Moral Ambiguity in Main Characters

[finwitch]

No: HPFGUIDX 127046


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "abadgerfan2" <ABadgerFan2 at m...>
wrote:
--
> The first criticism was that the books "clearly teach that obedience 
> to rules or morality is required only when such obedience serves you 
> best." This cynical attitude of it's only wrong if you get caught may 
> well describe the "real world", but the argument is do we want to 
> teach our youngsters such values? The critiquer points to the amount 
> of rule-breaking and lying by Harry and his pals, the gradual 
> corrupting of Hermoine to share such situational values, and even 
> Dumbledore's rewarding or overlooking Harry's blatant disobedience to 
> rules, while acknowledging (in Book 4) his own ambiguous moral compass 
> ("It is my belief . . . that truth is generally preferable to lies.")

Finwitch:

Well, Right & Wrong is not, in my view, about rules or obeying.

Mr Gandhi did nothing wrong in disobeying the British Laws. 

Acc. to Gospels, Jesus broke the rules set by some jewish authorities
- like healing someone during the Sabbath... and historically, every
early Christian was disobeying a Roman law forbidding the said
religion. Possibly other religions have similar stories, but I don't
know of them.

A history book told me that the person who dropped the first atomic
bomb to Japan, under orders, couldn't bear the guilt and killed
himself - but he did obey rules.

Sokrates asked questions the authorities didn't like (which also broke
rules of then Greece) and called it 'spoiling/misleading the young'.
If Harry Potter books teach any attitude against rules, it's about
questioning them, just like Sokrates.

And about Dumbledore: It is my belief that truth is generally
preferable to lies -- well, I agree.

One should be, in general basis, truthful.
However, there *are* occasions where truth can and should be bent.

One could lie in order to save a life (hiding some innocent, like
Sirius).. Saying that Cedric was murdered by Voldemort - well,
omitting his use of Pettigrew as a tool for doing it could be a lie,
but it's much closer to truth than what the Ministry said.

I'm not so certain whether courtesy overrides honesty, but of course,
silence might be an option.

Finwitch