Face it, there is a reward for being nice (was Re: Sadistic Snape)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 140293

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "ellecain" <ellecain at y...> > 
> So what I dont understand, is how come Hagrid is off the hook for 
> endangering students with little care for how much they learn?
> Just because he is nice and friendly doesnt make him less culpable.

Well, yes, it DOES make him less culpable.  Not, it's true, in the 
sense of legal culpability, or even in the sense of casuistic moral 
culpability (using casuistic in the positive sense of arguing cases of 
conscience).  But, in the world of social, cultural, and personal 
actions, nice people DO get breaks.  That may not seem fair when 
viewed objectively, but the personal and social world is not 
objective.  In the real world of real interactions, or even in the 
routine world of fictional interactions, people are not lawyers 
arguing from legal definitions of liability nor are they Jesuits 
concerned with determining applications of universal moral principles 
in complicated specific situations.  In the real world, people are 
emotional and instinctive creatures who naturally regard nice people 
one way and mean people another way.  It's just part of being human.  
And most of the time it's completely unproblematic.  If you want an 
argument from fairness, then consider that it isn't easy being nice, 
and therefore it only stands to reason that nice people are accorded a 
reward in most situations -- that reward being that they get breaks 
not given to mean people.

So, the fact that Hagrid gets a break is perfectly understandable and 
nothing to be either surprised or concerned about.  He's nice and he 
get's the reward for being so -- that is to say he gets a break that 
Snape is not given because Snape, in the world of cultural and 
emotional interactions, doesn't deserve it.


> And here we have antisocial Snape who saves students lives routinely
> and teaches Potions very well, but he is attacked for the simple 
> reason that he is not a nice man.
> Doesnt make sense to me.
> 

But the fact that he is not a nice man is NOT simple.  It is, within 
the world of realistic social and personal interactions, a profound 
determinent of how someone like Snape is judged in any given 
situation.  Once again, that is perfectly natural and to be expected.  
Mean people aren't given the same consideration and allowances that 
nice people are -- they haven't earned that kind of consideration.

That is one of the bedrock principles of social and personal 
interaction in the real world.  Nice people are forgiven for minor 
failings, while the failings of mean people are held against them to 
the letter of the law and the rulebook.  Once again, if you want an 
argument from justice, it isn't easy being nice and there is an 
appropriate reward in the social world for people who make the 
effort.  If mean people want the same consideration, they simply have 
to try harder to reform their ways.  That may not hold water in a 
court of law or in a philosophical debate, but it holds plenty of 
water in the world of interactions and attitudes within which people 
move most of the time.

The effect of this is readily apparent at Hogwarts.  Hagrid has no 
NEWT level students -- which one would expect would irritate the other 
teachers and distress the headmaster.  However, Hagrid is nice and 
kind and well-liked, and so he probably gets a pass -- likely spiced 
with some advice and encouragement to concentrate less on skrewts and 
more on kneazles.  To give an even sharper example, Hagrid was 
implicated in the death of a fellow student through carelessness.  He 
was punished legally, but he was also given a job and home at Hogwarts 
and no one at the school now seems to give the incident much weight, 
even if the Ministry still does.  Why?  Dumbledore's patronage is 
important, of course, but also the fact that Hagrid is kind and nice 
and well-liked undoubtedly played a crucial role.

Snape, on the other hand, is accused by a student who frankly and 
unabashadly hates him of deliberately and cold-bloodedly murdering the 
headmaster and casting his lot in with the DEs.  The instant response 
from many of Snape's colleagues who have known him, in some cases, 
more than twenty years?  "Yeah, I believe that,I never did like the 
ba****d!  Somebody like that just can't be trusted."  Which is utterly 
to be expected.  If Snape wanted more consideration, he should have 
been a nicer person.  Now, I grant that it may be psychologically 
impossible for Snape to be nice -- it may even be detrimental to his 
function.  That does not change the fact that, as a mean person, he is 
not, within any kind of realistic social and cultural order, entitled 
to the consideration that someone like Hagrid recieves.


Lupinlore