Why do 'purebloods' hate Muggles?

[chthonia9]

No: HPFGUIDX 47254

This is one I've been pondering for a while.

(I've also spent a couple of house looking through archives, FAQs etc 
and not found anything)

I've been trying to get my head round what is driving the
Voldemort supporters – though from Harry's (or more generally
a
Gryffindor) point of view `they went bad' might suffice,
it's not a
very convincing (or interesting) argument in my opinion.

Maybe all the Death Eaters were motivated by various individual 
combinations of lust for power, desire to offset their own sense of 
insignificance by aligning themselves to a powerful, directive force, 
or destructive urges to wreak mayhem.  But throughout the books 
there's this constant emphasis on bloodlines, and while we do get
a reason why Riddle/Voldemort would hate Muggles, and hence direct 
his movement that way, there also seems to a more general prejudice 
(expressed most forcefully by the Malfoys), and I can't really
see where its roots might be.

Before going into this – in an attempt to look at it clearly
I'm going to be fairly blunt about some pretty sensitive issues. 
I
don't _think_ I'm saying anything offensive, but if I've
misjudged
that, please forgive me.  Here goes:

I wouldn't (thankfully) claim to be an expert in genocidal
conflicts, but from what I do know they tend to be founded on an 
irresolvable, deep-seated sense of either injustice or threat. To 
give two examples if the former: I vividly remember discussing the 
situation in the Balkans with a Serbian colleague about 8 years ago, 
trying to understand what was going on, and he began by talking about 
events that had occured 1000 years ago.  Similarly, I've spoken to
people bitterly embroiled on both sides of the Troubles in Northern 
Ireland, and both sides had their litany of ills that the other side 
had perpetrated.

This is not the case at all in JKR's Wizardingworld, where one
`side' (Muggles) is completely oblivious to the very
existence of the 
other, so there is nothing to feel threatened or bitter about (unless 
one makes the assumption that our inquisitions 
and witch burnings were actually carried out against this Wizarding 
community, rather than being a completely Muggle phenomenon.  I doubt 
this assumption – there is nothing to suggest it in the books
(unless I have missed something) – though OTOH there are very
good 
political/commercial reasons why JKR would avoid any such implication)

So is it that the purebloods feel threatened by the rise of Muggles 
and halfbloods?  This is certainly implied, but seems a bit 
illogical.  Well, OK, prejudice by definition isn't logical, but 
consider:

1)	There is no history (that we know of) of Wizard/Muggle social 
hierarchy that is being changed; it's not as if it is former 
slaves/servants who are now being accepted as equals.  Muggles and 
Wizards have (presumably?) lived separately.  Arguably the Wizards 
may have felt the Muggles were inferior, but this seems to be on the 
basis of not being magic, rather than cultural reasons, and:

2)	There is no dilution of wizarding abilities by breeding 
out/in – quite the reverse.  So the purebloods can't exactly
complain that magic itself, say, is under threat.

3)	The prejudice only seems to apply to parents, not 
grandparents (as has been discussed on the list before, I think) Eh??!

4)	There is no physically observable difference (that we know 
of) between pureblood/halfblood/Muggle, so people aren't going to 
immediately look at someone and get a sense of `otherness'
onto which they can project all the qualities they perceive as 
undesirable.  Therefore they don't have a situation similar to
Muggle
multi-racial societies where there is a hierarchy of oppressed 
groups, with those physically resembling the dominant group having a 
generally easier time of it.  This also means that discrimination is 
less likely to become established – they won't have the
situation of
treating a stranger as `one of them' first and a person
second, 
becausethey won't know who is 'us' and who 'them'.

5)	Nor is there a cultural difference – once you're a wizard, 
you're part of the wizarding world, so there isn't a clash of
values, customs, beliefs etc

6)	There doesn't seem to be any economic threat to the 
purebloods, who seem to be quite comfortably populating the higher 
echelons of society. At the end of GoF it's stated that Weasley 
hasn't been promoted up the Ministry because he's too
sympathetic to Muggles, which rather implies that actual Muggles 
wouldn't stand a chance.  We aren't dealing with a democracy
or a 
meritocracy here – the powerful seem pretty adept at protecting
their 
interests.  And the Malfoys aren't doing too badly, are they?

7)	The prejudice doesn't appear to be widespread – 
many `pureblood' families (Weasleys, Longbottoms?) seem quite
relaxed about it.

(On reflection, the only thing I can think of is that accepting 
Muggle-borns into Wizard society means that more Muggles know about 
it, which compromises security.  There's an obvious inconsistency 
here – as a Muggle it's for your daughter to get a letter to 
Hogwarts, but not OK for your neighbourhood witch to Apparate on your 
front lawn.)

So basically, we have a prejudice with no foundation in ability, 
cultural difference or economic threat, against a group of people 
that isn't easily distinguishable which means that everyday 
discriminatory behaviours are unlikely to take hold in a major way.  
So what's going on?  Is the whole pureblood thing just the fear
of those at the very top that losing anything is losing everything?  
Is JKR trying to make the point that prejudice is stupid and wrong so 
clearly that she's glossing over the ugly and real reasons for
such behaviours taking root? Have I missed something?  Or is there 
some quirk of wizard society or genealogy that we don't know about
yet, but which makes the issue much more materially important?

Actually, even among the `good guys,' character traits in the 
Wizarding world seem to rely on bloodlines rather more than for 
Muggles – look at how many relatives are in different Houses (I can 
only 
think of the Patils, offhand), compared to those who are placed 
together (Lily/James/Harry, Dennis/Colin Creevy, *seven* Weasleys, 
countless generations of Malfoys, Crabbe/Crabbe Snr, Goyle/Goyle Snr, 
the Bulstrodes etc).  In this world, Nature wins out over nurture 
(Harry being an extreme case in point); even assuming there is a 
family tradition of belonging to a house, such a degree of 
consistency is remarkable.

Again, if I've inadvertently offended anyone, please accept my 
apologies.

Chthonia