Character (was: Re: Lupin is Ever So Evil, Part One )

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 130310

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

> Pippin:
> The important word for me in the quote is "remain" -- Harry
> remained strong and sane under conditions in which Neville's
> strength and sanity would have crumbled. However, as Neville has 
> not been forced to undergo those ordeals, his strength and sanity 
> are intact-- he is in Gryffindor after all.
> 
> Therefore, strength and sanity can not be essentials, and Harry has 
> some other quality which enabled him to preserve his strength and 
> sanity. One might imagine that if Neville had been subjected to 
> Harry's life, he might have died, or become like Riddle to survive.

I really, really don't understand your logic here.

Your reading would mean that Neville's strength and sanity were of an 
inferior quality to Harry's possession of those virtues.  
[Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy and their discussion of virtue 
(_arete_, which can also mean excellence or skill), is essentialist--
these are innate qualities and properties.]  In those terms then, 
Harry is more excellent in his virtue than Neville because Neville 
might have cracked but Harry has not.  This is operative whether or 
not Neville went through what Harry did.

What it does boil down to is that JKR is pretty much saying that (at 
least Dumbledore thinks) that Harry is innately, and this got him 
through his crappy life, in possession of certain qualities.  
Strength and sanity, and even the ability to preserve one's character 
under fire, are essential components of someone's character, the very 
stuff of what a person is.  

> What is open is to what extent strength and sanity can be restored 
> once they are damaged. Since Dumbledore believes in second chances, 
> I don't see how he can be an essentialist, but maybe I am missing 
> something.

Because he believes in the possibility of things which are there but 
hidden becoming manifest.  But if it was never, ever there to begin 
with, then it cannot become so.  

Here's some support for the fire: JKR's comments that Tom Riddle has 
*never* loved anyone.  Tom Riddle is thus innately deficient, 
defective in virtue...and what isn't there at all can never show 
itself.  This comment which has boggled many a listie as unrealistic 
and not fitting into her world system makes sense from an 
essentialist perspective.

> Ron and Hagrid are the essentialists, if you ask me.  'Poisonous 
> toadstools don't change their spots', 'Bad blood--that's what it 
> is'. Harry is wavering -- he was raised to be an essentialist,
> the Dursleys are nothing if not that-- but Dumbledore is swaying 
> his ideas.

The DEs are a particular kind of essentialist, as well.  But you 
don't have to be a DE variety to still subscribe to an essentialist 
philosophy (such as virtue ethics) as opposed to an existentialist 
one (a bit of an artificial divide at times but meaningful!), and I 
submit that's a lot of what JKR is playing with.  Of course there's a 
strong volition component in there, but that seems to operate as a 
component of character.

-Nora wonders what will happen if we don't get that whole new set of 
books to read...