THEORY: Hogwarts curriculum

[Nora Renka]

No: HPFGUIDX 112404

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "arrowsmithbt" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Nora Renka" <nrenka at y...> 
wrote:
> > 
> > I think a major theme that's starting to come up more and more is 
the 
> > need for reform in the WW.  Hold your charges of cultural 
imperialism 
> > for a moment, please.  We've been told that the Fountain is a 
lie, 
> > the idea that these other creatures adore the benevolent 
wizards.  
> > Keep in mind that Dumbledore is often used by JKR to express 
> > ontological reality, the way that things really actually *are*.  
We 
> > see that much of the WW has no problem with the ideas of 
pureblood 
> > superiority and the casual treatment of other magical creatures 
which 
> > are 'inferior'.
> > 
> > And Dumbledore stands against all of this.  I think Azkaban is an 
> > utterly sick place, as the idea of a prison that forcibly causes 
> > clinical depression in its inmates is a place I could never wish 
upon 
> > my worst enemy.  I have a fellow-thinker from within wizarding 
> > society, in Dumbledore.  He seems to be consciously trying to 
bust a 
> > lot of the ingrained prejudices in the WW that modern RL 
standards 
> > would consider 'immoral', and as JKR does get to set a lot of the 
> > rules for her world--I think he's Right in a fundamental sense.  
He's 
> > the Voice part of the Exit, Voice, and Loyalty model.
> 
> Kneasy: 
> Oh  dear. Look out everybody - Nora is channeling Hermione.

Actually, it's more like a particularly unholy alliance of Karl 
Popper and E. O. Hirschmann, the only economist ever with a sense of 
humor.

> I don't consider that an occasional phrase here, a comment about
> the Ministry statue there, changes DD into a raving activist. His
> personal standards may differ from those of the WW as a whole,
> but I can't see him instituting a dictatorship to impose them -
> because that's what it would take to change the ethos of the WW.

GoF, p. 709:

"Now, see here, Dumbledore...I've given you free reign, always.  I've 
had a lot of respect for you.  I might not have agreed with some of 
your decisions, but I've kept quiet.  There aren't many who'd have 
let you hire werewolves, or keep Hagrid, or decide what to teach your 
students without reference to the Ministry..."

Fudge sure thinks of Dumbledore as something of a radical, and DD 
certainly is an intellectual radical compared to the rest of the WW.  
Actually bothering to read the Muggle papers and understanding Muggle 
society (as opposed to the ineffectual yet charming efforts of an 
Arthur Weasley) mark him as different.

And you've read Popper, right, Kneasy?  You're old enough, right? :)
One of his main ideas is 'piecemeal' political reform, as opposed 
to 'utopian'.  Popper noticed (when a lot of people didn't) what 
utopian societal visions (a strict reading of Plato's Republic, 
Hegel, Stalinism) led to.  In contrast, you start trying to change 
one thing at a time, you make modifications along the way, and you 
have a certain classical liberal respect for human rights and 
boundaries.  That's why Dumbledore is at the school--makes you wonder 
just how big his network of sympathizers and collaborators is, eh?  
Everyone who is in the Order has some sort of connection to him, and 
they are a motley group indeed, but their range shows that his ideas 
have had at least some spread throughout society.

> I've posted before - so Voldy gets dead - so what? What difference
> will that make to the attitudes of such as Malfoy? None whatsoever.
> It didn't when Voldy went down last time, it won't next time. Voldy
> did not convince Malfoy of anything, Malfoy was already a 
> supremacist; probably had been since he lisped his first spell - he 
> just gave him a  means to express his opinions in a concrete way.

If you force people to actually face (unlike what happened at the end 
of VW1, with the coverups and denial and 'oh, nothing happened) the 
results of their own actions, that their precious blood ideology 
helped a Voldemort rise, you have the start of changing the dominant 
ethos of a population.  Pureblood supremacy is what let Voldemort 
rise and collect followers--but I've posted about this before, too.

> The 'gradual way' is unlikely to work either. How long has DD been
> Headmaster at Hogwarts? Any noticeable decline in Slytherin 
> attitudes? Nope.

This is a sticky question, but here's a suspicion: it's not 
acceptable to say 'Mudblood' in public, as we gather by the offense 
that everyone takes to it being used in CoS.  In a period of true 
ascendancy of Slytherin pureblood ideas (when it's okay to be an open 
fan of Voldemort's ideas, as it canonically was), it's going to be 
like using certain racial slurs in the American South in the 1950's.  
Nowadays, people still think them, sure--but they're not an 
acceptable part of public discourse.  This *is* a change, and it's a 
change for the better.

> Certainly he recognises the Statue as an hypocrisy, but that
> is no guarantee  that he intends to do anything about it. What 
> support or encouragement did he give Hermione over SPEW/ELF? None. 
> Zero. Partly, I suspect because the Elf situation is not what it 
> seems at first sight - he condones hundreds of unpaid workers at 
> Hogwarts - yes, they may be happy, but a happy slave is still a 
> slave if the consensus of opinion holds. But I for one don't 
> believe that Elves are slaves. Mistreated by certain families they 
> may be, but I'm not convinced that invalidates the institution of 
> House Elfdom; it's an aberation within it. Much more to come on 
> this, I think.

I agree there's more to come, but it's interesting that he includes 
elves in the category of the mistreated.  Hermione is certainly going 
about it the wrong way, but yet there *is* something profoundly wrong 
in how people are currently treating/able to treat the elves.

> You want to break the stranglehold wizards have over others? There's
> only one way - take away their magic powers. For ever. It's a final 
> resolution to the books that I've offered before and so have one or 
> two others that recognise that unless you do so there will always 
> be Malfoys and probably a never-ending succession of Voldys too.
> People are not perfectible. Power will be used; that is its 
> purpose. But since magical power is personal and not delegated by 
> popular consent and withheld by the will of the majority, there is 
> no guarantee that it will be used in beneficent ways; it all 
> depends on the inclination of the wielder. And personally I'd trust 
> no-one that much.

I don't trust anyone that much, either, to be honest. :)  I'm not the 
predicting type, but I at present doubt she's going to go that 
route.  And since you probably don't want to hear it, I'm not going 
to go into the responsibility of the community to police its members, 
okay? :)

> JKRs boundaries are interesting, though. I suspect that many are
> mirages and will vanish before the end.  Either they will be
> explained away or prove to  have existed only in the readers mind
> (with the help  of a little misdirection on the part of JKR of 
> course). It's woth remembering that what we know of the WW is what 
> we see through the eyes of a teenage boy - one, moreover, who is a
> stranger in a strange land.  Not the most objective witness.
> But if you  want to define what you  see as JKRs boundaries, go
> right ahead. I  reserve the right of dissent, naturally.

Let me rephrase this:  JKR is presenting a number of behaviors, from 
which we are extrapolating an ethical background of norms for the 
WW.  She approves of some of them (and tends to make them 
ontologically true, as well), and doesn't of others.  Yes, we're 
getting perilously close to authorial intent, but Wimslett and 
Beardsley have taken enough of a serious beating over the past 50-odd 
years that I don't have a problem with doing it.

I actually think JKR is a rather moralistic writer.  I suspect that 
all the bad guys are going to get theirs in the end, really.  We know 
we're not going to have Tempted-by-evil!Harry (per interview), as 
much as you and the rest of the FEATHERBOAS might like to see it.  
Voldemort's not going to win, either, and I doubt we're going to get 
a completely and utterly full of angst and pain and terror ending--
although I'll be damn disappointed if we don't get at least some 
angst and pain.

Dumbledore is JKR's self-admitted moral voice, and I think she's 
going to *make* things fall out so that he's fundamentally right 
(although I suspect that the prophecy resolution is going to end up 
being some special thing of Harry's that DD doesn't have the solution 
to, though).  Just a suspicion on my part.

-Nora ponders going to check out a copy of 'The Open Society and Its 
Enemies', now