They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
In 1969, at the end of what seemed like a very long decade that began with great optimism and economic strength, the world was drifting into what would become the era of the stagflation of the 1970’s. We had shaken off all of our dreams of the pie-eyed sixties with Woodstock and the Apollo 11 moon landing. We were the racing dog that had caught the mechanical rabbit. We stood there as a people in a quandary about what was next, and meanwhile the economy was slowing to a deadly stall. That was also when Sydney Pollack decided to make his depression-era movie starring Jane Fonda called They Shoot Horses Don’t They. It’s the story of a sordid spectacle held in some Jersey shore boardwalk town that pits couples against one another in a test of physical endurance that is part dance-marathon and part tag-team race. The stories are those of desperate people who need the prize money ($1,500 in silver dollars) as offered by the host, Gig Young. It’s a sad story of human travail and makes Grapes of Wrath look uplifting in comparison.
The world moves in cycles as we all know. Times are good, times are bad and times are transitory. I would argue that the most interesting stories are those that happen in the interstitial moments as the world shifts gears and drifts for a moment of uncertainty. Human horse races with silver prizes are just such transitory moments. The competitors in this contest embody all the woes and hopes of mankind. I find many analogies to this contest and this time in the situations around us today. Is it meaningful that it’s exactly fifty years since that movie was made? Not really, but I do find occasional and strangely eerie similarities between things that happen at the start of decades versus the end of decades. In my lifetime I find meaning and similarities in 1969, 1979, 1989, 1999, 2009 and now 2019. I may well be overthinking all of this, but when I think about those years I see lots and lots of end of day’s circumstances that are very different from decade to decade, but are very similar in generic terms. Certainly, for me personally, there was always portend for change in those decade turnover times. As I think about it, there was also a heightened sense of risk associated with those times. That may be too redundant in that most will say that change equals risk, but I still find it important.
The world is full of horses. I feel on many days that I am nothing if not a workhorse. That isn’t a bad thing. I think of workhorses as honorable beasts. They plow forward without complaint and they understand their circumstances and stand silently with little more than an occasional shiver. We observe workhorses as timid and dumb beasts and while I don’t consider myself dumb or timid, there are things in life that I just accept as given. Work is a given and it embodies some suffering, but mostly honor. Fatalism is also part of my make-up, less in a depressing way and more in a calming way. Every time I have faced a bad moment, I have tended to accept it and not railed at the moon about life not being fair. To me, fairness is a function of the opportunities you make or at least seize for yourself. I think that makes me more horse-like than not.
I’m not a veterinarian, but I believe horses are most often shot because they have broken or injured a leg. One look at a horse explains why they are swift creatures with their long legs that hold up relatively large bodies. What is less obvious is that horses’ hooves are a key part of their anatomy in that they are not only the weight-bearing protective element of a horse’s foot but they are also critical for the horse’s blood circulation. It is generally thought that if I horse has a bad break in its leg or legs and that it is not likely to be able to stand and must be off its feet for a prolonged period, the hoof degeneration that is likely to occur will lead to the horse’s loss of life in an unpleasant and prolonged manner. This is what causes merciful horse owners to choose to shoot their horse rather than leave it to suffer.
Our ethics cause us to differentiate in the issues of life and death of humans and animals. No one is suggesting that humans with broken legs or worse injuries should be shot. I realize that some animal lovers believe that animals (especially pets) have souls and I will not debate that issue here, but since I strongly believe that human beings have souls (or should have if they are not Donald Trump or most Congressional Republicans), the soul of a paraplegic is no less valuable than the soul of a fully-functioning person. Unless the person is legally and medically brain dead or on the verge of death (a tricky definition to say the least), I would argue that they deserve to be preserved for the value they can conjure in the minds and souls. The issue of euthanasia is a challenging one. If a person is so debilitated in body or mind that they can willfully opt to end their earthly existence, all religious issues aside, they should have the ability to make that choice. Free will is the essence of human existence.
The challenging aspect that comes next is the horse-shooting one. A horse has no cognitive ability to know that it should be put down. Some might suggest that they can see this in the animal’s eyes. I sense there is a great deal of transference going on with that. In the movie Spy Games, Robert Redford relates a story of his uncle who said “Why would I ask someone to kill a horse that belonged to me?” The view is that the owner of the horse that knows the horse best should have the best vested interest in what is best for the horse. We shoot horses when it is best for the horse and the horse has neither the physical ability to do the deed nor the cerebral capacity to understand more than what its cortex is telling it to do to survive. This is the example that this piece wants to explore, less for individual humans and more for human endeavors.
Ecclesiastes 3 tells us:
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time for war and a time for peace.
The hard part is the knowing of exactly which time it is and the strength and conviction to follow through in the doing or the undoing. Endeavors do not have sad eyes to stare up at you. They do not have broad smiles to signal their strength. It remains the responsibility and the moral obligation of those involved to have both the judgement and fortitude to go forward or put a bullet in their own horse.