Something I'd like to see in the Books

[sbursztynski]

No: HPFGUIDX 83075

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "junediamanti" 
<june.diamanti at b...> wrote:

> However, there seems to be little taught to the budding wizards at
> Hogwarts the very central idea that with great power comes great
> reponsibility.
> 
> Is it me or is everyone just wand happy? There seems to be the
> minimum of restraint on the entire wizarding population - right,
> every underage wizard risks serious educational penalties if they
> break the underage rules, but where does that leave the adult
> wizard? Pretty much in the middle of a free for all. Now there may
> well be considerable rules that are in place and that we are just
> not aware of - and that's quite possible because there's an awful
> lot of information that we don't have about the WW yet, and that
> would hold up the story unbearably if JKR were to constantly go on a
> major narrative digression to sort this out for us.
> 
> All the same, I would have liked to see some ethical training in the
> Hogwarts curriculum. When it isn't appropriate to use spells, when
> it is. Is there any other effect of spells apart from the obvious.
> For instance, if you used magic to push some clouds away because
> they were raining on you, what is the effect of those clouds raining
> somewhere else and is it a good effect?
> 
> It might be argued that the existence of such psychos as Voldemort
> is enough of an example for budding wizards to see that there are
> and have to be limitations to magic practice. However - it's only
> certain wizards who really get to see this, like Harry, Ron and
> Hermione because of their adventures. Other Hogwarts children may
> well be able to draw certain conclusions from what their parents
> have told them about the last Wizarding War, but it's by no means
> certain. And in any case, surely this is not going to be the case
> in families such as Malfoy's where we can probably be certain that
> regular parental chats about the ethical use of magic are NOT part
> of the vacational agenda.
> 
> So what does anyone think? Am I just a stuffy spoilsport moralist,
> have I missed entirely on some fairly explicit treatment of
> responsibility by JKR, or does anyone agree that there should be
> ethics classes?
> 
> June

Sue B:

What a fascinating post! No, you're not a stuffy spoilsport moralist. 
Everyone *does* seem to be wand-happy in the WW. There seem to be 
*some* restrictions, though, hence the shops like the one in
Knockturn 
Alley, where Harry overhears Lucius in CoS, and the slightly illegal 
feel of the entire place. And, of course, there are the
Unforgivables, 
and there are rules about not picking on Muggles, though that is 
partly, at least, to keep the WW safe and secret.

The problem is, magic in the WW takes the place of technology. It's 
used for everything from cookery to medicine. If you don't use 
electricity and there's another way, you use it. Perhaps each subject 
at Hogwarts has an ethics component - I can certainly see Professor 
McGonagall, for one, explaining that you only transfigure when you 
need to (though I' ve never been comfortable with the scenes where 
animals are turned into inanimate objects). Whether or not the 
students like Snape, he'd certainly have to explain, at some stage, 
that potions can be dangerous and are not, repeat, not for playing 
silly games with, thank you very much!