[HPforGrownups] Re: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 38489

Pippin:
> 
> But our ability to give ourselves is sorely limited. It's tough to love 
> our neighbors, it's harder to love our enemies, in the Potterverse, 
> as  we see time and again, it's almost impossible to love the 
> stranger.  Love is too narrow to embody goodness for me, at 
> least as we experience it in the Potterverse. Crouch loved his 
> wife, and she loved her son, yet that relationship led them to do 
> evil, because they didn't consider  anyone but themselves. That's 
> where I see "rights" coming in to the Potterverse, because, to 
> me, "rights" defines the relationship between ourselves and the 
> stranger, and Harry is the ultimate stranger. 
> 
> What is it that allows Harry  to give to others beyond his capacity 
> to love? Lily gave her life for Harry because she loved him,  but 
> does Harry love Pettigrew? I don't think so, but he spares him. 
> Pettigrew's life has no value to Harry, as he says, but his right to 
> live does. Harry does not want to see Remus and Sirius become 
> violators of that right. Dicentra might say that he doesn't want 
> them to become predators. The trouble I see with that is that they 
> are predators already--in the most literal sense, in fact. Sirius 
> eats rats, Werewolf!Remus will prey on humans if he can. What 
> is the difference between killing a man and a rat, morally, unless 
> we say that there is some intrinsic value to a human 
> being--some right to live? 


First of all, I'd just like to say what an excellent post I think this came 
from. Pippin has said eloquently many of the things I was fumbling towards 
yesterday. I've been mulling it over today and I just want to comment on the 
above paragraphs which I ruthlessly snipped.

It seems to me that our language is sorely impoverished when it comes to the 
word 'love'. That one little word is made to stand for many different 
concepts. The Greeks, of course, had three words and I am not sure that even 
that was adequate.

Coming from a faith where the word 'love' is bandied around a fair deal and 
is pretty well held up to be the highest good (God *is* love) what Pippin 
said and indeed, what I said in regard to Lily gave me cause to think. I 
wonder if we can, in fact unite these two concepts, rights and love?

I think it has to be clear that in this context, love has nothing to do with 
nice, warm, fuzzy feelings. If love is to be the highest good, then what we 
are talking about is love which *is* prepared to be sacrificial, and not just 
sacrificial on behalf of those to whom we are emotionally attached.

Does Harry love Pettigrew? No, he despises him, he hates him for what he has 
done to his parents. He spares him, not, I think even because he recognises 
his right to life, but out of love for his parents and for Lupin and Sirius 
(he doesn't think James would have wanted his best friends to become 
killers). Perhaps, as Pippin says, he doesn't want them to become violators 
of that right to life. He doesn't want them to diminish themselves, to become 
less human.

But can sparing an enemy be an act of love? I think it can. Not warm, fuzzy 
love, but love of humankind (what does 'philanthropy' mean?).  It is the 
ultimate act of recognising someone else's rights, of recognising a bond of 
common humanity. I think this is ultimately what respect for human rights (I 
am encouraged, note, by Pippin's spirited defence of the usage) involves: the 
recognition that, as Donne put it, 'No man is an island entire of itself'. 
Any wrong we do to another ultimately diminishes us. This is what I think 
lies behind the Christian commandment to love others as we love ourselves. It 
doesn't mean liking people, or only doing good to those who treat us well, 
but going out of the way to recognise our common bond of humanity.
And I think all of us at some time or another recognise this, don't we? Look 
at the reponse to things like Band Aid, or to September 11th. Unfortunately 
it is often such major disasters that bring it home to us, but surely this is 
what our response is, isn't it, a  recognition that we are intimitely 
connected with the strangers who are the victims of disaster through our 
common humanity?

             'Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved
             in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom
             the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.'

I think Pippin's emphasis on the relationship between ourselves and strangers 
is particularly telling. The WW does not cope with strangers well. Perhaps, 
well, probably, for many this is a hangover from the days of Voldemort's 
power. But it is interesting that it is precisely Salazar Slytherin, his 
heir, Voldemort and his followers who are the most anti-stranger (if we take 
Muggle to equal 'stranger'). Dumbledore, however, whom we know JKR means to 
embody goodness, is perhaps the most inclusive character in the series. He 
recognises the common bond.

I'd like to go back to what Dicentra said:

>I'd like to propose the following: good and evil are based on the 
>relationship between weak and strong. If, like Voldemort, you believe 
>that the strong should overpower the weak when it suits them, that's 
>evil. If you believe that the strong should assist the weak, that's 
>good. In other words, predation is evil, nurturing is good.

This has come to mind today as well. I find it interesting that both the 
protection of the weak and the treatment of strangers are concepts that 
figure highly in OT morality and law, which makes me think that they are 
indeed closely linked:

             'The Lord careth for the strangers; he defendeth the 
             fatherless and widow: as for the way of the ungodly, 
             he turneth it upside down.'
                                           (Ps 146, v.9)

When the strong exploit the weak they are denying the bond, they imply that 
the weak are less than human, that they do not deserve the same privileges 
that the strong accord to themselves. Hasn't much of the worst evil that 
mankind has perpetrated involved precisely the deliberate de-humanisation of 
others?

So what am I saying? I suppose I want to suggest that love, in the sense of 
the active embracing of our common bond with the rest of humanity, is the 
highest moral good and that it is manifested in our relationships with the 
weak and the stranger. Conversely lack of love is manifested in exploitation 
and predation. In the Potterverse, Dumbledore, in his own strange way, 
represents one and Voldemort the other.

Eloise





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