brutally killed by the human hunters. Gradually, that task was given to the dogs while the people vicariously enjoyed the violence. Dog fighting anc cockfighting are also examples. The dogs are the birds stand in for individuals, nearly always men. Dog fights are a significant part of today's gang culture. Fighting dogs represent the gangs and the leaders social status. The enduring need for excitement, even in the form of violence and the need to find means to express it explains why animal sport exists. This brings us back to Kalov's s definition of blood sport as combat sporting rituals that involve animals being killed or hurt to make the people watching, or taking part feel excitement. Of course, not all animals sports involve intentionally killing or hurting them. This certainly isn't the intention in horse shows, for example, or canine agility competitions and cutting and barrel racing. At the start of this lesson, I said that the categories will discuss will overlap. That certainly the case here. A sport overlaps with entertainment. People find animals entertaining and spectators enjoy watching animals compete. Animal sport may not appeal to you, but it still appeals to a lot of people around the world and that's why we need to understand it.
