Loyalty and goodness

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 121167


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "delwynmarch" 
<delwynmarch at y...> wrote:

> Del replies:
> I would love things to be this way. My main problem with this idea 
> is that DD never *refers* to his higher principles. He doesn't 
> mention them, he doesn't teach them, he doesn't encourage others 
> to follow them on their own.

Well, no, there's not a laundry list: hardly good literature, that.  
But there are lots of principles put forth in his actions.

The much-debated end of book one can be read as the reward of the 
active principles of doing good things (Trio and Neville), against 
those who got there primarily by the misfortunes of others (the 
Slytherins, who remember, made a show of thanking the Gryffindor 
kids for losing their House points.  IIRC.).

Dumbledore castigates Fudge for upholding the blood principle, while 
he takes care to allow a werewolf to attend school--and it is 
emphasized that Lupin only got his chance because of *Dumbledore*.  
See below about house elves--it's a related issue.

He generally leaves the kids to work out their own issues rather 
than interfering and fighting their own battles for them, both 
amongst each other and with the faculty.  He leaves Harry to choose 
to take action against the snake on his own.

He treats house-elves better than anyone else in the WW, and I have 
no doubts that his comments at the end of OotP are a statement of 
ontological reality for the WW.

He actually states "Innocent until proven guilty", not exactly a 
common WW idea.

He's actively regarded as a defender of the rights of the 
Muggleborn, and as such is a prime target for crypto-fascists such 
as Lucius Malfoy, and quasi-reactionaries such as Fudge.  And he's 
attracted a strong circle of people who really seem to believe in 
him.

I could catalogue all of his other bon mots, but that would take too 
much time, and I'm both sleepy and lazy.  But I disagree that he is 
not teaching the children--I think his examples and actions point 
towards a path.  Not a flawless one and not one always easily seen, 
but there for those who are going to take the effort to open their 
eyes and not wallow in complacency--those who will do what is hard, 
rather than what is easy.  He strikes me as an incarnation of many 
of the problems of liberalism, particularly with the problem of 
restriction of individual behavior.  (That applies very well to the 
parallel debate about Snape and the Dursleys, methinks.)

<snip>

> I can understand that some might not see any reason to follow just 
> another human being, and that many might think their own wisdom is 
> just as good as DD's. Especially if they are not Gryffindors and 
> their priorities and goals were never quite like DD's.

Perhaps the operative word here is 'think'?  Most of the priorities 
and goals we've seen from others are pretty nasty.  Not uniformly, 
but largely.  I don't think Rowling's cosmology is so forgiving 
towards the DE ideology, or even much of the general populace.  And 
she's really not playing with a morally relativistic world; DD's 
goals are, frankly, better than Voldemort's.  End stop.

And, ::waves at Pippin::, the Golden Rule can easily be considered a 
less abstract and coherent version of the Kantian categorical 
imperative.  Not that JKR strikes me as a Kantian...

-Nora notes that even cheap Riesling can be decently good Riesling...