Snape as infidel was Re: Kant and Snape and Ethics and Everything

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 150366

> Betsy Hp:
> Okay.  I think I see Hogwarts as a bit more organic.  I mean, yes, 
> there are different priorities given to each house, different 
> strengths.  And I think there needs to be a recognition that each 
> strength is important, is vital for a truly strong and complete 
> whole (including Slytherin).
> 
> But, Slytherin's the rub, isn't it?  Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, they 
> get along fine, as far as we've seen.  Students were already 
> associating across house bounderies there.  But Slytherin has been 
> designated "outsider", and that needs to change.  And I feel like 
> it'll take a bit more than tolerance to do so.  I think there needs 
> to be the sort of unification that would be impossible with the 
> world's religions. (Or even the various sects of Christianity, for 
> that matter.)

Pippin:
I think it's dangerous to confuse Harry's inner Slytherin with 
Slytherin House (though Harry himself does this all the time.)
Harry's inner Slytherin needs to be assimilated. But the Slytherins
themselves have just as much right to be psychologically complex
as Harry -- they can't be reduced to the qualities Harry sees
as Slytherin in himself. 

I don't think what JKR has in mind is as simple as Gryffindors=
Christians and Slytherins=Jews. I'm seeing more of 
Tolkien's applicability than Lewisian allegory.

 Tolkien's Rohirrim aren't Ango-Saxons, except in a general way 
due to their circumstances: a younger immigrant people in contact with an
older established civilization.  But Tolkien did create those
circumstances with Anglo-Saxons (and possibly Americans) in mind. 

What I see JKR asking herself is how a people which feels that it
does have superior moral values can integrate itself into a society
where all are supposed to be treated equally. So the Gryffindors
can be stand-ins for Christians to Christian readers, but they
could stand for another group in similar circumstances just as well.

I see the attractiveness of assimilating the Slytherins, but I 
wonder if this isn't how the rift began, with each of the Founders
seeking power in order to make theirs the dominant
culture, fearing that otherwise what they regarded as unique
and valuable would be cast aside.

 I think the answer is not in assimilation,  in the houses becoming
more alike. I think it's in seeing that what unites them is  more 
important than what divides them. And part of that will be admitting
that they have scapegoated Slytherin, and that some Slytherins
have embraced the part.

Pippin