Nel Question #10: Elitism (Was Nel #10: Class)

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 41673

Gulplum/Richard (which do you prefer?) wrote:
 
> I am perhaps splitting hairs, but I don't see the books' epicentre 
> as being "elitism" per se, but prejudice. 

No, I don't see the books' epicenter as elitism either.  Perhaps I 
didn't make myself clear.  I see questions of elitism as being at the 
epicenter not of the books themselves, but of reader *discontent* 
with the books.  

In other words, when readers who otherwise appreciate the series 
express dissatisfaction, anxiety or ambivalence about either the 
books themselves or their own enjoyment of them, it seems to me that 
the vast majority of the time, the source of this unease centers in 
some way around the core concept of elitism.  Choice vs. Blood, for 
example.  The role of House Slytherin.  Or the more strictly class-
based discomfort that both Iyer and Adams expressed in their 
respective articles.  

But since we're here, let's talk a bit about elitism, shall we?

Gulplum said:

> Elitism is all about hierarchical structure and one's place in it. 

Yes, but the term allows for a far greater range of conceptions of 
that hierarchical structure than, say, classism or racism do.  The 
very notion of "meritocracy," for example, is itself a profoundly 
elitist construct.  

I would say that at its core, elitism is the idea that some people 
are just intrinsically *better* than others, not merely talented in 
some particular arena, but "superior" in a more generalized sense: 
more deserving, more worthy, more virtuous.  The particular skill, 
talent, virtue, or accident of fate that one chooses to enshrine as 
the criteria for membership in the "Elite" may vary, but the 
fundamental dynamic remains the same.  

Porphyria invited discussion on this issue in her framing of Dr. 
Nel's Question Number Ten, when she expanded on his original 
questions about class to include questions about other forms of 
elitism as well.  She asked:

> 4. Is Harry a member of the elite, even among Wizards? In which 
> ways is he privileged by birth, inheritance, exceptional 'natural' 
> talent or special treatment from powerful benefactors?

Gulplum suggested:

> ...he is very much of the "elite" in the sense that he is 
> considered powerful for reasons he himself does not understand, as 
> The Boy Who Lived. He is the "elite" in that his parents were 
> independently wealthy. He is the "elite" because he has found a 
> place at the best School of Wizardry in the world. He is 
> the "elite" because he is the protegé of the acknowledged single 
> most powerful wizard in the world. 

He is the "elite" because until Book Four, he enjoyed a direct 
mystical protection against Evil which had nothing to do with any of 
his own choices, but rather, with his mother's sacrifice.  (And even 
this is suspect: as many on the list have pointed out, surely other 
mothers have given their lives for their children without any such 
result?)  

He is the "elite" because people in authority continually make 
exceptions for him.  He is not only allowed to own a broom as a First 
Year student, but one is even *purchased* for him -- even though he 
has plenty of money of his own.  Dumbledore reopens a competition 
which is understood to be closed and concluded for him at the end of 
Book One, and reneges on his threat to expell him for any further 
violations of the school rules in Book Two.  Lupin rescues him from 
the consequences of his violation of the school rules in Book Three.  
Throughout the series, various adult mentors shower him with gifts 
both material (the invisibility cloak, both the Nimbus and the 
Firebolt) and educational (special instruction from Lupin).

He is the "elite" because he has a number of unusual talents -- his 
flying ability, his resistance to the Imperius Curse -- which benefit 
him, but which he has in no way truly "earned."  

He is the "elite" because in spite of an upbringing which ought to 
have left him socially crippled, he is nonetheless gifted with an 
innate talent for adhering to social mores.

Yes.  Harry is of the "elite."  In fact, given that he also seems to 
possess an instinct for moral virtue, one might even go so far as to 
say that he is of the *Elect.*  

There often seems to me to be a tinge, or even more than a tinge, of 
Calvinism to the Potterverse.  The text tells us that choice is 
paramount, but the world that it depicts often seems to be one in 
which strong forces of predestination are at work.  We would like to 
believe that Harry is blessed because he is virtuous.  But it is 
often difficult to avoid the feeling that it may work the other way 
around, that Harry is virtuous because he is blessed. 


Gulplum wrote:

> At the same time, he is anything but of the social elite. 

In the world of the Dursleys?  No.  No, he isn't.  But doesn't that 
very fact serve in many ways merely to accentuate and to highlight 
his status as the True Elite, or even perhaps of the Elect?  Many of 
the ways by which Harry comes by the comfortable social standing that 
he enjoys at Hogwarts seem so very *improbable* for someone with his 
background to have managed that to my mind it far more enhances that 
impression of his membership among the Elect that it does to undercut 
it.

> He is an orphan, has spent his young years in drudgery (whilst 
> witnessing a world of plenty on a daily basis). 

Not only that, but he has, or *should* have been, at any rate, 
crippled in his social development.  His cousin prevented him from 
making any friends at school, and his guardians restricted his social 
interactions at home.  He grew up locked in a cupboard.

And yet, he displays none of the results one might expect from such 
an upbringing. Once liberated from the artificially-imposed social 
handicaps the Dursleys inflicted upon him, he is proved to be 
surprisingly socially adept.  He knows how to relate to others as if 
by some sort of innate social *instinct.*  Hagrid responds favorably 
to him not only because he is "the Famous Harry Potter," but also 
because he is a polite and personable child.  Molly Weasley will 
later have the same impression of him.  Draco's initial reaction to 
Harry in Madame Malkin's is a "testing encounter": Draco does not 
immediately identify him as bulliable, nor can he even positively 
identify his social standing.  On the Hogwarts Express, Harry knows 
instinctively how to make Ron feel more comfortable about his 
poverty, and he interprets Hermione's behavior in the normative 
fashion for an eleven year old boy (ie, he thinks she's bossy).  
He can correctly identify social codes and can distinguish the 
socially normal (Ron) from the socially vulnerable (Hermione, 
Neville).  These are all remarkable abilities for a boy with Harry's 
upbringing to possess.

Of course, we all understand that this is largely just the convention 
of fairy tale.  The neglected child of myth is *always* polite, 
attractive to strangers, attentive to social mores, and ultimately 
normal.  There are no socially crippled children in fairy tales, and 
no one at the ball ever notices Cinderella's chiblains or her cracked 
and chapped hands.  In the world of the fairy tale, all children 
are "resilient."

And yet this convention sits uneasily with the far more realistic 
approach that the rest of the series takes towards the effects of 
upbringing on social interactions. Characters like Neville, Draco, 
and the various members of the Weasley clan all seem quite believable 
as the products of what we can deduce about their upbringing.
Harry stands out as an exception, and I think that this discrepancy 
does help to foster the impression that he is not merely a nice kid, 
but even somewhat eerily immune from spiritual harm; that he may, in 
fact, enjoy something almost akin to divine Grace.


Gulplum:

> He is small and physically weak, and is constantly bullied. 

He is small, and he was bullied by Dudley and his gang.  But the text 
also really goes out of its way to impress upon us the extent to 
which his social status within the hierarchy of his pre-Hogwarts 
school was an artificial state of affairs, one imposed upon him by 
the Dursleys.  We are told, for example, that Harry has no friends 
because: "Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Harry 
Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked 
to disagree with Dudley's gang." (PS, Ch 2)  Even his broken glasses 
aren't broken because he is uncoordinated or inattentive or clumsy, 
but rather "because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the 
nose."  He's not even really all that physically weak.  In spite of 
his size, he is in fact quite quick and agile -- "Harry didn't look 
it, but he was very fast" -- and just in case we're still 
operating under the misapprehension that Harry may be (God forbid) 
*unathletic,* the text goes out of its way to assure us that although 
he was indeed always picked last for team sports at school, this was 
only because all of the other children were so afraid of Dudley and 
his gang, and not because Harry himself was "no good."

Yeah.  Thanks, Jo.  We were really starting to *worry.*  

<rolls eyes>

Once Harry is away from the Dursleys influence, of course, all this 
changes.  At Hogwarts, he does *not,* in fact, register to other 
children as a natural target for bullying.  Draco initially tries to 
recruit him as an ally, and there are no hints that the other 
students at the Sorting Ceremony or at the opening banquet view him 
as socially vulnerable.  That's *Neville,* not Harry.  When Harry 
comes in for abuse, it is due to envy, not to recognition of his 
social vulnerability.  In terms of the hierarchy of the playground, 
Harry isn't at the bottom of the totem pole at all.  Harry is a 
social normal.


> Before he took up his rightful place (which is only a temporary 
> escape as he must return to his place at the bottom of the ladder 
> each year) he had no prospects at all.

His *rightful place?*

What makes us identify Harry's relatively high status at Hogwarts as 
his *rightful* place?  Isn't it every bit as accidental, every bit as 
arbitrary, every bit as much a twist of fate, as his victimization at 
the hands of the Dursleys?  

He holds high status at Hogwarts because his parents were famous and 
well-liked, because he possesses a heritable atheletic skill, because 
he conforms well enough to social norms not to register to other 
children as a victim, because he is possessed of a number of 
mysterious inborn talents, and because he defeated an evil wizard at 
the age of one -- an event which he cannot even remember clearly and 
which had absolutely nothing to do with his own volition.

The only way in which this is "rightful" is that we recognize that 
Harry is truly virtuous.  We are therefore pleased to see him enter a 
milieu in which he enjoys higher social status.  But the *reasons* 
for that rise in social status don't really have very much to do with 
his virtue at all.  They have to do with circumstances which are for 
the most part every bit as much beyond his control as the 
circumstances which led him to occupy a degraded social position 
while living with the Dursleys.


> The fact of the matter is that social inequalities exist and there 
> is no way they can be abolished. The best we can do is to help to 
> blur the lines, to make climbing the ladder easier for those who 
> deserve it. The Durselys most definitely do not.

I tend to view this as the great fallacy of "meritocracy," the idea 
that it has anything to do with "merit" in the sense of moral virtue 
at all.  I assume that by saying that the Dursleys do not "deserve" 
their social status, you mean that they don't deserve it because 
they are nasty and selfish, because they lack a sense of noblesse 
oblige, because they will not use their privilege for the benefit of 
others -- in short, because they are ethically deficient.

That is all quite true.  For all we know, however, Vernon Dursley may 
be a very good *salesman.*  He certainly would seem to be skilled at 
earning money.  And *that* is the skill that the "meritocracy" of the 
system in which he lives privileges, just as the "meritocracy" of 
Hogwarts privileges magical, athletic and academic talent.  

There is no "merit" here, if you mean merit in the sense of moral 
virtue.  In the Potterverse, as in our own, you don't ascend the 
social ladder by virtue of being a decent person.  You ascend the 
social ladder by virtue of possessing whatever innate talents the 
particular system in which you are operating happens to value the 
most highly.  "Meritocracy" has no more to do with moral virtue than 
aristocracy by blood does.

But in Harry, the two do seem to be combined -- perhaps one might 
even say that they are *conflated.*  We really *are,* I think, 
encouraged to read his social standing in the wizarding world as in 
some way his "rightful place," as not merely socially but also 
*ethically* merited.  It is not just "his" by right of a combination 
of inheritance and dumb luck.  It is his by right of a kind of innate 
divine *grace.*  

And I do find that troubling.  It is yet another point on which, 
whenever I contemplate the series, I start to feel the ground 
shifting beneath my feet.



-- Elkins