Hermione, House-elves and Centaurs

[elfundeb2]

No: HPFGUIDX 89160

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "davewitley" 
<dfrankiswork at n...> wrote:
> Despite her compliment to me, I want to only half-agree with 
Debbie 
> (89097).  I also want to disagree with Pippin (89121).
> 
Joining Pippin in claiming to agree with David more than he 
thinks. ;-)

> However, I believe that, in the values implicit in JKR's writing, 
> Hermione is fundamentally right about the house-elves: it's merely 
> her strategy that's misconceived.
> 
Perhaps I didn't make it clear, but I agree that the house-elves 
should be freed.  The issues are how to go about freeing them, 
teaching the elves to manage their freedom, and equally importantly 
educating the WW to accept them.  While Dobby and Kreacher 
demonstrate that the elves are capable of managing their own 
affairs, Winky demonstrates the cultural issues that need to be 
addressed on both sides if freedom is going to work.  I think 
Dumbledore recognizes this, and that's why the elves at Hogwarts 
remain enslaved, and also why it was a good thing for him to hire 
Dobby.  Dobby (despite his weirdness) is a much more effective 
catalyst for freedom than Hermione's do-good notions.   

::pause to grimace at the gender of the elves that can cope and the 
one that can't:: 

I think the Sorting Hat's message about house 
> unity can indeed be extrapolated to other species: in fact it is 
not 
> the position of elves and centaurs that is problematic for me in 
the 
> context of the series' ethics, but that of Dementors and other 
> apparently intrinsically dark beings.
> 
This is, in my view, an issue of attempting to distinguish (much 
harder in the WW than in our world where we can readily distinguish 
humans from non-humans) which creatures are *beings* who are capable 
of moral action.  There's no evidence that the Dementors are capable 
of moral choices.  They feed on human emotion.  If they cannot 
control their appetite for it (and there's no evidence that they 
can) then their cooperation cannot be obtained.

> Where Hermione tends to go wrong, IMO, is in her estimate of the 
> dignity and individuality of *all* other beings, including 
humans.  
> In her worse moments, she regards them as things to be manoeuvred 
> and manipulated.  She does this most famously in COS when she uses 
> emotional blackmail on Harry and Ron to make he Polyjuice Potion. 

Yes, it's a bit hard for a teen to appreciate that other points of 
view can be equally valid.  She seems to think that if the goal is 
worthy, than it's fine to use others as pawns.  She's really quite 
shocked when the centaurs don't cooperate.

> However, I do not believe the text is abandoning its implicit 
claim 
> of universal values.  To me, werewolves, giants, house-elves, 
> centaurs, merpeople and goblins are all morally and ethically 
> speaking human beings in this universe.  The differences between 
> them are not essential but cultural.
> 
I do have trouble with the concept expressed in the last sentence.  
To the extent that any of these species is endowed with special 
talents or abilities (or disabilities) not shared by humans, the 
differences are not cultural, and the solution is not simply to 
appreciate the differences.  

I especially have problems including werewolves in this category.  
During the full moon, a werewolf is not human.  Many real-world 
human analogs have been suggested for werewolves; I favor the notion 
that werewolves are like the mentally ill.  On a day-to-day basis 
many mentally ill persons, especially those whose illnesses are 
episodic appear fully functional, but they can be dangerous to 
themselves or to others because they are incapable of exercising the 
restraint that a fully functioning human would.  

Admittedly, the WW has overreacted to the danger that werewolves 
present, because their werewolf episodes are completely 
predictable.  There is no reason to shun their company other than at 
the full moon.  Yet it's not just cultural:  werewolves *are* 
dangerous, as Lupin's example makes clear, they can't be relied upon 
to take their medications, and therefore they do need to be 
controlled during the full moon.  

As another example (though with less clear canon support), Firenze 
implies that centaurs as a group have an ability to divine the 
future that is not generally shared by humans.  I sense that there 
are physiological differences between how humans and centaurs absorb 
and process information that are at the root of their disagreements.

We don't know the extent to which giants or elves may, as a species, 
be differently abled,, or whether the elves' enthusiasm for service 
and the giants' violent tendencies are cultural responses to their 
situation.  Hermione's conclusion in GoF ("it's just bigotry, isn't 
it?") does seem a bit too simplistic.  

What we do know is the the WW's handling of all non-humans has been 
condescending and destructive of the kind of cooperation needed to 
deal with Voldemort, who represents a threat to all species.  If 
that was not the case, we wouldn't need Hagrid and Olympe to go on a 
desperate mission to the giants, and Bill wouldn't have so much 
trouble convincing the goblins not to cut a deal with Voldemort.  

Perhaps we'll know that the WW has made real progress when the MoM 
renames the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical 
Creatures to Department of Magical Creature Cooperation.

Debbie