Harsh Morality

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 121056


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:

<snip>

> In the Potterverse, Love isn't just the tip of the metaphysical 
> pyramid, as Nora put it. It's the whole enchilada.

Ahem.  I didn't say it's the tip, I said it's at the top. :)

I don't think that Love is the only value going on here, although 
one may make a good argument for Love being the all-embracing 
virtue.  Much as Shklar argues that fear is the basis of all the 
vices, then perhaps love is the contra to fear.

Do we want to consider courage to be a form of love, as it's the 
virtue that JKR has said she values most highly?  It does seem to 
also be a great one throughout the Potterverse: courage to fight the 
basilisk, courage of some sort to turn away from Voldemort, courage 
to join the Order, courage to defy your family and become the black 
sheep?

Fear is crippling, and it's one of Voldemort's prime weapons.  It 
drives people to do things they would not normally do.  In some way, 
it's behind many of the essentialist (but clearly wrong) pureblood 
ideas.  It is definitely not a moral positive, in the Potterverse, 
to be feared--I think fairly categorically, really.  Maybe Snape 
will figure that out, sooner or later...

-Nora just set out to refine a quotation, and gets herself into 
rambling that might someday be better organized: hello, Yahoomort, 
let's search for past posts on fear...