In Defense of DD (was Re: DD's dilemma)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 126577


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboyminn at y...> wrote:
> 
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lupinlore" 
<bob.oliver at c...> wrote:
<SNIP> 
> In his lifetime, how many self-important self-proclaimed Dark 
Lords do
> you think he has seen? How many pompous self-important but 
marginally
> effective polititians like Fudge do you think Dumbledore has see? 
How
> many schoolyard Draco-ish bullies do you think he has seen? How 
many
> trapped-in-the-past, can't-let-go bitter people like Snape do you
> think Dumbledore has seen? How many 'tragically misunderstood'
> schoolboys, who alone (at least in their own view) can see and feel
> life with clarity, do you think Dumbledore has seen? How many 
people,
> that he knew personally, do you think Dumbledore has seen die? In
> general, how many times, over and over again, do you think 
Dumbledore
> has witnessed the follies of man?
> 
> Suffering is part of life; to be alive is to suffer, just ask any
> Buddhist. I think Dumbledore in all his years of experience with 
the
> follies and foibles of man (and yes, it is mostly men) has 
naturally
> developed a calm mellow Buddha-like response to life.

Well, I guess my reaction to that would be complicated.  To be calm 
in the face of your own suffering is one thing.  However, this can 
very easily spill over into dismissing or making light of the 
suffering of others (which many Buddhist teachers warn against as a 
false but very seductive enlightenment).  Compassion after all 
literally means "to suffer with."  I agree that Dumbledore shows 
calm.  But I'm not all sure he shows that other great Buddhist 
virtue, compassion.  Rather his calm seems to take the form of 
coldness and dismissal of Harry's pain.  I would have no quarrel 
with Dumbledore's calm, were it not for the absence of compassion.


> 
> Yelling and screaming, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the 
throwing
> of breakable objects, by Dumbledore, at this point, serves no 
purpose,
> but letting Harry rage and storm does. We see clearly in each book,
> that Dumbledore understands that Harry must express himself 
whether by
> emotion or by retelling a terrible tale. Harry must purge 
the 'poison'
> from his system. But as any good councilor knows, when those you
> council dump their 'poison', it's best that you as councilor do not
> then pick up that poison and internalize it. 
> 

Once again, I can but refer to Alla's previous post.  No one would 
be impressed by Dumbledore yelling and screaming and throwing 
things.  We WOULD be impressed by a show of compassion and, yes, 
remorse for the pain his decisions have caused Harry.  Calm is one 
thing, a cold absence of remorse in the face of what his decisions 
have done to an innocent is quite another.  It is one thing to be 
calm yourself in the face of pain life deals you.  It is quite 
another to fail to show appropriate sympathy and compassion in the 
face of someone else's pain.  

You say that much of the calm we see in Dumbledore is 150 years of 
experience.  I could agree with that.  However, I, unlike what you 
seem to be saying, don't see that as a good or admirable thing. 
(Neither, I might add, does Dumbledore necessarily, else he would 
not be talking about his "Old man's mistakes," and "The failings of 
age.")  It would appear that in achieving his calm Dumbledore has 
forgotten the pain of others.  Yes, he has seen many Snapes in his 
life.  Does that mean he should not be compassionate for those 
Snape's taunts injure, and act to restrain Snape to prevent that 
pain?  Should he just say "Life is suffering, suffering is 
learning." and turn a blind eye?  For that matter does his age and 
experience excuse him for not recognizing the depths of Snape's own 
wounds, and the fact that in asking Snape to teach Harry Occlumency 
he was inviting disaster?  Does it excuse him for underestimating 
the pain of Sirius at being confined in a house he hated, thus 
inviting another disaster?  Not very responsible or very admirable.  
Yes, he has seen much death.  Does that mean he should not show 
compassion in the face of death (although I think he does show 
sympathy on this point, actually)?  Yes, he has seen many bad 
parents.  Does that excuse him for turning a blind eye to Harry's 
suffering?  Life is suffering.  But that does not excuse coldness or 
forgetting the pain of others.  


Lupinlore