Harry and Morality

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 57261

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Troels Forchhammer
<t.forch at m...> wrote:
> At 09:15 07-05-03 +0000, Steve wrote:
> >--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "karmakaze_kk" <sarudy at y...>
wrote:
> > > Harry always thinks he has the best and most urgent reasons to
> > > break the rules, but he does break them left and right. It's an 
> > > attitude that says "I think I know what is important better than
> > > the people who make the rules", which qualifies as "disregard" 
> > >for me.
> >
> >bboy_mn:
> >
> >In the past, someone wrote a long essay on the stages of moral
> >development, and pointed out that, as strange as it may seem,
> >obeying the rules is a very low stage of moral development. 
> >Sometimes disregarding the rules is the morally correct thing to 
> >do.
> 

> Troels:
>
> That it is sometimes necessary to break rules in order to do
> the 'right thing' should be obvious to most, but claiming
> that obeying rules is a low stage of moral development is,
> IMO, a morally reprehensible statement. ...edited...
> 

bboy_mn:

I was making a comparison, and that comparison was NOT breaking the
rules is a higher stage of moral development than obeying the rules.
Following your conscience and a universal set of moral principles, and
doing what is right independant of the rules is a higher stage of
moral development than blindly and unquestioningly obeying the rules. 

Moral right is a higher moral standard than legal right. Remember that
everything that is immoral is not against the law/rules, and
everything that is against the law in not necessarily immoral. Even
when things are legal, you still have a higher obligation to follow
your conscience.

I won't go through your post or the others item by item, instead I'll
just make some general comments directed at the subject.

Harry is human. He makes mistakes. We all do. That's how we establish
our moral compass. That's how we learn the difference between right
and wrong. All kids get into mischief, and Harry is no different. 

When Harry sneaks off to Hogsmeade, he can't see the harm in it. A
quick look around, a bag of tricks, some Honeyduke's chocolate,
where's the harm? He truly doesn't see it. He sees his restriction to
the school grounds as unfair. The mean old Dursley's wouldn't sign his
permission slip. It wasn't his fault that Aunt Marge was a mean
insulting old bag who accidently got blown up. It wasn't his fauld
Sirius Black was trying to kill him. Why should he be punished for all
these things that aren't his fault? At least that's what he thought
until Lupin talked to him and pointed out how his actions risked
wasting his parents lives and the sacrifice they make for him. 

That lesson, the moral vision he gained from that was a thousand times
more productive than any punishment he could have received for
breaking the rules. He made a mistake, he made a bad choice, and he
learned more and, in his conscience, punished himself more than any
detention could have.

If this was a story about a saint; about a boy who never did anything
wrong, who always had the perfect answer to every problem then it
would be no story at all. If you think kids will respond to prefect
little Sunday school stories, you are sadly mistaken. The reason kids
get some much out of these books is because the books have degrees of
moral ambiguity. 

When something is simultaneously right and wrong, and no one gives you
a solution, no one resolves it nice and neat for you, then it forces
you to look inside yourself and search for right and truth. That
internal searching of moral ambiguity for moral right and truth, will
teach you more about right and wrong than all the preaching and
sermonizing you will hear in a hundred lifetimes. In short, the
lessons you teach yourself are the ones you learn the best.

Harry stuggles with right and wrong. He struggles searching for the
right path. But he is unique in his dilemma. The other students don't
have a psychotic megalomaniacal lizard man trying to kill them. They
don't have to deal with house-elves complicating their lives by nearly
killing them in an effort to save them. They don't have to worry about
the most dangerous and notorious escaped criminal in the wizard world
trying to kill them. They don't have to deal with competing in a
dangerous and sometimes deadly tournement against their will. Harry's
life runs through uncharted moral territory and he has no reference
points, he has no one to turn to because no one has to or has ever had
to face what Harry faces.

Considering everything he has had to confront in this short lifetime,
I would say he is doing an outstanding job of making the right
choices. At Harry's age, how many of us could deal with the situations
that Harry has had to face? How many of us would make the right choice
when faces with the moral dilemmas he faces? Not many I think. 

This is the story of a flawed little boy, frightened, abused, and
alone in the world. A little boy who shoulders enough to crush most
grown men, and shoulder it he does, and he does it well. He makes
mistakes, but then don't we all. In the end, we must step back from
nitpicking every little mistake Harry makes and condeming him for it,
and look at the overal character of the boy and see what kind of boy
he is. I would say he is a boy of strong moral character with great
courage and determination, and he is kind, considerate, selfless, and
caring. For all that, I can forgive a few mistakes.

But then, that just my opinion.

bboy_mn