[HPforGrownups] On the other hand (was Re: Disliked Uncle Vernon)

[bufo_viridis at interia.pl]

No: HPFGUIDX 93112

This is a combination of several posts ? I hope into some logical whole.

Del answers :

>I quite disagree with you. I know our western culture has this idea 
>that anyone seeing a baby in need will automatically take care of it 
>and feel attached to it. But that's simply not true.

Side note: this idea is not specific to Western culture. The most quoted passage from Mengzi (Mencius; Chinese confucian philosopher, 3rd cent. BC) says that every bystander will run to help the child who is about to fall into the well. He used it to prove inborn goodness of the human being. As for the small babies, we have in-built biological mechanisms, which make us help them and think them ?cute?. Of course, those mechanisms sometimes don?t work, as you rightly pointed out. (personally I think small babies are bleh)

Del:

>Predominant doesn't mean everyone goes by it. And the variants 
>depending on where exactly you live (France or Britain, countryside 
>or downtown London or suburbs full of immigrants, etc...), your 
>income, your traditions, your education, and so on, are innumerable !

You?re being right about pointing out the Dursleys? POV and their variation o the moral code. We shouldn?t loose those issues from sight. But as the differences in the moral code of different European societies go, they?re relatively small. If we judge Durslys? by their social group/class standards, I?m pretty sure they?ll fail.

Susan:
>As I stated in my original post, 
>if they were frightened of DD--if they feared he was watching them 
>closely & evaluating their "parenting" skills--they'd never have 
>treated Harry as they did.  

I think there is an explanation for it. They could have taken Harry in, being afraid of DD and scandal. Harry doesn?t show the symptoms of early abuse; he also doesn?t show the symptoms of ?emotional deficiency?, characteristic for children from crowded orphanages and so on. If the child is depraved of human contact and emotional bond in very early years, it usually ends up with serious deficiencies, including mental ones ? simply, such children are often retarded. There is no such case with Harry. So I guess he was rather well taken care of, when he was small, I mean really small 1-4 years old. Now, over the years, with no signal from DD, Dursleys may gradually forget the original warning, ?hope? (subconsciously) they?ll be forgotten. At the same time, as Harry grew, his abilities started to manifest, so they became more and more irritating. He was relegated to the cupboard (at the age of four?) and pressure was put on him, so his ?weirdness? may disappear, effectively negating any threat, which could still be lurking in the Dursleys? memory. Since nobody has contacted them for so long, they could even believed they succeeded, until the blasted letters came ? which also explains to the extent their hysterical reaction to them.

Which leads me to: 

Del answers :

>Aha ! I completely agree with you, and I repeat what I said in 
>another post : WHY didn't anyone do anything to stop their abusing 
>Harry ? Harry was going to school with unfitting clothes and broken 
>glasses, he was being chased and bullied by Dudley and his gang 
>right in the school and in the street, he must have acted in social 
>situations in a way that screamed "abused kid"

Well, probably he did not. He was just a calm kid. As I stated earlier (long time ago), he was mainly abused psychically less physically. Durseys are ?respectable? so I can bet Harry didn?t come to school with cigarette or iron burnt marks or his X-ray hasn?t showed multiple bone breakages. These are the signs of abused child which will (but also not always, sadly) make the authorities react. NOTE: I am not saying Harry was not abused. I?m just pointing the extent of the abuse school authorities are ?used to?. They?ll be also more alert among slum-kids than in such community as Little Whinging. Probably some teachers made some remarks and were answered that Harry is ?ungrateful?, he ?doesn?t care?, that he breaks his glasses whenever they buy him new ones etc. Also he did well in school, so teachers were not motivated to probe into his case - especially when they had to deal with Vernon, who may be local version of Malfoy, Respectable Director willing to Help School. 
Sad, but rather probable, I?m afraid. I think the reality of th whole situation makes JKR feel so bad about Vernon.

Cheers, Viridis

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