Comparing "house-elfment" to slavery (Part 2)

[ladjables]

No: HPFGUIDX 39279

In this post I'd like to address freedom and
oppression, and how slavery and house-elfment may
share a similar understanding of both.  I can't
promise I won't meander though.

Let's say oppression is a process that leads to
menticide.  First you are physically restricted, then
you are pressured to accept these restrictions, and
finally you are no longer aware of being controlled. 
Reinforced over generations, there would be no
awareness of freedom.  Suddenly you are told you are
free.  Doesn't it make sense to say you don't want it,
since you don't know what it is?   

Psychological oppression makes the house-elves'
resistance to change unsurprising, as opposed to being
concrete evidence that elves need to serve and should
be left alone.  I happen to prefer this version of the
house-elf story, because it means that the house-elf
issue may never be fully resolved.  
    
Ending oppression is difficult when no such concept 
exists in the minds of the totally subservient, and
they may actually defend their lifestyle.  How do you
help someone who does not believe he is oppressed? 
Many listers have stated that the problem with
comparing house-elfment to slavery is that seeing
freedom as disgraceful is unknown in human society. 
This is untrue.

The many slave rebellions thwarted by domestic slaves
who, comfortable in their positions, frequently warned
their masters of such plots to overthrow the
plantocracy, attest to the fact that freedom, once
seen as eviction, expulsion and exile, is distasteful
to some.  Dave also gives a very nice example of the
women who opposed the Suffragettes.  Henceforth, I am
referrring to these women as house-wives.  

Why does collusion with the oppressor plague and
undermine many a struggle?  The problem is the same
for the house slave, the house-elf, and the
house-wife: freedom is perceived as negative, because
it is unfamiliar.  It requires change.  The
house-slave, unlike the field-slave, or the newly
arrived slave from Africa, had no remembrance of what
it was like to be free, born and raised to serve only
in the estate house.  Therefore, loyalty to the master
and his family superceded loyalty to his fellow
slaves.  

Phillip Pettit defines freedom as non-domination, as
non-interference and as self-mastery.  Freedom as
non-domination subsumes non-interference and autonomy.
 Those who are subject to the arbitrary will of
another are unfree, even when that other does not
*actively* interfere, because the capacity to
interefere on an arbitrary basis still exists, and the
master remains a source of domination.  Freedom
requires the absence of dependency upon the will of
another, and the absence of vulnerability to
interference, and a slave is one who is held as
property, submissive under domination and who has
often lost the will to resist. 

I've said Winky personifies the truly oppressed
because:  
>Winky has been freed, but until she can wrap her
>mind around the concept, she may as well be working
>for Barty Crouch.

In other words, she is totally dependent on the
Crouches for her very identity, because she had never
done anything else but serve them.  Look at the way
Winky was dismissed by Crouch Sr.  Could he have been
any more menacing?  He knew by giving Winky clothes he
was taking away her life, so to speak.  Of course
Winky believes her world has fallen apart.  

Winky tells Hermione "Winky is a disgraced elf, but
Winky is not yet getting paid...Winky is not sunk so
low as that!  Winky is properly ashamed of being
freed." (GoF, US Edition, p.379)  Dobby explains that
Winky is "allowed to speak her mind now, but she won't
do it."(p.380)  Whether Winky despises freedom from
servitude or freedom from her home, of freedom from
the Crouches doesn't matter; Winky just can't accept
freedom.  She thinks its wrong, because she equates it
with not being able to serve.  I'm torn between
comforting her and whacking her with my rubber
spatula.

Winky won't even take up for Dobby, a fellow
house-elf, when he talks of how happy he is to be free
from the Malfoys, who were "bad wizards".  Instead,
she is disparaging.  As far as she is concerned, Dobby
should be back at the Malfoys, being a good house-elf,
practicing ultimate deference, because what is Dobby's
welfare compared to wizard well-being?  Is the
house-elf a house-wife or a house-slave?  

On the other hand, I said:
> Dobby is our freedom-fighter; he embodies the most
> admirable traits one can develop when subjected to a
> situation that is infra dig.  He chooses not to 
> accept his position.


Dobby, before Lucius Malfoy inadvertently tossed him
the sock, resisted the bonds of his servitude in going
to Harry and helping him.  He even implicates his
master in the whole diary fiasco, before he was
actually freed, punishing himself in the process. 
Dobby struggles, he mentally resists, and eventually
is set free.  A "good" house-elf would never do such a
thing; witness Winky.  Dobby has yet to overcome
enslavement completely, but how his mindset changes in
future books will be interesting characterwise. 
Freedom is not simply a change in legal status; what
if it is a natural state that the house-elves were
deprived of, and Dobby managed to tap into it?  

The house-elf's position is hereditary (as was the
slave's). Winky talks of her ancestors serving the
Crouch family for generations (GoF, 381).  When did
Winky and others ever get to choose, if at birth
they're destined to serve?  Serving is the only life
they've ever known.  How would they know what they're
truly capable of, if stepping outside the iron
confines of house-elfment is expressly forbidden?  Of
course they like it, they haven't been exposed to
anything else.  Yet the elves have very powerful
magic.  Was there ever a time when the elves were
allowed to control their own magic?

It has been suggested that house-elves need to be
linked to a certain place and become attached to their
masters.   Suppose house-elves were actually a burden
to these masters as incompetent servants, do you think
anyone would be even remotely interested in preserving
current elf status?  I doubt they would be as
"compassionate".  Those bothersome servants would be
released in a jiffy, with nary a thought as to their
well-being.  IMO, the present relationship between
house-elf and master most definitely benefits the
master.  Whether it benefits house-elves remains to be
seen.  It is possible that whatever magical contract
may be binding the house-elves is outdated and needs
revising.  I do wonder however, what house-elfment
says about the wizards, natural servitude or not. 
 
That house-elves are another species seems to be a
major stumbling block in considering their situation
to be similar to slavery as well.  While there's no
reason to assume they're like humans, there is also no
reason to assume the opposite.  Because they are
sentient, they have a lot in common with wizards. 
They think, speak, and have feelings.  They are not
invulnerable to pain, they feel loss and grief, shame
and joy, like humans do.  I think they make such good
servants because they are able to understand wizard
mentality very well, and it would take a comparitively
sophisticated mind to keep secrets for the families. 
And their magic makes them powerful beings.  They are
servants not because they are simple, but because they
are very capable.  And if they're so capable, why are
they servants?  Because they are naturally caring
beings?  Because they were evil and needed to be
controlled?  Because they are being taken advantage
of?

What if house-elves prefer the present arrangement
because they don't know it can be improved?  I don't
believe the elfs are in a position to make an informed
choice.  This is why I disagree with Hermione's
approach to the house-elves, even though she means
well.  She cannot force the elves to change when they
view freedom as taboo, and not theirs by right. 
Hermione's stratagem is lacking because wizards bear
responsibility also for the treatment of the
house-elves.  

Amanda said:
>What if you ultimately end up with a batch of elves,
>whose nature inclines them to servitude, and
>brainwash them to believe they like freedom? That is
>as morally wrong as the reverse, brainwashing them
>out of free will to like their servitude. When do you
>start letting another being make its own decisions,
>and when do you insist on interfering for its own
>good? I think it is this very conundrum that JKR is
>seeking to illustrate, more than anything else.

But how can the elves make their own decisions if
they've been bred to be submissive?  You omitted that
part of the argument.  Now, I'm goggling at  your
"brainwashing into freedom" argument.   Fetching as it
is, what basis does this have in reality?  Is this
exempified anywhere in our society?  How is someone
forced into freedom, unless they were brainwashed in
the first place to reject it?  I don't see how freedom
can ever be morally wrong, and can't fathom why anyone
waste the time trying to prove this, especially in HP.
 HP may be fantasy, but as Lloyd Alexander put it,
fantasy is not so much an escape from reality as it is
an explanation of reality.

Even if canon states that house-elves are by nature
servants, I still don't see why this should rule out
change.  Whatever happened to "its our choices and not
our abilities that define us", or does that just apply
to humans and not house-elves?!  Or say the original
house-elves were evil, does this mean their offspring
should be punished for the sins of their ancestors?   


I find it very difficult to believe that Lupin's
lycanthropy could inspire comparisons to homophobia
and AIDS, that Hagrid's being part-giant is an
opportunity to denounce racial prejudice, but when we
get to the house-elves, JKR *just* stops short of
social commentary.  If the house-elves are oppressed,
then JKR has initiated a compelling and daring
discussion on the nature of oppression-who oppresses
whom?  And how do you convince exploiters and
exploited alike they're in need of an attitude lift,
without being patronizing and ultimately ineffectual? 


We have Hagrid, the twins, Percy, Ron et al, who have
grown up in the WW, and are decent, kindhearted
people, but see the preternaturally cheerful, servile
house-elfs as nothing out of the ordinary.  Could JKR
be saying even the most well-meaning people remain
unaware of injustice around them when they see through
the veil of convention?  In other words, if a
structure of oppression provides the framework for
wizarding society (as slavery did for the plantation
economy) because it is reflective of wizard
consciousness, how would they know to object?  Are
they not like the house-elves in this sense,
mindlessly maintaining the status quo?

Then we have Hermione, a muggle-born witch and
outsider, who IS aware and compassionate, but whose
approach is questionable and may be ultimately
harmful.  In the middle we have the house-elves, who
are born into the position and will not choose what is
alien to them.  So, to help or not to help?

The house-elf issue demonstrates that the struggle for
freedom is just that, a struggle, because it is often
difficult to fight oppression.  Otherwise, it seems to
me the story isn't, as Cindy would say, Bangy enough. 
I haven't tried to formulate a theory that
house-elfment *is* slavery, because there is no need.
Perhaps JKR drew elements from slavery, indentureship,
immigrant issues, sexism, social reform, folklore and
this synthesis produced house-elves.  Who's to say?   

I'm not sure house-elves being another species even
matters.  I think elfundeb stated that there's no
reason one's reading of the house-elves should be
limited to this one interpretation.  JKR did not have
to make it glaringly obvious by having, say, black
wizards serve white wizards to make her point. 
Perhaps she wanted to be more subtle, to see if we
would still be able to recognize such a sly
incarnation of oppression.  I know of many people who
have read the many species in the WW as analogous to
the different races in our own world.  

If Harry Potter is indeed about good and evil, then
oppression and prejudice easily fall under the "bad"
list.  Purity of blood is important to Lucius Malfoy,
Voldemort and Salazar Slytherin.  Seeing social reform
as limited does not mean oppression should be
tolerated, or that it does not exist.  Perhaps reform
is limited because it fails to recognize and address
the covert nature of subjugation, especially if
oppression is deeply ingrained in society, and its
eradication threatens the stability of that very
society.  That, IMHO, is a much more fascinating and
pertinent story.

I keep thinking of Dumbledore's distinction between
what is right and what is easy.  Perhaps accepting the
limits of social reform would not be easy, and the
right thing to do, but what about challenging the
house-elf system and initiating substantial,
structural change?  The abolition of slavery ruined
the plantocracy, and destroyed the plantation economy.
 Was the social upheaval worth it?  The planters would
think not, and that would be honest, and fair.  I
could see why no-one in the WW would want to change,
especially as house-elf labour has existed for
centuries.  But change cannot be prevented.  I have a
feeling Voldemort will be a catalyst of sorts for
social change, so it'll be interesting to see if the
house-elves cling fatally to tradition or use the
opportunity to show their mettle.    
Ama, all speculated out. 

















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