House Elves' enslavement

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 114137

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Susana da Cunha" 
<susanadacunha at g...wrote:
Sophierom wrote:

"I think (and I could be completely wrong) that the treatment of 
house elves
in wizarding society is another of JKR's way of telling us that 
wizarding
society is actually a pretty racist society." <snip>

"Based on this reading of house elves, I'm a little uncomfortable 
with the
idea that SPEW should only focus on teaching wizards to take care of 
their
house elves (hence giving up on the ultimate quest for freedom). 
While
getting wizards to treat their house elves well is
a good thought (and perhaps a good short-term aim), it's ultimately a
reenforcement of paternalism, which is only a nicer manifestation of
 racism." <snip>

Dungrollin:
I agree with that!

Susana: 
I agree the wizarding society is completely racist... but elves are 
not
another race! They are a different species (as you noticed). And 
while you
made the analogy to human enslavement I can't help make a comparison 
that
will scandalize you and others so much, I'm sure to receive hate 
mail over
this (gee, I hope not)!

<snip>
I'm about to compare elves to... dogs!

No, really, I'm not! I want to make this very clear: I will compare 
some
similarities of the dog-human relation with the elf-wizard relation. 
I am
*NOT* saying elves are like dogs in *ANY* way!

Having cleared that out, the reason for my comparison is simple: 
dogs have
evolved to serve humans. There are no wild-dogs - wolfs are not 
dogs. Most
dog breeds don't have the ability to form a society without humans - 
some
can't reproduce, some can't hunt, some can't create bounds with 
other dogs,
etc.

Dungrollin (slightly OT, and pedantic to boot!): Dogs were *bred* to 
serve humans by humans, they did not evolve to do so, natural 
selection had no hand in it, it was artificial selection.


<snip>
But, you see, paternalism is not totally out off place here. If you 
say
elves have human intelligence I agree; But if you say elves have 
human
*capabilities* I'll say I've seen no proof of that in canon (maybe 
they do,
I don't know).

Dungrollin:
Erm
 What's the difference?  And why is their equal
intelligence so 
obvious?

<snip>
As for 'equals'... maybe... er... elves don't want to be equal?

Muggle society has an 'equality complex'! You're anthropomorphising 
elves. I
hate to bring dogs back, but...

<snip>

Dungrollin:  The point is having the *choice*!

Now Dungrollin's couple of knuts:
I can't help but butt in on this (sorry)
  After the analogy
with American slavery, I also thought about an analogy with dogs, 
which sums up nicely the element of House Elves wanting to serve 
humans. But House Elves are not dogs (as has been pointed out).  
They are emotional and reasoning beings (okay their grammar's a
bit 
dodgy – I'm not going to say I think they're
superintelligent, but
you get my point) – and that's where the analogy with dogs
breaks
down.  

There is no evidence to suggest that they were *bred* to serve 
humans – in fact I would be disgusted if they were; imagine house 
elves being forced to
 It doesn't bear thinking about!  But
there's 
a strong implication that their loyalty is *magically* forced, which 
is not the case with dogs: dogs respond to good treatment with 
loyalty. 

An analogy which strikes me as perhaps more understanding of 
Hermione's side (and indeed my own) would be with Swiss women in
the 
1970s (bear with me
).  I still find it shocking that in
Switzerland 
women didn't get the vote until 1974, and (I believe) there is
still 
one Canton in which they don't have the vote.  My boyfriend is 
Swiss, and I bring this up from time to time when he's
complaining 
about British politics, and he says "You can't blame the men,
a lot 
of women didn't *want* the vote!  They held a referendum and
loads 
of women voted against getting the vote!"  

The point about freedom is the ability to make one's own choices.
 
If some Swiss women didn't want to vote, fine they shouldn't
be 
forced to, but to stop all Swiss women voting because even *most* of 
them don't want to is denying them the freedom of choice.

If house elves want to serve people and it makes them happy, then 
fine, let them.  But magically forcing them to serve wizards they 
despise is wrong wrong wrong. While the majority of house elves may 
be happy, we have already met two who aren't/weren't –
Dobby and 
Kreatcher.  The only way to get rid of this injustice is by giving 
them the choice, and at the moment, they don't have that choice. 
No matter how willing the slave, slavery is slavery.

Now I know Hermione is not necessarily going about this in the right 
way - for once, I don't think she's done enough research. 
But how do you go about convincing a Swiss woman that even if she 
doesn't want to vote, perhaps her sister does?  It takes time. 
Any 
large-scale shift in the views of a society (and here I'm talking 
about house-elf society viewing being free as shameful) must come 
from within if it is to last.  But to get people in that society to 
listen to moderate views, sometimes you have to be extreme.  I'm
not an ultra-feminist, but I can quite see how you need them (at 
least to start with) to get people listening to views that they 
would otherwise dismiss.  And in this sense, i.e. drawing attention 
to the situation, Hermione is being helpful.

Certainly, trying to set the school elves free against their will is 
wrong, and Hermione is not thinking straight when she does this. But 
I don't think the reaction of everyone else in the WW (Hagrid
etc) 
is a good enough argument against trying to get the elves freedom.  
I can imagine talking to a Swiss man in the 60's about
women's 
suffrage and him saying "But they don't *want* to vote! 
It'd be 
doing them an unkindness!"

Dungrollin
(who is annoyed that this post had to be a bit rushed, apologises 
for snipping and posting-credit errors that have undoubtedly crept 
in, and really should get back to that **** thesis
)