Good moral core (Re: Dirty Harry/Clean Harry)

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 117169



SSSusan wrote :
" Does there have to be a determining principle or a scale?  I'm not
so sure it's so systematic."

Del replies :
It might not be systematic, but it is very often.

If you don't give guidelines to kids, many of them will settle on the
most natural ones : personal satisfaction and immediate gratification.
They will do what feels good at the moment, no matter what the
consequences might be for themselves or for others.

Harry is not even in this situation : he *was* taught some principles
by the Dursleys, albeit bad ones. And yet as soon as he gets away from
the Dursleys, those principles are immediately replaced by good ones.
How come ?

SSSusan wrote :
" Don't some people just do good things because they've seen bad
things and don't want to repeat them?"

Del replies :
Yes, but very often it implies a *conscious* decision. One first has
to realise what happened and why it happened, and then one has to
decide not to do it, or identify an opposite behaviour, and then one
has to catch oneself when doing it or when having an opportunity to do
otherwise.

Harry just seems to jump from "I don't like that bad behaviour" to
"I'll do that opposite behaviour".

SSSusan wrote :
" Or because they like how they feel inside when they've done them?  
Harry's been hurt; Harry's seen hatred, bullying, shallow people who 
care only for themselves in the Dursleys.  I'd think that experience 
could have taught him what he DIDN'T want to become."

Del replies :
Agreed. Harry doesn't want to be like the Dursleys. But unless he
actually studied what the Dursleys did, and why, and why he didn't
like it, then the probability that he will find out by himself how not
to be like them is slim. Especially since we are almost never told
that Harry takes a decision based on what the Dursleys would have done
or not.

This relates to the feeling many people have that Harry is *not
enough* damaged by his childhood. He just seems to get over it in a
wink. That's not logical to me. Harry must have been going through
different stages. Most of them might have been unconscious, but I
can't believe that there weren't a few that were conscious. And yet we
never see those conscious steps. He was abused, but he doesn't seem to
go through the struggle of realigning his beliefs about the world or
himself that many abused kids have to go through.

Del