Why to Like and Not Like OoP (minus words that must not be used)

[Doriane]

No: HPFGUIDX 70855

"Dan Feeney" wrote:

> Harry chose to confront Dudley for his bullying of other people, 
> vigilante style. He knows his "parents" aren't going to do anything 
> about it. He knows "the world" does nothing about it. The situation 
> gives him an opportunity to both exercise empathy (with the Evans
> boy) and personal responsibility - neither the Witch Wizard world 
> nor the muggle world has any mechanism, in the books, for 
> protecting the innocent. So, I honestly don't understand your 
> response.

And I don't understand yours :-) When I read that scene, 2 things 
struck me :
1. why does Harry think he can take on Dudley suddenly ? Yes he's got 
magic, but he can't use it any more than he could use it the previous 
years, as Dudley rightly points out. So if Dudley had responded to 
his taunts and Harry had done magic, he would most likely have been 
expelled. Was that what he wanted ??
2. Harry isn't trying to teach Dudley not to bully other people. He's 
just trying to make Dudley punch him, Harry, so he can retaliate with 
magic. And because Dudley doesn't dare touching Harry, Harry presses 
his advantage and takes to humiliating his cousin (how old was your 
opponent ?). Okay, so I understand that Harry has years of abuse to 
avenge, but I also seem to remember that he used to consider that 
Dudley was no longer a worthy adversary, now that he had Malfoy to 
deal with on a daily basis and LV on a more extraordinary one. So it 
seems to me that Harry is doing *exactly* what he's accusing Dudley 
of doing : picking on someone "weaker" than himself just to vent his 
anger and frustration !!

> > and that I'd better learn all those rules and reasons before 
> > I started shouting at everyone how to run the world. But Harry is 
> > just unsufferably arrogant and doesn't seem to have realized that
> > yet.
> 
> But, in fact, "learning all those rules" is rather like learning 
> the letter of the law alone - learning to be a good citizen, 
> learning to follow orders etc. etc. This is not, in itself, a 
> reasonable ethical imperative to follow. It is neutral, on one 
> hand, in not addressing the underlying grammar of those rules or 
> reasons learned,

?? Seems quite the opposite to me. How can you correctly apply rules 
that you don't even know ? I'm not saying that Harry should only 
learn rules and never do things. I'm saying that along with doing 
things, he should try and figure out why people act differently than 
he would. Learning those rules would not stop him from acting, it 
would in fact help him figure out how to reach others, how to make 
them do what he wants, how to obtain what he desires.

> but to call it the exclusive "thing to learn" is dangerous. I 
> support the idea of education based on both nomenclature - the 
> naming of things, and their description - and creativity, the 
> making of things. Naming rules, identifying them, is the end of 
> knowledge only in games, in chess, as it were, not in society.

I agree. Again, I'm not saying that Harry should only learn rules. 
What I'm trying to explain is that he is so engrossed with himself 
that he ends up doing exactly the opposite of what he means to do, 
just because he doesn't take other people's feelings and lines of 
reasoning into account. To be harsh, I'd say he ends up getting 
Sirius killed precisely because he tried to keep Sirius safe ! He 
refused to talk to him, he refused to confide in him, he refused to 
use his gift, he refused to figure out why those Occlumency lessons 
were so important. In other words, he refused to learn the rules, and 
he ended up making a major mistake. And all of that just because he 
thought he knew better than anyone else what was going on, and he 
wouldn't let anyone try and teach him a few things about the world he 
lives in.

> When I was in school, I was the only native american in the whole 
> place - it wasn't an issue ever... until one time I presented an 
> essay on the history of the RCMP. Suddenly, the class was 
> aghast. "You're telling us that the history of the RCMP began with 
> the organized murder and emprisonment, in concentration camps, of 
> native americans? Pshaw!"

Please please please don't get offended, but :
1. I'm not American, I'm not even from an English-speaking culture, 
so I don't know what RCMP means. I do *guess*, but I don't know for 
sure.
2. I'm not sure I got your point. What does that have to do with 
learning the rules vs acting ?

> It seems reasonable for someone who lives in a place, or places, 
> where "truth" is a scarce commodity, where the lies of so-called 
> newspapers hold sway, and where so-called moral courage is seen as 
> dilletantism or hero-complexing or suchlike. Not at all unlike the 
> RW today.

We all live in a world of lies and corruption.

> Also, in the books, Harry is left on his own, pretty much, 
> without being given incredibly long and detailed explanations of 
> his position within the society.

First of all, he's on his own because he wants to. He doesn't confide 
in Hermione and Ron half of what's bothering him. He doesn't 
confront "the adults" with their lies, demanding the truth from them. 
Sirius is even quite surprised at that. Also, he doesn't go looking 
for information. We've never seen him delve into the archives of the 
Daily Prophet or ask teachers about what happened years ago or what 
happens now. He didn't even use to read the Daily Prophet, and when 
he does, he doesn't go through it ! So I say that if he's on his own, 
that's because he wants to ! Oh, and when he *is* offered help from 
Luna, Ginny and Neville, he *refuses* it (and don't tell me it's out 
of a feeling of responsibility, because it's not. It's just that he 
can't be bothered with including other people in his life. It's his 
egocentricity again : "this is my life, you don't belong in my life, 
get lost")
Second : so he doesn't know what his place in the world is ? Welcome 
to the club ! Ron doesn't either and he doesn't make such a big fuss 
out of it. Neville most certainly doesn't, and he doesn't bother 
people with it. Sirius is as lost as Harry, but he tries his best not 
to make mistakes.

> What resources he has, he focusses on quidditch, say. The world 
> will not save either him or innocent people. He's a young
> anarchist. Tough, I say, if certain readers don't like the fact. 

Most teenagers go through this anarchist phase, when they feel the 
world is completely rotten.

> Rowling, as I have stated in another recent post, goes out of her 
> way to defend the radical, the outsider. My suspicion is that some 
> of the criticism of OOP stems from the fact that that perspective 
> is now quite "in your face," or explicit, where it was largely 
> implicit before.

I feel like she's defending only the minorities she likes. Think of 
it this way : of the 4 Houses, which one is "the radical", "the 
outsider" ? Which one is systematically described as being evil, and 
wrong, and hopeless ? Which one does even the Headmaster attack, by 
making sure they don't get the House Cup even though they earned so 
many points ? Hm ? Smells strongly of favoritism, here... Not to 
mention that she describes those kids as being unredeemable right 
from the start just because they were born in the wrong families. 
Irk !

> >To this end, why couldn't someone else in the Order tell him all
> > this stuff?
> 
> Because their lives have just changed dramatically, they don't know 
> what to say that isn't dross, and Harry is, like any teenager of 
> his bent, not going to want niceties or explanations. He wants 
> Voldemort stopped.

Does he ? When he comes face to face with him, yes of course he does. 
But the rest of the time ? He doesn't exactly go out of his way to 
make sure LV get stopped, does he ? He's not the one who comes up 
with the idea of the interview for the Quibbler, he's not the one 
that comes up with the DA, he doesn't write to people, he doesn't 
speak up and try to rally people. I'm not saying he doesn't want LV 
stopped, I'm just saying he's like most teenagers : his private life 
is way more important to him than the bigger picture. Which is fine 
with me. Proofs ? Well, for example, it matters more to him to sulk 
at DD because DD won't talk to him than to inform him of the dreams 
he's been having. It matters more to him not to bother with the 
Occlumency lessons anymore than to keep LV out of his head. Etc...

> Like the great youth today who REFUSE to accept that there 
> is some justifiable, logical reason why people are starving around 
> the world. "Get off with that claptrap. Let's just feed them. And 
> stop killing."

Today or whenever. Most youth go through that period, which is 
wonderful. And then they learn that there are forces to reckon with 
(going back to our "learning the rules" debate), like money and 
political power just to name a few, and that they have to decide how 
they are going to apply those rules in their lives and towards which 
goals. They learn of the dangers and rewards of what they will choose 
to do, and then they can *really* act. And that's what Harry will 
have to do too.

> I submit that OOP only seems an easy read if the radical element of 
> the book, and indeed of the series, is ignored. Indeed, OOP is the 
> opposite of an easy read when it is approached with the knowledge 
> of this radical undercurrent in the book. And make no mistake, 
> anarchism, or anarcho- syndicalism, as it were, is not a one-
> dimensional thing, but incorp- orates what, for instance, Luna (yay 
> Luna!) brings to the series - an appreciation of the "world beneath 
> the world, where what we don't don't merely choose, but what 
> chooses us, as it were, is" etc etc.

Sounds interesting. Could you elaborate please ?

> Harry has been set alone, in an abusive space, in a closet. A few 
> months ago I started a thread that set up the reading that HP is an 
> abused boy in a closet, and the fantasy muggle world operates for 
> him the way the books operate for us. Recently, I've noticed some 
> points where these worlds, both those in the books and the RW and 
> Rowling's world, threaten to meet, to join. In those cases, there 
> is an abrupt sense of collapse, of disillusionment, as it were. 
> THAT is the challenge in the books, I think, not to shy from it, 
> but to examine it, for what Rowling is saying.

Up to there, I'm lost... What do you mean ?

> It is not that the books aren't adult enough, but rather that the 
> books aren't childish enough, that seems to be the problem.

Ah ! This I understand :-) And agree to. There's a muddling of the 
rules (again :-) : are those books children's books, with all the 
inconsistencies those can/must contain (like kids saving the world on 
their own), or are they adult books where people have to unite and 
fight together to thwart evil ? Up to GoF, the books fall in the 
first category, but suddenly OoP falls in the second. It could be 
that this is because the books are supposed to be written for kids of 
Harry's age, would make sense. But it's unsettling, for sure.
 
Del