Harsh Morality - Combined answers

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 121101


Salit wrote: 
"Unless I am quite mistaken, WWII affected many more people than just
the French (whose behaviour during the war was hardly something to
brag about)."

Del replies:
I would appreciate if you refrained from insulting a people you
apparently don't know personally.
But anyway my point was only to contest the rule you had arbitrarily
established that in a war things are black or white. A single
exception is enough to disprove a rule, and the French (and many other
people in several other occupied countries by the way) are that
exception, hence your rule is not valid. That's what I was aiming at.

Salit wrote:
"It would not have helped any of them if they just put their head down
and cooperated. They were doomed because they were Jewish."
and 
"If you were born of the wrong stock it would not have mattered what
you did or who you were, you'd still be killed."

Del replies:
I completely agree. This is *precisely* the difference between the
French and the Jews : the Nazis were bent on killing the Jews no
matter what, while they were very willing to let the non-Jew (and
non-Rom, non-Slav, non-homosexual, non-whatever-they-didn't-like)
French live. This led to very different reactions between the Jews and
the "all right" French : the first ones *had* to react, while the
second could pretend that things were OK enough at first.

Similarly in the WW, LV and his DEs are supposedly mainly after the
Muggles, the Muggleborns, the half-bloods and whoever defends them.
This would lead the purebloods to inaction, since they are not
*directly* threatened. And from the look of things, it seems like the
purebloods are still quite in control of the government. So it would
make sense that the government wouldn't be inclined to react to LV's
presence because they don't feel as threatened. Though I must admit
that after VWI, I don't really see how they can still fool themselves,
but hey, that's a very human thing to do.

Salit wrote:
"So of course my perspective on the matter is quite different than the
French or yours. If you don't resist evil, you are just aiding it, and
deluding yourself that it will leave you alone if you act nicely. "

Del replies:
How do you know my perspective ? I actually happen to agree with you.
But I also happen to understand why other people would react differently.

Salit wrote:
"Are you suggesting that there was no moral difference between the
Nazis and those who opposed them and the only reason we denounce the
Nazis is because they lost?"

Del replies:
Yes and no. There would still be people to denounce what the Nazis
did, but they wouldn't be anywhere as supported by the general public
as they are now.

Salit wrote:
"What made the Nazis unique was their pure blood racial ideology which
in their view gave them the right to perform genocide and mass murder
on a scale never before seen, and whose society was technologically
advanced enough to have the means to execute it."

Del replies:
How many people consider the Catholic church and the European kingdoms
it supported as scum for the way they treated the American Indians?
Millions of Indians were killed because they were "sub-humans", and
yet hardly anybody cares, because the Indians lost.
How many people consider the Romans monsters because of the way they
treated the Jews in 70AD? They killed hundreds of thousands of Jews in
Jerusalem, and yet hardly anybody considers the Roman monsters,
because the Romans won.
Like it or not, but the winners DO get to rewrite History. There are
always people to contest their views, but it doesn't change the fact
that the winners' view often remains the official view, even when it
is blatantly false.

Salit wrote:
"If you can't see the difference between the Nazis and their
supporters versus those who opposed them, except through the prism of
who won, I really don't know what else to say to you..."

Del replies:
Wherever did I say I couldn't see the difference?
As someone who was born decades after the events in a
non-totalitaristic country, I was given enough information to make up
my mind that the Nazi mentality was evil, and their way of enforcing
it even worse.
But I'm not sure I would have thought the same thing if I had lived in
some rural part of France in 1941, for example. 

Salit wrote:
"The point is that the collaborators make it possible for the real
enemy to take control and because they usually don't quite hold to
their extreme ideology, they serve as a fig leaf to evil to hide the
real intentions of the people they support."

Del replies:
Exactly. This makes it harder for the general public to figure out
what the real enemy is actually up to. That was precisely my point.

Salit wrote:
"Morality is not something that is relative and determined by the
winner, or by who gets the good headlines in the paper."

Del replies:
I disagree, at least on the short term. With hindsight and more
information, the truth becomes easier to figure out. But in the middle
of a situation, we often accept for the truth what we are being
presented with by the stronger contestant, or by the papers.

In the WW, people couldn't figure out during VWI who was a DE, who was
being controlled, who was a good guy : they didn't know who to trust.
Trusting a DE or distrusting a good guy were not necessarily signs of
moral corruption, because people didn't necessarily see things as they
truly were. It's only after the end of the war, when trials were held
and the evidence was presented on all sides, that things became
clearer. And even then, not all the truth was uncovered, or Lucius
Malfoy would have spent a decade in Azkaban.

Salit wrote:
" Results surely matter. But intentions - and the willingness to learn
from mistakes - matter even more. None of JKR's good characters are
infallible. They have all been guilty of lying, stealing,
insensitivity, greed, you name it. It's the fact that they are willing
to lay these petty traits aside when faced with a hard choice, and
they are willing to grow and learn, that sets them apart."

Del replies:
I would tend to agree, if I didn't feel that this is not the way
things are presented in the books. Those traits you mentioned are not
presented as being bad as long as their owners are on the side of
Good, while good qualities become irrelevant in people who are on the
side of Evil.
As for being willing to lay those traits aside, or being willing to
grow and learn, I don't see that in any particular set of characters,
whether the good ones or the bad ones.

Salit wrote: 
"JKR made out Dumbledore to be the epitome of goodness, but she
definitely did not make him infallible. In her world Dumbledore cannot
mean wrong, but he can (and does) do wrong, as he himself readily admits."

Del replies:
That's precisely the crux of my problem. DD can and does do wrong, and
yet the only Good thing to do is to believe him and follow him without
hesitation. Whoever doesn't do that is wrong. Bummer.

Del