[HPforGrownups] Snape as a teacher

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 98232

Pippin wrote:
>I don't think it does. The older kids don't seem to care very much
>about the House Cup. I think most adult wizards see the House
>rivalry as something they've outgrown--to still be concerned
>about your house standings as an adult would be a bit like
>Bagman running around in his old Wimbourne Wasps
>uniform--rather gauche, I should think.

You could be right on that. My thoughts on the Ministry are partly based on
an incident that my boss told me about (bear with me, this _is_ relevant!)
when he had worked for a short time at one of our offices in Scotland (I am
in the UK Civil Service). He was chatting when he got there with some of the
Scottish folk and one of them asked him: What school did you go to? Somewhat
taken aback, he replied XXXX Grammar School. Ah, said the Scotsman, not St
Josephs or St Mary's or anything like that? No, said my boss. You're not a
Catholic then? was the next question. No, he said. That's ok then, said the
Scotsman. Our head of branch is a Catholic, he only ever promotes Catholics.

Now this rather nasty piece of sectarianism isn't in the dim and distant
past, from what my boss said, it must have been in the 1980s. Clearly in
Scotland at that time, loyalties established _before_ joining the civil
service were carried forward and became the basis of discrimination and
favouritism _within_ the civil service.

I tend to see the MoM as even more of a political hothouse than its Muggle
counterpart, because the executive and the administration are not separate
as they are in our world, and think "What loyalties might there be that
would be carried forward in that way?"

Partly of course the answer would be political, and I can easily envisage
there being "DE" and "aristocratic" factions within the Ministry, doubtless
there are others that we've never heard of.

But when those entering the Ministry have spent the previous 7 years in an
atmosphere surrounded where their House is their family, I think it's a
possible further source of political loyalties (same as the English public
school system).

>As for the reputation of ex-Slytherins generally, there is no one
>more concerned about popularity than Cornelius Fudge. If
>hanging around with ex-Slytherins would expose him to
>badmouthing in the press, he wouldn't do it.

No, I don't think he would, and I agree with you that Slytherins aren't any
sort of "outcast" group socially

>I don't think a Slytherin boss would want  many other Slytherins
>underneath him--he'd be better off with Hufflepuffs.

Unless, like Kennedy with J Edgar Hoover, s/he would rather have them inside
the tent...

Cheers

Ffred

O Benryn wleth hyd Luch Reon
Cymru yn unfryd gerhyd Wrion
Gwret dy Cymry yghymeiri