Slavery and House Elves

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 37580

catlady_de_los_angeles wrote:
> Very recently (that means a couple of thousand posts ago!), there was 
> discussion of whether the House Elves are slaves. Some said they 
> are not slaves because they do not want to be free. Here is something 
> relevant from the latest ish of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN:
>
<snip example of a slave that didn't want to be free>
> 
> The article goes on with much other interesting information, 
> including why a person would put themselves back in slavery (without 
> even getting paid for selling themselves!) and how to rehabilitate 
> freed slaves so that they can survive in freedom.

That was one of the points I tried to get through to my opposition 
during that debate. However, when we got to the point all we were 
saying was "I understand what you're saying but do not agree with it", 
we decided to let it lie, since there was no way to "win" the argument, 
and was sort of starting to look like a child's game of "did too" vs. 
"did not".

In the time that has passed, however, I have thought of a new example 
to explain my point. So, one last time (and hoping I'm not starting a 
flame war with this), let me put an example of why liberating the house 
elves isn't such a good idea:

There is, in human society in RL, a form of slavery that is officially 
approved: tobacco. Some 50% of the "developed world" smokes and (at 
least in my country), it's getting worse (meaning more people are 
smoking, and starting at a younger age). Most smokers I know realize 
that smoking is a drug which they're enslaved to, but nonetheless do 
not want to stop smoking. The people who have stopped normally need 
psicological help to do so. Of course, this is because of the 
pharmacological propierties of tobacco, what's called it's 
addictiveness. I'm not suggesting that being slaves is a drug for house 
elves, but there are some similarities, if you think about it.

What's worse, however, is the fact that in both cases, most of the 
people involved do not want to stop duing it, and if someone suggested, 
for example, "liberating smokers from the vile clutches of 
cigarrettes", that person would be very critiziced (or worse).

I know that the parallelism is not perfect, but it does, IMO, get the 
point across.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf