Cockfighting

It came as no surprise to learn that men love playing with their cocks. This follows the lecture about Clifford Geertz – Notes on the Balinese Cockfight (1962). Geertz understanding of cockfighting, after having spent time as part of a Balinese community, was that cockfighting was a way for men to channel their aggression and hatred away from each other as the violence is focused into the ring and absorbed in the fight. The ambivalence of cockfighting for the Balinese men means that by identifying with their cocks they are not only identifying with the cock's strength and fighting spirit, but they are also identifying with that which they are most repulsed by; the animal itself. The cockfighting allows the Balinese men to gain respect, honour and status but without accumulation or permanence which prevents violence extending beyond the ring. As such, cockfighting could be viewed as a ritualised form of controlled violence.

Emma Johnson.