Special treatment - yes or no/Rules

[Miles]

No: HPFGUIDX 146060

Tonks wrote:
> My own views are that JKR wants the reader and Harry to find the
> higher law, the ancient law if you will.  The law that is higher
> than earthy governments or social norms.
<snip>
> I think that there are stages of moral development and that the
> highest level would be shown in that person who could go against the
> norm of their group, or their government to follow what they "know"
> in their heart to be "right".  <snip>
> The person who follows the higher
> course does not just break rules willy-nilly.  They follow the rules
> and customs like everyone else, until a rule or custom violated
> the "higher" law. <snip>
> JKR, IMO, wants us to learn along with Harry, to have the courage
> along with Harry to follow the "higher road", and do what is right
> over what is easy.

Miles:
I think you are very much concentrating on one side of this medal, totally
forgetting about the other side.

To make it clear, I just want to present you examples of people, who put
what they felt was the "higher road" above the rules of society and the law
of all societies, who chose to follow the higher law, and took the hard way
instead of the easy way: the terrorists of 9/11.
No, I do not want to equalise or even compare Harry to terrorists. But it
really is a problem to present it as a good thing to break a rule because in
your own estimation this rule is wrong - in general or in the specific
situation.

The problem arises with "you own estimation". Maybe there really is
something like an ancient law that all human beings can feel. But obviously,
many people do not listen properly, or they feel very different things about
it.
Ethics, rules of right and wrong, are not globalised. Furthermore, there is
only small consensus about it inside the many societies of our world. Maybe
there are not so much people thinking about ethics at all, but each of them
will come up with his/her personal ethics, strongly influenced by the
cultural environments these persons live in.

Besides ethics, there is morale in every society [I hope this distinction
works in English as it does in German - if not, native speakers please
comment]. Morale is the sum of the written and unwritten rules in a society
(verbalised very roughly) - in the Potterverse we heard of Ministry's laws,
Hogwarts' rules, some ancient wizard's rules and indirectly about rules for
love affairs/engagements. Morale is in some ways like coagulated ethics - it
is solid or viscoes, whereas ethics can change very fast within a changing
world or due to special situations.

To come back from my amateur philosophy to Tonks' mail, there are certainly
situations, when morale and ethics are conflicting. And due to the corrupt
society of Potterverse, this happens not only occasionally in the HP series.
But a stricken morale can still work for a society, so even the Chosen One
should respect it. If he openly refuses to do so, why shouldn't Draco follow
his own set of rules as well? Or Umbridge? To follow rules is not just a
lazy thing to do, the easy way, or stupid. Every society will cease to exist
without a set of rules and laws that is respected by a vast majority.

Yes, sometimes it really is necessary to break the law or a rule to do the
RIGHT thing. But even then you have to take the responsibility for it,
because your decision can destabilise the society you live in.

Miles, who really likes to play advocatus diaboli, even if he has to become
a moralist for it