[HPforGrownups] Somewhat OT--Long ramble on morality (was banality of evil)

[Amanda Lewanski]

No: HPFGUIDX 11707

Amy Z wrote:

> What makes us surrender our will and our morality when there is no
> Imperius Curse in our world?

This is somewhat off-topic, and somewhat rambling, but I think at the
end it'll be relevant, so bear with me. I had an interesting dream, of
which I at the moment recall nothing, prompting a very unusual morning
conversation with my husband involving cultures that are primarily
honor-based versus cultures that are primarily morality-based.

By this, I mean that shame or honor, in an honor-based culture, is based
on others' perceptions of your actions. If you do something wrong, and
no one catches you, it's fine. The shame is in being caught, in others
finding out. There's a bit of this in things like the Northmen's culture
in Eaters of the Dead, and in oriental books like The Carnal Prayer Mat.

In a morality-based culture, it's the internal opinion that matters,
one's perception of one's actions judged against an absolute scale. Here
is Puritanism, I think, and the sort of extremes of guilt one can find
in some Christian churches (Catholcism does spring to mind, but it's not
alone).

Clearly, all cultures and all individuals are blends of these two,
societal pressure and internal ethical observations. However, my husband
made the observation (because I'd been keeping him up on the
WWII/Holocaust discussions) that Hitler made a creditable stab with the
Hitler Youth of making a completely honor-based system, with no morality
at all. They were molded to be fanatical supporters. I see a bit of this
in the WWII Japanese, as well, with their POWs who simply gave up and
told our side everything, since they lost their honor with their capture
and were already "dead," the kamikaze pilots, etc.

Sooo, how do these viewpoints apply to Voldemort and his Death Eaters,
and the Good Guys? Voldemort doesn't like to let his own have too much
initiative, either, seems like. And there's no shame in denying him when
necessary, or doing whatever needs to be done, so long as the ultimate
perception and end agrees with Voldemort's purposes.

The good side seems to be more morality-based. There's a code of ethics
against which they measure themselves, and their judgements are
internal. They tend to judge their own actions, rather than worry about
how the actions will be judged. One of the things that has made Snape so
interesting to me is that I have a sense that he has a very strict
internal morality--clearly, it doesn't require him to be pleasant or
terribly fair, but I just get the sense that he has a strong ethical
code all his own to which he adheres, and damn anyone else's opinion.
Dumbledore seems to let people have a free rein to make decisions and
learn, without imposing very much external, "what others think" type
honor-based stuff.

Any thoughts? Ideas? I'd never heard this sort of internal/external
discussion, and thought I'd had a wonderful original idea, but doubtless
it's been expounded upon and you Freud types know all about it
(including the correct terms). I thought it was an interesting different
lens through which to look at our beloved characters.

--Amanda


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