[HPforGrownups] Re: House Elves: Enslaved by Mind?

[Lorelei Laird]

No: HPFGUIDX 30849

I hate to make my second post to the list slightly off-topic, so if this
gets into an abstract rights discussion, please email me privately. :}

On Wed, 5 Dec 2001, Cindy C. wrote:

> What do we have, then?  Perhaps we don't really have slavery at all
> because the house elves are there voluntarily.  Well, sort of.  If
> the masters know that there is no magic binding the slave, and the
> masters know that the slave could leave if the master would
> just "suggest" it (in the form of clothes), does the master have the
> duty to liberate the house elves?  In a different (and totally
> hypothetical <bg>) context, imagine that I am working at a job that
> pays very little (or far less than I'm worth) because I believe I
> don't have any choice.  Does my employer have a duty to educate me?
> I'm not sure.

Of course your employer has a duty to educate you. Not legally,
necessarily, but ethically. Otherwise, you are being exploited -- kept in
ignorance on purpose so the employer can cheat you with your consent.
There are probably all sorts of historical parallels to this.
In any case, the situation Jenny proposes is slightly different in that it
would be a wide-scale deception practiced by all of wizarding society, not
just a few corrupt employers. It's also a little different because even if
the master "suggests" that the slave leave by giving him/her clothes, the
slave has been taught to abhor the idea of leaving -- which is
psychological slavery, if you will.

That said, I'd like to think that JKR's wizards (and people in general)
aren't quite that evil.

-L