Scapegoating Slytherin (was:Punishing Draco )

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 143981

> > Alla:
> > Sorry, Jen there IS a way around of that to me. :-) All founders 
> > discriminated, sure, BUT none of them except Slytherin
> > discriminated based on something you cannot change, IMO. You CAN
> > work on your courage, you probably cannot work on your  IQ, but
> > hard work can get even not very "naturally talented" student very
> > very far. Slytherin's discrimination is  the worst to me and I 
> > believe that it is the worst to Rowling too.
> 
> Nora:
> > But they're not discriminatory with the same kinds of factors.
> > Slytherin is the genuine essentialist, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor 
> > look for virtues (now in the Aristotelian sense), and Hufflepuff
> > opens up to everyone.
> 
> Jen: I do agree that Rowling views discrimination based on purity 
of 
> blood as the most reprehensible form of discrimination we see in 
> Potterverse, for the reasons both of you spell out--blood cannot be 
> changed. 
> 
> What I'm trying to understand is why at the founding of Hogwarts, 
> the other three founders did not outright reject Slytherin's wish 
to 
> "teach those whose ancestry is purest." (chap. 11. OOTP)
> 
> The fact that there was harmony and friendship between the founders 
> for several years prior to the rift seems meaningful to me for 
> understanding the story, as well as the reality that people are 
> sorted into Slytherin who come from Muggle parentage. 
> 
> Thinking about the state of the WW at the time of the founding of 
> Hogwarts, when active persecution was taking place and witches and 
> wizards were an oppressed minority, I do think it's possible that 
> Slytherin's initial ideas about pure ancestry had more to do with 
> saving an importance race and culture from extinction rather than 
> the pure-blood ideology present in the current WW. And the other 
> founders may have shared that fear, although not to the same 
extent. 
> But then Slytherin's fears may have turned into an obsession with 
> blood superiority, causing the rift with the others.

Ceridwen:
I'm glad to see that everyone so far believes that reverse 
discrimination is bad.  Because if the WW was in the straits Jen 
suggests in her above paragraphs, that's pretty much what Slytherin 
was advocating.  Keep the oppressor race out and school our own.  And 
while I do understand that, in many, many cases, this sort of 
viewpoint is absolutely necessary at the height of discrimination, 
since most likely the children are *not* getting a decent education 
due to hiding from possible capture and death, it doesn't fly once 
the situation has been resolved, or at least patched enough to resume 
usual business.  In the case of Hogwarts, the situation is taken care 
of by a hidden school which teaches the minority Wizarding 
population's children.  I don't know if modern standards would see 
this as having actually taken care of the *problem*, since the 
majority Muggles don't know the WW exists, and it smacks of 'seperate 
but equal'.  But, it does effectively remove the threat and has been 
successful for a thousand years.

This thread has given me a different perspective on the Blood Purity 
issue.  I also believe that discrimination based on something so 
intrinsic to the individual - ancestry; blood, is bad.  It leaves no 
room for individual talents to shine forth.  But, Slytherin House 
also has the criteria of cunning and ambition, and it has accepted 
half-bloods in the past, while other purebloods are sorted into other 
houses.  Slytherin House doesn't take all purebloods just because 
they're purebloods, leaving the rest for the other houses.  If purity 
was all that mattered, the Weasleys would have been Slytherin, I 
think.  And Snape and Riddle would have been in any other house.

Salazar Slytherin's views on blood purity are not the criteria for 
acceptance into his house.  Slughorn, who is apparently a racist who 
is actively trying to submerge, or even rid himself of, that trait, 
accepts half-bloods and Muggle-borns into his club.  He is an example 
of pre-Voldemort Slytherins.  His criteria involve ambition, talent, 
connections, and not necessarily all in one person.  Since Slughorn 
was Head of Slytherin House, he probably exhibited the traits of 
Slytherin best of all possible candidates for that post, at the time 
of his selection.

Slytherin's views may have been necessary to the foundation of 
Hogwarts.  I don't know, we don't know a lot about the time of the 
Founders.  But if the conditions were as Jen suggests, then exclusion 
of students coming from a dangerous enemy population would make 
sense.  It's an extreme view.  But other groups who have suffered 
persecution have done the same thing since.

As of the seperation of the WW from the Muggle world, and the fading 
memory among the Muggle population of such things as *real* witches 
and wizards, Slytherin's concerns no longer exist.  At least for the 
moment.  But, his people probably want some way to emulate him, in a 
world where it is no longer necessary.  Which has resulted in the 
Pureblood Supremacist thought.  It has gone beyond the necessary, yet 
has not been put away once the need was over.  This is the problem of 
Slytherin House today, I think.  And, a lot of it is due to Tom 
Riddle, heir of Slytherin, and his extremism.  He co-opted the House 
and I think that what we see is also the victim of Voldemort's rise.

Ceridwen.