Dissin' the Slyths (was: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil)

[marinafrants]

No: HPFGUIDX 38385

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "dicentra63" <dicentra at x> wrote:

> Which means that what you object to is NOT that the poor ickle
Slyths
> got their feelings hurt but that Dumbledore was pouring gasoline on
> the flames. 

Exactly!

> 
> Should Dumbledore have tempered his presentation to prevent
alienating
> the Slyths?  Imagine if before the banquet McGonagall brought up the
> very same point you've brought up. (She's very well might have.) 
What
> would Dumbledore's answer have been?  I have to imagine that he'd
> refuse to alter his plans on the grounds that some DE's-in-training
> might get pissed off.  I don't know that he sees these kids as
> redeemable, or that it's his job to intervene.  He seems more
> interested in training folks for his own team than preventing kids
> from becoming Voldemort's minions.

Ug.  I'd much rather believe that Dumbledore got carried away with his
sense of whimsy and made a one-time error in judgement than believe
that he has written off one quarter of his student population as not
worth the effort.  Even putting aside any moral and ethical
considerations, I think that such a course of action would be
strategically stupid.

> Judy said to Pippin, while I was writing this (slow down you guys!):

Actually, that was me.  I just can't shut up today. :-)

> "Reaching the Slytherins is a difficult task. I think everyone here
> would pretty much agree that the Slyths need to learn that Muggles
and
> Muggle-borns deserve as much respect as Purebloods. But I don't
think
> that can happen unless they also learn that respect is not a
zero-sum
> game where you have to take it away from one group in order to give
it
> to another. Until they get that, it will do no good to demonstrate
> how wonderful Muggle-borns are -- it'll only make the Slytherins
> switch from "Mudbloods don't deserve respect" to "I don't care if
> Mudbloods deserve respect, they're not taking any of mine."
> 
> Is it possible that they really can't learn this from Dumbledore?

If he can't teach them that, he can at least refrain from teaching
them opposite.
 
> Does he recognize that their upbringing far outweighs anything he
can
> do?  We certainly aren't looking at an educational model like the
one
> in the U.S., which expects teachers to be responsible for their
> students' psychological health.

Weren't you arguing earlier that the reason Dumbledore awarded points
to HRH and Neville at the feast was for the improvement of *their*
psychological health?  Or was that someone else in this thread?  There
are so many people disagreeing with me, I'm losing track. :-)

In any case, I'm not talking about the students' psychological health,
but about their moral development.  And I would think that at a
boarding school that would be more of a concern, not less.  For 3/4 of
the year, the only adult guidance the students get comes from the
teachers.


> Dicentra counters:
> I can't see this as prejudice or discrimination. Slytherins have
fully
> earned their reputations: the other houses don't dislike them
because
> of their heritage or any other arbitrary quality for which the
Slyths
> aren't responsible. They're disliked for the way in which they treat
> other houses. 

How much of a bad reputation can an eleven-year-old child "deserve" on
the very first day they start school?  Yet the Slytherins are disliked
from the moment they're sorted (witness Fred and George hissing
Malcolm Baddock at the Sorting in GoF -- what did the kid ever do to
them?)  Children have a way of living up -- or down -- to
expectations.  If everyone from Dumbledore on down believes that the
Slytherins are destined to grow up to be slime and there's no point in
even attempting to stop it, well, then most of them will indeed grow
up to be slime.  Even those who might've been salvageable at the
start.

> can't see "house bigotry" becoming an issue and then having speech
> codes imposed on the students so as to make sure the Slyths don't
have
> to live in a "threatening" or "oppressive" environment.  The
authority
> figures in the Potterverse don't tend to intervene in such
> touchy-feely, quintiscentially American concerns.

I don't recall that anyone, American or not, has advocated "speech
codes" or a "touchy-feely" approach.  Touchy-feely guidance wouldn't
work with the Slytherins anyhow.  But it *is* possible to teach kids
to be fair and unprejudiced without making everyone hold hands in a
circle and sing "Kumbaya."  Even people who aren't incredibly wise
150-year-old wizards have been known to successfully do it.  So I
think Dumbledore should at least give it a try.

Marina
rusalka at ix.netcom.com