The Train Stomp vs. Dissin' The Slyths WAS Re: [HPforGrownups] Re: House points

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51317

Jim wrote:

> This connects strongly with something that's a real issue for 
> me. We live in a cynical age, which we have created and sustained 
> by holding up people to inhuman standards of behavior which can 
> only be disappointed. As we tear people down because they couldn't 
> reach impossible heights, we get more cynical.

I respect that this is an issue about which you feel deeply, Jim,
so I want to tread lightly here, but perhaps we have somewhat 
different understandings of the meaning of "cynical?"

It has always seemed to me that the sort of moral cynicism to which I 
assume you refer derives far more from an utter *abandonment* of 
ethics (ie, "standards of behavior") than it does from an over-
scrupulous insistence on them.

In reference to canon, I would say that the forces of moral cynicism 
are represented in the text by Voldemort's "no good or evil, only 
power and the will to seek it."   It is also reflected, IMO, in House 
Slytherin's emphasis on winning at all costs -- using *any* means to 
achieve ones ends.

The oppositional viewpoint, on the other hand, seems to me to be 
represented by Dumbledore's insistence on upholding moral standards 
of behavior -- lines in the sand, so to speak.  So, for example, we 
are told that he did not resort to the use of the Dark Arts in the 
fight against Voldemort, even though by doing so he might have 
achieved victory. 

As for holding people up to somewhat "inhuman" standards of behavior, 
I think that the books do rather support this as a virtue.  Lily did, 
after all, give her *life* to save her son.  That's a pretty inhuman 
standard of conduct right there, isn't it?  Yet, I believe that we 
are meant to read her as an exemplar.

Similarly, in the Shrieking Shack, Sirius tells Peter that he *ought* 
to have been willing to die for his friends, a statement that has 
struck some listmembers as rather harsh: a rather inhuman standard to 
which to expect compliance.  Yet I believe that JKR *does* mean for 
us to accept the statement as moral truth; she reinforces the concept 
earlier in the scene, by having Ron effectively offer to be killed
right along with Harry.

On the more human level, the books also show us quite a few examples 
of people failing to uphold ethical standards.  Sometimes, as with 
Snape, they manage to redeem themselves.  Sometimes they do not.  I 
would say that the moral universe of the books is both hard-nosed and 
compassionate about human fallibility.  Atonement is always possible -
- but it's hard work.  And moral failings may be both human and 
sympathetic -- but they are still portrayed quite firmly as 
*failings.*


> Take it down to the scene on the train. . . . In another age, 
> among (adult) gentlemen, Harry's friends would have visited 
> Draco's friends to demand satisfaction. We don't duel anymore, 
> but do you consider the Trio "tarnished" by giving those vile
> odious excuses for humanity part of what they deserved? 

We don't duel anymore, no.  But wizards do.  And when they do so, 
they are *not* supposed to be cursing their enemies in the back.

Which is precisely what Fred and George did on that train.

I dare say that they're also not supposed to be stepping on their 
unconscious opponents.  It's never been specified, of course, but I 
rather suspect that a culture with a duelling protocol that includes 
bowing before combat also probably has a word or two to say about the 
proper treatment of ones defeated foes.

Of course, just because the society *has* those rules doesn't mean 
that everyone's always going to abide by them, either in letter or in 
spirit.  Voldemort's "duel" in the graveyard wasn't precisely fair 
combat either.

> JKR seems to understand and accept the concept of rough 
> justice, and I'm glad she does. 

JKR also seems to understand -- better than most authors, I'd say -- 
both the temptations and the perils of the ethos of vengeance.  I 
suspect that part of the reason she can write so well about the 
latter is because she is also remarkably adept at depicting the 
former.  Would the end game of PoA have been nearly so dramatically 
effective, had it not taken place in the context of a series in 
which "just desserts" humor is so *very* prevalent, or in which the 
statement "s/he deserved it" had not been repeated so often over the 
course of the novel that it had come to read like a kind of a 
mantra?  

It seems quite clear to me that the highest standard of behavior in 
the Potterverse is not being set forth as 'an eye for an eye.'  This 
leads me to read scenes in which characters fail to live up to higher 
standards with a very interested eye.  It does seem to me that in 
these books, spiritual temptation often takes the form of the desire 
for "payback."  Snape in PoA is an excellent example.  So is that 
jeering hysterical mob in the Pensieve scene in GoF.

> We know that the Trio and Fred and George are not evil people.

No, they're not.  But I think that if we are to resist the lure of 
cynicism, then we must recognize the fact that right and wrong remain 
right and wrong no matter who happens to be doing them.  
Fundamentally decent people can and do fall into moral error.  Wasn't 
that a major running motif throughout GoF?



Elkins