[HPforGrownups] House Elves and Slavery

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 126574

Debbie wrote:
>It's interesting how this question focuses only on whether the house
>elves have been brainwashed.  I think it's overreaching to describe
>the house elves as brainwashed, as the current connotations of the
>term suggest an intentional process of re-education, whereas the
>enslavement of the houe elves goes back centuries.  What's really
>going on, in my view, is the usual process of culturization, and if it
>applies to the house elves, it applies to everyone else, too.

>If it is appropriate to state that the house elves have been
>brainwashed by wizarding culture to accept their subservient role,
>then it would be equally appropriate to assert that Hermione has been
>brainwashed by her bleeding-heart liberal muggle culture to assume
>that all beings must be free.  And equally appropriate to assert that

With much snippage, a different perspective which sidesteps the issues of
enslavement, acculturation, and brainwashing.

I think it's easy to slip into what Kneasy (bless 'im) used to call "Muggle
thinking" and approach the house elf question from our own RW human being
perspective (and how can we easily do otherwise?) We are used to a world in
which we are the only sapient species (though the recent discovery of the
Flores Island Hobbits tells us that this wasn't always the case) so in our
world (and Potterverse Muggles would share that perspective) all sapient
beings have the same (human) nature. We are all naturally cooperative,
generous, and freedom-loving.

But shifting across to the WW, things are very different. Our own species
has three subspecies (not just Muggles like ourselves, but also squibs and
wizarding folk). But also the world is inhabited by many other sapient
species (who can be expected to have very different natures than ourselves).

There are Giants. Close enough to be able to interbreed with humans, as we
know (though it's worth wondering whether people like Hagrid and Maxime are
sterile in the way that mules and ligers are in nature). Pureblooded Giants
don't seem to think at all like us, though we don't actually even know
whether the remnant that we've heard described lost their more intelligent
members when the species was virtually wiped out.

There are Goblins, and we don't know how they think at all.

There are Centaurs, and JKR describes them sufficiently well to make it
obvious that they have a totally different mindset from humans (when Harry
first meets them he has real difficulty understanding what they're on
about).

There are various others, including merfolk and vampires.

And there are house elves. Who also appear to act for the most part
according to their natures. We've met some untypical ones (ie Dobby) but
most of the others don't think like him. Winky, for example, pretty much
lost her sanity when she was "liberated" from "servitude". Kreacher has also
pretty much been pushed over the edge.

Is the message perhaps that the more humans meddle with house elves, the
worse it is for them? Shouldn't we just let them get on with what it's in
their nature to do, and not try to alter them? Would the result of
Hermione's crusade be a species made up of Kreachers and Winkys? Hermione
can be understood for her perspective, but WW-borns _know_ that not all
sapients have minds that run on the same tracks as our own.

Cheers

Ffred

O Benryn wleth hyd Luch Reon
Cymru yn unfryd gerhyd Wrion
Gwret dy Cymry yghymeiri