Harsh Morality (was Re: Double standards and believing)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 121029


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" <stevejjen at e...> 
wrote:
> 
<SNIP> 

> Jen: Aack, Nora, you're making me think to hard after all the 
> holiday food and napping! But you bring up some questions for me. 
> The way you explain it, Platonism indicates that forms supercede 
the 
> actual event/person/structure etc. found below the ideal (so to 
> speak). To me, that indicates there is no value judgement at the 
> level of Good and Evil, merely the abstract conceptions of these 
> principles. 

If I'm getting the idea, this doesn't equate with a harsh morality 
> to me. At the level of the perfect form, there's no implication of 
> right or wrong. Perfectly Evil and Perfectly Good are not given the 
> meaning a human would give. Is that right? It's only in our value 
> judgements that we make it so.

Well, I'm not Nora but I'll try to help, as at one point in my life I 
dwelled deep inside the philosophical tangles of Plato.  There are 
many, many different forms of Platonism.  One cannot escape Plato's 
influence in the Western World.  Indeed, it has been said, in only 
slight exaggeration, that all of Western Philosophy is a series of 
footnotes to Plato.

But what is generally meant by Platonism in discussions of this sort 
is the kind of philosophy found in Plato's own writings.  In these 
writings he put forth the idea of a world of Forms or Ideas.  The 
Forms are real, perfect, and eternal.  They also exist in hierarchy, 
with the greatest form being the form of The Good (always 
capitalized).

Now, and this is CRUCIALLY important, the Forms are the ONLY things 
that are True and Real (capitals intended once again).  Nothing else 
is, in the end, real.  The chair on which I sit is not, in the final 
analysis, real.  Only the Form of the Chair (note the capital) in 
which my chair partakes is real, the thing I am sitting on is 
ultimately only a shadow, a passing illusion given some vestige of 
reality by its participation in an eternal Form.

This is ESPECIALLY true of The Good.  Only The Good is in fact good.  
And it is good by definition, by nature, by Eternity, and by 
Reality.  Every other good only exists ONLY insofar as it partakes in 
The Good.  What we mortals think (and we are in many ways just 
shadows ourselves after all) has NO BEARING ON THE SITUATION 
WHATSOEVER.  If you call something good that does not partake of The 
Good, you are WRONG.  Plato's most famous allegory, the Allegory of 
the Cave, says that mortals are only observers of a shadow show.  We 
can only observe The Good by its shadowy presence that we can see.  
The best that we can hope for is to CORRECTLY percieve the presence 
of The Good in the shadows that partake of it.  Once again, our 
perceptions and beliefs are not really important, they are but the 
passing shadows within the mind of a shadow.  The best we can hope is 
that they are CORRECT.  You can call The Good evil all you want, it 
makes less difference in Reality than a human breath pitted against a 
hurricane -- which is to say it makes no difference whatsoever.

Christian Platonism equates The Good either with God Himself or with 
the ultimate Idea of the World that exists in the Mind of God.  
Christian Platonists tend to see humans as being Persons only insofar 
as they partake in the Form of God, the only Real Person.  By 
partaking in the Form of God, humans have some measure of free will 
(only God has Free Will).  But if you use your free will to turn your 
understanding away from The Good, it is even worse than in the case 
of Plato.  Plato would say you have made a moral mistake (but very 
much a MORAL mistake).  A Christian Platonist sees this as a Sin 
(once again with a capital letter).  Once again, what you WANT to 
believe, what you DO believe, makes no difference at all.  You can 
say that God is not The Good.  All that means is you have turned from 
the only Real, True, Good and fallen into Sin, which in the eyes of 
many Christian Platonists means you are in danger of not being a 
person anymore (you can't Totally be Not a Person due to the fact 
that God will never totally abandon you), but rather become more and 
more Shadowlike.

If that sounds like Tolkien it is with good reason.  Tolkien, a very 
devout Catholic, was in some ways an archetypal Christian Platonist.

<SNIP> 
> Jen: 
> I've been reading a few articles on Platonism trying to understand, 
> and it sounds vaguely like the concept of "creating your own 
> reality" to me. That the thought forms in your mind are the reality 
> and what you actually perceive outside yourself is a distant 
second. 
> If that's the case, then yes, morality in Potterverse is a moveable 
> feast depending on who you know! But I'd like to be set right if 
I'm 
> misunderstanding. 

There are some forms of Platonism that do seem very solipsistic 
(creating your own reality).  However, the Platonism of Plato's 
Dialogues and the beliefs of most Christian Platonists are just the 
opposite.  Morality is given and grounded in the Real.  You are Moral 
only in that you partake of the pre-existing Good.  Your own beliefs 
do not affect the Good, they only determine whether you are more or 
less in moral error, or in the case of Christian Platonism, more or 
less in sin.

Lupinlore