Innocent Alby? (was Re: Why should Harry be expected to listen...)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 122882


 
> 
> 
> Not a bad scenario, Lupinlore, although I disagree with some of your
> assumptions, most importantly the idea that Dumbledore fails if he's
> less than omniscient (in other words, if he's human).


Depends on what you mean by failure.  I think this is actually a very
ambivalent word and can have many different connotations.  I am as
guilty as anyone else in this, as I often slide back and forth in a
single discussion between definitions of failure.

Mostly I think what I mean by failure is that "goal A is not
obtained."  In that sense failure is simply an objective fact and has
no moral connotations.  If you intend to make 100 on a test and make
that your specific goal, and make "only" 96, then you have failed. 
That is, you have not achieved your standard.  You did very well
indeed, but nevertheless failed.

This is the way the word "failure" is often used in formal scientific
and operational discussions of the type I have dealt with for some
years.  "The military exercise failed to achieve all of its stated
objectives.  The experiment failed to validate the hypothesis. 
Dumbledore failed to achieve his goals with regard to Harry."  That is
to state that something is a failure is simply to say that it did not
achieve the intended results.  

Now, there is another meaning of the word, in which "failure" implies
some type of moral flaw.  In Anglo-American culture, drenched in the
theories and practices of capitalism and deeply influenced by the
demanding religious traditions of Calvinism and Millenialism, one is
not supposed to fail if one is a morally worthy person.  Therefore, we
tend to unconsciously, and often consciously, wrap a pronouncement of
failure up in the language and intent of moral judgment.

What I was trying to say (I think) is that it is not hard to come up
with a scenario in which Albus is the "epitome of goodness" and still
a failure in the first, objective sense.  That is, if he is the EoG
then he would undoubtedly have planned for things to go very
differently at many points.  They did not, ergo he has failed.  It is
simply an objective fact.  However, in that he remains the EoG, he is
not a failure in the second, moral sense.


> 
> But I really disaggree that Dumbledore brought in Lupin to be some
> kind of parent-sub for Harry.  I think Lupin was brought to Hogwarts
> to keep him out of the way of the escaped Sirius Black.  IMO
> Dumbledore was afraid that Lupin would fall in with Black (who was
> always the stronger personality of the two), and that might prove
> somehow dangerous for Harry.  So he brought Lupin to Hogwarts to keep
> him away from falling under the sway of his old school pal again.
> 
> Did Dumbledore have doubts about Sirius' guilt?  He probably had a
> hard time accepting that Sirius could have turned on James after
> being closer than brothers for over 10 years, but in the absence of
> an explanation about the SK betrayal, probably felt there was no
> other option. 
> 
> Magda


Actually, as I said in my first post, I don't believe in this scenario
either, it's only one way of allowing Albus to fail in the objective
sense without failing in the moral sense.

But, to take your objection and run with it, I see no reason why Albus
has to do anything for only one reason.  Why in the world can't he
want to do something about the lack of emotional support in Harry's
life while at the same time thinking that it's best for Remus to be at
Hogwarts away from Sirius?  For goodness sake, no one ever does
anything out of only one motivation, even in the most formal and rule
constrained of environments, much less in anything meant to represent
"life!"


Lupinlore