Snape Harry and forgiveness/ judaism related/Canon for the Snape being abusive

[Miles]

No: HPFGUIDX 144372

> Betsy Hp:
> Commonly, Neville and Harry are brought up as examples of Snape
> being a child abuser.  But neither boy demonstrates any of the above
> symptoms.  [for child abuse, Miles]

Agree to Betsy's mail and her conclusions, and thanks for the sources that
support the definition of child abuse I put in the discussion.

But back to the objections to a restrictive definition of child abuse, based
on scientific standards.

> Miles:
> If we try to find a wider definition for child abuse, I would not like it,
> because we should not use the same term for Snape being unfair to Neville,
> and Tom Riddle petrifying or murdering students with the basilisk.

> Lupinlore:
> Why not?  There are many terms that cover both instances.  "Wrong,"
> for instance.  "Evil," is another.  "Cruel," would be yet another.
> Just because a term is broad and applies across a lot of instances,
> does not make it invalid.

Miles:
There is no need to use scholastic definitions for everyday words. "Wrong",
"evil" or "cruel" are words everyone uses, and uses them very differently,
but the consequences are neglectiable.
But child abuse - that is very different. For example, if I called a teacher
"evil" in public, s/he would merely raise one eyebrow. If I'd say "child
abuser" instead, my next step should be calling my advocate.

There are good reasons not to use the very strong term child abuse for any
incident including a child treated in an unfriendly way.
For me, the main reason is that child abuse is still a tabu. Most cases of
real child abuse is in the dark, the victims keep silent, the abusers carry
on. Most abusers are family, and victims who speak are often accused of
destructing their family.
We speak of millions of sexually abused girls and boys, millions of brothers
and fathers and uncles (and sisters, mothers and aunts....) that abuse
sexually, emotional, physical, millions of suicides, sever depressions. We
should spare the term child abuse for these cases, because we have to
encourage the victims and witnesses to speak, not to look away, and
particularly not to play down what happened and happens to them by
equalizing it with harmless incidents.
We damage the effort to lift the dark, if we spoil the term "child abuse"
for incidents, that do no (lasting) harm to anybody.

We can be sure, that there are members of this list that *are* victims of
rape, emotional torture and assault during childhood. I am not - but
assuming I were, it would be horrible for me to read that 5 points from
Gryffindor are "child abuse".

Miles