True, but also we know Aspirin wouldn’t be approved today. And perhaps not the various LASIK methods.

So the “in today’s society” argument doesn’t work because it is evident that grandfathering is good in other cases.

Therefore grandfathering itself can’t be the problem.

I am not connecting the dots between Aspirin or LASIK to injuring animals for pleasure.

Sure. The shape of the argument is “If X were proposed today, it would be considered unacceptable. This is evidence that X is bad. This is evidence that X is only permitted because of grandfathering”.

If you substitute X with anything, the conclusion “This is evidence that X is only permitted because of grandfathering” holds up.

If you substitute X with some things, the conclusion “This is evidence that X is bad” holds up sometimes and not others.

Therefore, we must conclude that the X’s badness comes from elsewhere, not from present society objecting to a proposal for X.

Essentially, the bull run is bad for reasons that arise from animal cruelty not for reasons that arise from society’s refusal of permitting bull runs today.

I object to the argument, not the conclusion.

The obvious subtext however is that the running of the bulls would not be allowed today for moral reasons. That there are other reasons for which something may not be accepted in modern times if suddenly introduced is irrelevant.

The point is that there’s nothing superior about the present. There’s lots of present poor morality.

In fact, there are many things that violate present morality which are nonetheless right.

> In fact, there are many things that violate present morality which are nonetheless right.

Such as?

That lack of constant supervision of children is evidence of bad parenting.

I don’t think “constant supervision” is considered moral by the majority of people.

Most people I know consider it moral to supervise kids in new or dangerous situations.

Parenting from my experience is many shades of grey rather than “right” vs. “wrong”.

The magic is the question of “dangerous”. The spectrum of “dangerous” includes “played in a park by herself at 9 yo” (the Debra Harrell situation). What little survey data we have has people agreeing with that being dangerous. A majority believe 12 to be too young.

When I was 12 I was riding public transport one hour to school and back. My brother was 7. I was there as backup for him but he could do it by himself. And if he got lost, he’d have found his way home by asking local shops for instructions.

My parents would have been “neglectful” by this metric but both he and I loved this freedom. We were both loved and cared for and were top students. They would have been scared if he got lost but it wouldn’t be grounds for revocation of freedom.

My parents were right. I am right. This majority of people who want me to chop my kids off at the knees are wrong.

> My parents were right. I am right. This majority of people who want me to chop my kids off at the knees are wrong.

I’m glad they were the right parents for you.

I’m a parent too, and I wouldn’t be ready to call a parent right or wrong based on being on either side of those situations.

Every child is different. There are certainly some that thrive with more freedom and others that need more structure and direct participation.

Also, every time and region is different. I’d hope people parent differently in high crime areas vs. low crime areas. And pedestrian friendly / public transportation friendly areas vs. not.

I agree that “dangerous” is a subjective metric, and that’s why morally good parenting feels to me more like a spectrum than an absolute.

I agree with you entirely, but while I would permit them to parent how they desire, they want to constrain me, so the relationship isn't symmetric. I have no problem with other people helicopter-parenting their kids. Just leave me and my family be. But that's not what most Americans want. They want to set the state on people like me.

Operative word being “today”. This is why education teaches you that values and morals change and that judging the past by today’s lens is a poor way to judge.

It also teaches you that what people call psychopathic is mostly just a difference in values.

Yeah, we get that. In context the real question is "why are we still actively participating in traditions that modern society would consider psychopathic?"

Because "modern society" writ large isn't a coherent enough concept to be useful. There may be a dominant element of Spanish society that would prevent bullfighting from being invented today, but that element doesn't either have the strength of belief or actual dominance to stop it.

Plenty of people find it enjoyable/heroic/interesting, so to not include those people within modern society is strange.

Are they truly modern?

I don't know if it's specific to Spain. But Spanish people have a problematic relationship with "culture".

"Culture" has this double definition of, on one side, "customs", and in the other as basically a synonym for "art". With extra points for "art" being this abstract thing nobody knows what exactly is, but everybody agrees that -whatever it is- it's "good".

So in Spain there is this national sport in which you take something, no matter how horrible, try to include it in the definition of "culture" and... since "culture is good" -> "thing is good".

Bulls? Yes, I hear you, you are making great logical arguments but... they are "culture" (purposely being ambiguous about whether you refer to "traditional Spanish custom" or "form of art"). And that's it, that's the end of the argument: Bulls == culture == good. Whatever you say, the answer will be "culture". And you are not going to argue culture is bad, are you?

And it's not only bulls. You can use it with whatever you want to support, and somehow in Spain it works quite well!

> And you are not going to argue culture is bad, are you?

This is where it falls apart imo. Of course some aspects of various cultures are bad.

Fall apart? The whole thing relies on being inconsistent! It's basically the most popular Spanish form of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense.

They may have relied on "traditional custom" to get here. But they are using "art" when asking "Are you saying culture is bad?". Forget logic, any complaint to bulls is now obviously coming from uneducated idiots. Any "cultured" person will surely agree that culture is good and ergo bulls are good.

What I'm saying is that, at least in Spain, it's common practice to overextend ANY meaning of "culture" to then use the "art" meaning as a joker card in any argument. It's used in bar conversation, and it's used in the Parliament.

Modern society doesn't care and supports them massively in fact, because they are useful.

All those traditions were created with a purpose: Release social pressure and to signal potential desirable partners with the right skill set for the job. A non trivial issue in our societies. When everybody is a farmer, proving that you can manage bulls moves you up in the social ladder.

But San Fermin is not about bulls, is mostly about booze. Olympic pools of booze melting your social barriers and helping you to mix with the people.

For tourists is about commiting faux pass with less social impact. Nobody will tell your grandma that you never seen a single bull and ended the night snoring in a street corner covered in vomit and with a broken bottle in your hands (Or with luck, wake-up next to a stranger in a much more pleasant way).

And because they made lots of new friends, because being "partners in crime" always make people feel closer.

The sweet money from tourism is a nice bonus, of course, but the social aspects would worth it even without it.

Tradition and money.

IMHO order matters: Money first and then tradition. This gets a lot of money to Pamplona and Navarra in general. On the other hand bullfighting is more or less a similar tradition but is not giving money (Local and Regional govern and Private investors is artificially sustaining bullfighting) so is about to disappear.