Tuesday, January 25, 2005
HUNT CELEBRATES LIFE
Hunt celebrates life
Sir: Simon Wilson (letter, 6 January) identifies the deep unconscious connections at the root of hunting. However his further analysis of the motivation for hunting is inadequate. There is no likelihood of a "spectacle of death" - when a kill is made it is rarely made within view of the majority of the followers. The experience is not thrilling but sombre and chastening - "awe inspiring" in the old meaning of those words. It is a necessary outcome of the forces of nature in which we take an integral and active part.
Human development has been founded on an accelerating use of animal and natural resources; yet in our post-modern world we seem less and less able to understand this. Hunting stands as a rebuke to the deracinated and bowdlerised version of our relationship with nature and the animal kingdom, the casual and unthinking use and abuse of animals, nature and our planet. It connects us directly with our responsibilities for participation in life and our actions within nature.
The pleasure in hunting is in following the work of the hounds, the venery, which gives one over to this direct connection with nature. Through the hounds one becomes connected to the quarry, and thus still more deeply into the natural world. That is why drag-hunting is not a substitute for fox-hunting. The unpredictability of the live quarry, the uncertainty of the outcome, the immersion in the living moment in which our own will is made secondary, cannot be recreated by chasing a man-made course.
Fox-hunting is a bizarrely ritualised behavioural form for the management of foxes. But it is not about exterminating an entire pest population; it is about living in an accommodation with the creatures. The hunt is a celebration of life as much as death.
Foxes will still be killed after 18 February - probably in larger numbers if the Scottish experience is anything to go by. All that will change is that freedom of the minority will have been suppressed to appease a sanctimonious, sentimentalised and dishonest view of our relationship with nature.
DAVID DEAR Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire
Sir: Simon Wilson (letter, 6 January) identifies the deep unconscious connections at the root of hunting. However his further analysis of the motivation for hunting is inadequate. There is no likelihood of a "spectacle of death" - when a kill is made it is rarely made within view of the majority of the followers. The experience is not thrilling but sombre and chastening - "awe inspiring" in the old meaning of those words. It is a necessary outcome of the forces of nature in which we take an integral and active part.
Human development has been founded on an accelerating use of animal and natural resources; yet in our post-modern world we seem less and less able to understand this. Hunting stands as a rebuke to the deracinated and bowdlerised version of our relationship with nature and the animal kingdom, the casual and unthinking use and abuse of animals, nature and our planet. It connects us directly with our responsibilities for participation in life and our actions within nature.
The pleasure in hunting is in following the work of the hounds, the venery, which gives one over to this direct connection with nature. Through the hounds one becomes connected to the quarry, and thus still more deeply into the natural world. That is why drag-hunting is not a substitute for fox-hunting. The unpredictability of the live quarry, the uncertainty of the outcome, the immersion in the living moment in which our own will is made secondary, cannot be recreated by chasing a man-made course.
Fox-hunting is a bizarrely ritualised behavioural form for the management of foxes. But it is not about exterminating an entire pest population; it is about living in an accommodation with the creatures. The hunt is a celebration of life as much as death.
Foxes will still be killed after 18 February - probably in larger numbers if the Scottish experience is anything to go by. All that will change is that freedom of the minority will have been suppressed to appease a sanctimonious, sentimentalised and dishonest view of our relationship with nature.
DAVID DEAR Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire
