Why should Harry be expected to listen to anyone at Hogwarts?
xcpublishing
xcpublishing at yahoo.com
Tue Jan 25 18:40:42 UTC 2005
No: HPFGUIDX 123014
Julie replies:
>I think there is a difference between having or feeling respect for
>someone and *treating* someone with respect. Harry doesn't have
>to feel respect for Snape to treat him with the respect due his
>station.
I disagree. I'm sure this has a lot to do with cultural differences
as well as how you were raised, but titles mean nothing to me at
all. Teacher, supervisor, senator, president, king. How can give
respect to a title? You can bestow a title on anyone or anything.
Tomorrow I shall go out and call my car an Empress. I shall bow down
to it and bestow gifts upon it. Does that mean my car is worthy of
respect? Of course not. Just because a person is given (or is born
into) a title does not in any way give that person more entitlement
to respect than any schmo begging on a street corner. If the titled
person looks at me like a Malfoy and the schmo waves and bids me a
good day, I'm going to have much more respect for the schmo because
when all the happy titles are stripped away, we're all just humans
and it is how we treat each other that should designate how much
respect we're worthy of. And the only "station" I have respect for
is a gas station, because otherwise my royal car would not run. Must
keep Her Majesty happy.
>If you stoop to someone else's level, what are you
>proving, after all, except that you have the capacity to be
>an equally disrespectful person? (IMO, of course)
The golden rule only applies until someone spits on it. Harry
treated Snape with plenty of deference and respect in the beginning.
Did Snape ever give an ounce of it to Harry? Why continue to beat a
dead horse, as they say?
Pippin writes:
>The respect is due to the position, not the individual. If Harry
>believes that Snape is not qualified to teach, then he should
>resign from the class.
The "position" is held by a person. I think more students fear Snape
than respect him, although I think it quite likely they respect his
abilities. I would love to see all the Griffindors get up and walk
out of Snape's class. Think he'd still be teaching?
Nicky Joe, off to purchase gifts of Turtle Wax for Her Majesty
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