Morality in Potter - ugly and boring and stupid and useless

[tbernhard2000]

No: HPFGUIDX 129753

Our friend Hans wrote in a different group that Harry Potter contains
no moral message.

As you know, I take the same stance, but for a different reason.
Nevertheless, it's good to hear someone else say it clearly, so I
cannot pass up the opportunity to post something on this group about it.

Now, Hans is always talking about liberation in a spiritual sense. I
am so not new age, or whatever the term is, not so religious at all.
But listen: is there a space for each individual each person, as it
were, to find their own set of beliefs or symbols... what I mean is, I
look at Scientology (to pick one example), and as weird as it first
looks, isn't Xenu with his Cineplex mind trap clearly fulfilling the
standard, universal demon role, the bringer of false images, and
auditing the process of freeing oneself from illusion! Isn't this the
ultimate legilimens? We can cast hither and thither, and find such
imagery, yes, in popular and obscure religions! But what of us
critical folk, us questioners, us freeloading, non-tithing secular
humanists? What is our freedom, our liberation? What is the status of
our deeper appreciation of Rowling?

Secular humanism doesn't have the same special protections as official
"churchs" - the language of television, of commerce and so forth has
occluded the truly powerful so-called spiritual element of secular
humanism.... So, when Rowling is reclaiming some of that language as
truly capable of addresses the deeper, the so-called spiritual
concerns, it is possible that the message is lost. The sidetrack
dialogues become the whole, and the centre is lost.

I remind again the centre of the entire series is the second task. The
acting without philosophy, without moral debate. Acting in the moment,
on gut instinct, that Harry's gut tells him to take the path he took.
Not the fact of gut instinct, but what he actually in fact really in
reality in action does on gut instinct. This is essential, or what I
am talking about, and have talked about ad nauseum when I used to post
lots, won't make a bit of sense.

The type of secular humanist I am is, uh, Calvinist. Meaning - I
believe that enlightenment can come from studying ANYTHING at all,
where Calvin believed that, whatever we learned would bring us closer
to god. I also, like Calvin, believe there are things operating in us,
as individuals, that we cannot entirely parse, and are often only
noticed when, for instance, we have to act, pretty much without
thinking (like Harry at the Second Task). I can't explain why Harry
did what he did in the lake, nor does Rowling try to explain. She
gives some internal dialogue, but it doesn't amount to explanation. As
I've said before, people who do extraordinary things, like save lives
at risk to themselves, that hid Jews during the Second World War and
so forth, have never explained their actions in terms of some
morality, ever. Never. It doesn't happen. They give some internal
dialogue, but nowhere do these people explain anything.

Rowling has not explained these things. A comment or two about love.

I have a  take on Rowling's genius that is this - I think she is
writing for her life, in a way, and that the sense of importance in
her work comes from this. It's personal, for her, let me put it that
way. And, if I am right, than someone who writes from this life and
death stance in such a personal way will strike big chords with their
art. In that past I have claimed this life and death position had to
do with a glimpsed horror, an atrocity, something quite real that
struck her personally and deeply - in the way that I have described
those who act without thought or morality are struck in those moments.
Perhaps, like the narrator in Camus' The Fall, Rowling didn't do all
she could, and HP is her penance. Perhaps she acted as much as she
could, but was stonewalled, stymied or stuck.

But there is a debate going on in the novels, not just between
characters and their organizations, but between Rowling and herself,
and between writer and reader.

Just because the books are written from life and death doesn't mean
they can't be fun, funny and even silly, at points. In fact, the
humour is more wonderful for it.

If not morality, I have said, there is ethical dialogue. No argument
is going to save a drowning person, no idea will make a difference.
The books, I say, are about that as much as anything. The books are a
kind of ethical dialogue, internally for Jo and for the readers, a
kind of ethical test, question and response, feeling its way through
this world.

In my more judgemental days, I really think most of the people who
read the books haven't got the foggiest idea what they are reading! 
Those are my cranky days - when the plot pickers and student counters
and class calendar derivers just seem to be talking like tax auditors,
or days when, goodness, when I happen to read a bit of fan fiction.

I don't want to go too far with this right now, but a cursory read of
the fan fiction, or an hour of posts on HPfGU, kinda tells all.

People seem to interpret Rowling in a very personal way - possibly
because of the elements I claim are there - absence of any moral
claptrap, absence of intellectualization of acts, an appreciation that
life is bigger than any fool's claim of what it is.

I have no conclusion. I do not hold to any organized belief system. I
seem to always live here and now, with only some experience, and some
internal ethical compass to go on. That compass is not going to be set
askew, that much I know. Why isn't this enough for people? What is
wrong with knowledge? Why do they want others to agree with them? Are
we always in child mode? Why do people kill? Why do they have to find
others who think the same way they do? Why are racists racist, what
brings them to that? Why do people get angry about a statement, and
idea, an image in their heads, a rumour, a too loud breath? Thank
goodness Rowling or HP isn't a religion.

These are the real question's Jo is dealing with, at any rate, in
every book, all through the books, on every page, while still telling
a bang up story, that some people have dreams and fantasies around,
that some find tap into the deepest of all stories, and so forth.

For the rest, as Giradeaux said about poverty, "ugly and boring and
stupid and useless"