Choice and Essentialism/Understanding Snape)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 153974

> a_svirn:
> By the way, I think in his eagerness for "the most unflattering and 
> simple explanation" about Snape Harry reveals what amounts to 
> the "wrong" attitude to the crucial problem of "choices vs nature" 
> in the Potterverce. Remember when Hermione told him about Snape's 
> mother she quoted from the notice in the Prophet? She said that 
> Elaine Prince "gave birth" and Harry finished the phrase – "to a 
> murderer!" And that's the kind of statement that is contrary to the 
> series' and especially HBP's most important message. Because no one 
> is "born" a murderer.  Draco is not a murderer by "nature", but he 
> could have easily become one. Pettigrew did become one, but not 
> because his nature is murderous. As you said, under different 
> circumstances he might have turned out differently. Sirius quite 
> consciously made a choice – to kill Pettigrew and he would have done 
> it too, if it weren't for Harry. Even Harry is not exempt – he has 
> accepted that he must kill Voldemort and *wants* to kill Snape – 
> that's also his choice, isn't it?

Pippin:
Yeah, I think you're on to something here. Rowling is essentialist,
but her position is that everyone is essentially good, ie  that
there is something uniquely and infinitely valuable in everyone. That
is what makes murder the greatest evil: not because death itself is 
terrible, but because murder denies the existence of that essential,
irreplaceable good. So while no character is essentially evil, even
Voldemort, some are morally evil because they deny the
goodness of others. 

When Rowling says that Harry, Ron and Hermione are innately good, 
she means, IMO, that they have always known  that there is
this essential goodness in others, from which all Beings  derive 
an unconditional right to exist. They perceived it naturally,
and did not have to be taught. 


But the lesson of canon, IMO,  is that anyone 
can learn, at any time of life. That is what Dumbledore 
taught to Draco on the Tower, when he showed that he
had defended Draco's right to exist despite Draco's hateful 
and dangerous actions. I do not think anyone had ever before
treated Draco as if he were valued in his own right and not 
as the means to an end. No matter how much evil Draco
did or tried to do, Dumbledore still perceived that there
was essential goodness in him. 

Is moral evil intrinsic to Slytherin House? 
We have met a number of Slytherins who think that
Muggleborn wizards have no right to exist and who treat
people as means to an end. These positions deny the
essential goodness in others, but are they what the
hat looks for in Slytherins?

Salazar eventually took the position that Muggleborn wizards 
had no right to exist, but that was not his position from the 
beginning and wouldn't be part of what the Hat looks for when it 
chooses Slytherins. It looks for the ability  to see things as
means to an end, but it is not incumbent on Slytherins to 
see people as means rather than ends in themselves.

Though someone possessing innate goodness 
might not choose to become a  Slytherin, yet someone who does 
not have it might be better off as a Slytherin rather than in 
Gryffindor where goodness is too often taken for granted.

Are the Gryffindors morally good? 

Some Gryffindors may have innate ability to see the good in others 
and the courage to defend that good no matter what. But 
unfortunately,  they can still choose to do otherwise. It is not by their 
*ability*  to perceive the good in others that we must judge 
whether they are morally  good, but by their *choice* to protect life, 
a choice anyone can make, Gryffindor or not. 

This choice, in its purest form, is love, and by making it, the 
characters may learn to love even if in the beginning they did not 
know how. 

Dumbledore seems to be an example of this -- he says that
he never thought he would have someone like Harry in his life. It
seems that it took him 150 years before he felt close to anyone.
Between that and the awful contents of the green basin, I
venture that he was once more like Tom Riddle than anyone 
would imagine, Gryffindor or no. 


Rowling continually shows us people who chose to risk everything 
defending the life of someone they seemed to treat as worthless.
I believe that in the end we are to regard those people as closer to 
the path (though still having a very long way to go) than those who 
show consideration to others but treat the right to exist as conditional. 

Pippin
*Draco was lucky not to have killed anyone -- but so were 
Harry with his  sectum sempra and Hermione with her birds.
Not to mention the Twins with their vanishing cabinet. If
Dumbledore started expellling students because they were
dangerous, there'd be no one left.