[HPforGrownups] Classist Hogwarts (was ... was .... was...)

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 45985

Jim's recent reply in this thread has reminded me that I have several posts 
from a couple of weeks (or more) ago to deal with on this subject. I had 
hoped that I might manage some inroad into them tonight, but I don't think 
that's going to come to pass...

Jim:
>I do not see how any of the above, while certainly true, nullifies the fact
>that Hogwarts is a boarding school and what would be called a public school
>in the UK and a prep school in the US.  I still maintain that, rightly or
>wrongly, there is a general association of elitism with such school.  I do
>not claim that every boarding school is an elite institution.

The principal issue here would appear to be whether or not Hogwarts is the 
ONLY wizarding school in Britain to offer a full curriculum. There are 
those on this list (Hi, Elkins, among others!) :-) who choose not to 
believe JKR's statement that this is the case. I see no reason to doubt JKR 
and can find nothing in canon to shake my belief. That, however, is a 
separate discussion which we've already had several times before and which 
I hope we won't have now.

If Hogwarts is the only school, then in what way can it be "elitist"? It is 
a school for magical folk with some magical spark available to be nurtured. 
It is the *only* school for such folk, so beyond selecting those people 
from the population (wizard- or Muggle-born) who have that basic ability, 
there is no elitism or selection involved.

I said earlier in this thread that there are valid pragmatic reasons for it 
to be a boarding school, so the fact that it is one is not *in itself* 
grounds to call it "elitist", which is the argument you appear to be 
putting forward.

> >I apologise for using the same arguments over and over again, but I really
> >can't stress this enough: what about Black Dean Thomas or Lee Jordan,
>
>Neither of these are unequivocally black in the UK edition.  I presume
>making Dean black was an interpolation of the editors at Scholastic.

There seems to be some kind of misconception in HP fandom about the 
differences, as if the changes Scholastic introduced were made somehow 
behind JKR's back. We're not aware of the circumstances in which every 
change was introduced, but the fact remains that she approved every one of 
them.

As you may have noticed, Dean is one of my favourite subjects of 
speculation, and I suspect that JKR always intended for him to be black but 
hadn't intended to include that piece of information about him at this 
stage. We know absolutely nothing about him or his background (except for 
one or two vague indicators) and I am convinced that this is deliberate. 
Surprising us down the road about his race would fit into that plan (in one 
of my favourite books by Anthony Burgess, we find out on the very last page 
that the first-person narrator of the story is black; this immediately puts 
the whole story into a different perspective and causes the reader to want 
to read it all again).

Lee Jordan is said to wear his hair in dreadlocks. To your average UK 
reader, this immediately shouts out "black". Similarly, going by their 
names, Cho Chang is unlikely to be anything other than Oriental, and the 
Patil sisters are Indian. In any event, from what you later said in your 
post (which I excised from this reply), you appear to agree that Hogwarts 
is ethnically mixed anyway, so I won;t dwell on the issue.

>Neville's presence at Hogwarts is, I maintain, evidence of a classist
>element in the institution.  Neville does appear to be a near-squib, so why
>is he at Hogwarts at all?  Because he is "One of Our Kind".  He is from a
>good wizarding family, a pureblood and his parents were socially popular in
>the WW.  Neville's principal qualification to be at Hogwarts is his
>background not his ability.

Hang on. Neville's first conversation is about how he and his family were 
overjoyed to discover that he had been accepted at Hogwarts, and how he had 
been forced to display magical ability in order to ensure that acceptance. 
There was absolutely ZERO expectation that he had an automatic place there 
based on his family background.

(Side note: in the Real World, British Public Schools have strict academic 
entrance requirements; whilst a generous financial contribution *might*, in 
very specific circumstances, sway them to accept a pupil who might not 
otherwise have been accepted, family background is absolutely no guarantor 
of a place. It's no surprise that Public Schools have the best 
end-of-school exams results in Britain, not just because they are 
intrinsically better, but because they are ultra-selective about the 
academic abilities of first year pupils!)

>Muggles at Hogwarts seem to fall into the "scholarship boys" category.

What evidence do you have for the fact that anyone, Muggle or not, pays 
tuition at Hogwarts? What evidence do you have for considering Muggle-borns 
to be given any kind of different entrance criteria or expectations once at 
Hogwarts?

>Ron and Neville are present at Hogwarts because of their class.

On what actual evidence do you base that blanket statement?

>My argument is not that every Hogwarts
>student is admitted on account of his/her class.  By that standard, Eton
>and Choate would be non-elitist schools.  My argument is that class does
>have a role in Hogwarts admission.

I can only repeat: on what basis do you make that blanket statement?

>It is certainly not the only factor.  I would further that by saying that 
>I believe Hogwarts turns out adults prepared to enter, at least, an upper 
>middle WW class (e.g., the MoM rather than the Knight Bus).  In my mind, 
>this does make Hogwarts elite.  Let's also remember that, at least at one 
>time, Lucius Malfoy dominated the Hogwarts Board of Governors.  Would he 
>have had anything to do with a non-elite institution?

Hogwarts is undeniably an elite school ("the best", according to Hermione; 
which I interpret to mean somewhat hyperbolically "the best in the world"). 
But if we accept that it is the only wizarding school in Britain, in what 
way can it be "elitist"? "Elitist" pre-supposes a certain degree of choice, 
and all the evidence to date indicates that there are no other schools in 
Britain to choose from, and thus to which to compare Hogwarts. Although 
we've not witnessed any during Harry's years there so far, we know that 
pupils can get expelled and we know that they  have an OWLs/NEWTs 
examination system akin to British GCSEs/A Levels; in the Real World, 
people who don't do well in those exams have limited future prospects, and 
the system is in fact geared up to establish the cream of the crop.

As I said elsewhere, the magical world doesn't really need a working class 
(unskilled manual labour), as such things can usually be done with magic. I 
also don't see how everyone leaving Hogwarts joined the "upper middle 
class". Firstly, that term in itself indicates a class which is not 
"joined"; it is a class to which one already belongs. We know three people 
who finished Hogwarts fairly recently: the three older Weasley brothers. 
Bill is a curse-breaker ("cryptographer", or even "computer hacker" would 
perhaps be the closest real-world equivalents), Charlie studies/works with 
Dragons ("zoologist"?) and Percy is a junior civil servant. These
are hardly upper middle class occupations!

> >As for Ron's "meagre" magical ability, I leave the Ron-philes to take you
> >task. :-) Suffice to say, that whilst his grades don't appear to be
> >particularly impressive, he's by no means at the bottom of his year. Any
> >opinion of Ron's limited abilities is primarily his own, not other people's.
>
>This is simply not my impression from the books.  He seems to consistently
>have trouble with his classes, but perhaps it is just the juxtaposition
>with Hermione that makes him look backwards.

*Exactly*. Harry and Ron measure themselves against Hermione's major 
academic achievements, so it's hardly fair to consider them under-achievers.

>How you view Stan seems to come down to whether you think he was at
>Hogwarts or not.  There does not appear to be any unequivocal canon either
>way.  In my head (no cracks please), it is inconceivable that he is an
>Hogwarts alumnus, but I cannot prove it.  I guess that is just a statement
>about me.

Which comes back to my original point. The underlying "moral" of the series 
is all about prejudice. The readers' as well as the characters', as I 
recently said elsewhere.

> >  Hogwarts accepts half-bloods and Muggle-borns, and it accepts
> >non-WASPs.
>
>Clearly it does.  It also accepts purebloods primarily from "good"
>families.  And it also accepts students from "good" families with otherwise
>questionable qualifications.

What do you know about Hogwarts qualifications that I don't? Everything 
we've had to date indicates that the only requirement for acceptance at 
Hogwarts is possession of what some people call the "magical gene". Ability 
is unimportant, family background is unimportant, financial circumstances 
are unimportant. *Potential* is the only important factor. In what way is 
that classist?

>The non-muggle students appear to come disproportionately from "good" 
>families.

The post with that rationale is one of the many I have saved to reply to as 
soon as I have the time. The facts are nowhere nearly as clear as you seem 
to imply.

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, who's just noticed the time and indeed will be unable 
to deal with the backlog of posts right now. :-(