Moral messages

[M.Clifford]

No: HPFGUIDX 128756

> - catkind: I am not meaning to be sarcastic about the idea of 
> morality. But I think morality is a subjective thing.  Different 
> people have different ideas of what is good or bad.  I'm trying to 
> pin down the moral points of view I think are expressed by the HP 
> books, not to find morals in HP that agree with my own world view.
> 
> Your list seems to me to be more observations on life than what I
> understand by morals.  They are indeed good observations on life, if
> in some cases somewhat obvious, and I personally agree with them. I
> understand morals as being ideas of what is right and wrong, good 
> and bad. What would the Ten Commandments of the Potterverse be? 
> Perhaps I misunderstand. 
> 

Valky:
I see what you are saying about morality, and you can probably guess
that I don't think its subjective at all. The subjective morality IMO
is not really morality but rather is a form of rhetorical distrust of
morality itself. Thats a rather complex debate so maybe we shouldn't
get into it right now since I really should study for exams, you're
welcome to keep it in mind and question me on it when I have more time
though.
 
As you say you understand morals as ideas of right and wrong, I guess
thats where we essentially differ as I understand morals to be
something of a maxim though that is only one interpretation of the
word it is reflected in my list which as you say seems to rather be an
observation on life.

Catkind:
> Hmm. Regarding your first two points, of course everyone in the
> wizarding world has a deadly weapon. 

Valky:
Well not really I think, because it is the spell that is the deadly
weapon, not the wand. Not everyone possesses the spell. 

Catkind:
> So we have Snape, who may be
> good or bad but is presumed to be on our side.  I'd say the question
> of his "goodness" is as yet undecided, to judge by the discussions
> here. We have Sirius, who may have a criminal record but only due to 
> miscarriage of justice. We have Umbridge who is on the right side of
> the law but bad - but actually it turns out she is not on the right
> side of the law, having illegally sent in dementors, and being
> prepared to illegally use an unforgiveable curse on a student.  
> Aside from these, it's pretty much criminal records and Dursleys 
> bad, others good.  Though by OotP we start to get a bit of good 
> people doing acknowledgedly bad things. 
> 

Valky:
Ok, but on Snape I haven't claimed in my point that he is good, how I
think it relates to Snape is that good is not beyond him even with his
criminal record. 
The contrasts of Sirius - Umbridge and Barty Crouch Jr are more
striking however to me because they make the point that saying..
good is no criminal record
bad is a criminal record
good is diplomacy
bad is a lack of diplomacy 
are contradictory to themselves. Bad is capable of diplomacy and
avoiding a criminal record too. Good is not always perfectly
diplomatic but it is good.


Catkind:
> Truth and honesty are powerful? I don't see that message very 
> clearly in the books. Our heroes are of necessity very secretive 
> about a lot of things. DD is secretive about lots of things. Harry's 
> father died because a secret was betrayed.  Wait - do you mean 
> powerful or good? A lot of the nasty things Draco says are more or 
> less true, and I guess they do have some power to harm. Harry's 
> standing up and truth-telling to Umbridge is of course to be 
> applauded. Can I add repression is bad to my list then? 
> 

Valky:
I think the power of truth and honesty may yet be seen in more vivid
colour in the books. But as we haven't got that to go on, the best
points that I think go to that are that Harry shakes of the Imperius
with honesty, and that the truth and truth telling in the books have
made huge impact on the plot. Ginny never revealed her truth to
anyone, although she knew she was in danger, and this impacted on the
school in a great way, Sirius told his truth to Harry about Peter
Pettigrew and the GH events which again was more powerful than all the
 expelliarmus spells that had be thrown around the Shrieking Shack
combined, it was the truth that saved Sirius' life and restored to
Harry a loving family of his own (if even for only a short while).



Catkind:
> Do you mean DD with someone being wise? He seems to have more 
> answers than questions to me, will have to think more on that one.
> 

Valky:
Fair enough that you need to think more on that. I also meant that
when Harry turns to Sirius for wisdom, and Sirius tries to be
forthcoming with his best wisdom, he asks Harry a bunch of questions
instead of giving answers. Naturally I did mean DD too, and he does
seem to embody wisdom in the series yet he claims to know not very
much at all, except that he needs to keep asking questions about it
(think silver instruments).

Catkind:
> Kindness.  Hmm.  Hagrid is kind to Harry, and that definitely 
> improves his life a lot. So as a moral, it is good to be kind to 
> people you meet? That would work.  Sirius wasn't kind to Kreacher, 
> and suffered for it.  


Valky:
I was really alluding to the house elves story here, Dobby's life is
changed by Harry's kindness while the point that you made about Sirius
and Kreacher proves that Kindness is a life changing thing.
I guess I could say Kindness is good, but that would be incorrect, as
Hermione's position with the house elves is debatable and may not
change their life for the good. In terms of good and bad I think it
would be right to say that good is like kindness, but kindness not
like good.


Catkind:
> We all make choices is kind of a truism, isn't it? DD tells Harry 
> that it's his choices that are important.  On the other hand, it 
> isn't Harry's choice to be a wizard. Abilities are also important. 
> I'd say the moral questions are more about which is the correct 
> choice to make in a given situation. 
> 

Valky:
I again see what you're saying but still have something to add there.
Yeah I kind of threw in the choices remark as a truism, so it's only
fair to clarify my position as to how it relates to a moral lesson.
Since I am running right out of time it will have to be brief.
We all make choices, and it is good to recognise this, denying this is
bad.