Harry's arrogance (was Evil Snape)

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 154374

Marion:

> No, I'm not saying that Draco is Good and Harry is Evil. 
> I'm just showing how scary Harry's selfreferencing way of 
> thinking is. "I'm Good, so what I do is justified. They 
> are Bad, so what they do is Bad. When I do the same things 
> They do, it's For The Good. If They do the same things I do, 
> it's Evil".

houyhnhnm:

This makes me think of Martin Buber's second stage of evil.  
(In "Images of Good and Evil" which I reread in November, 2004)

"The wicked spirit--in whom, therefore, evil is already 
present, even if only /in statu nascendi/--has to choose 
between the two affirmations: affirmation of himself and 
affirmation of the order, which has established and eternally 
establishes good and evil, the first as the affirmed and 
the second as the denied.  If he affirms the order he must 
become 'good' and that means he must deny and overcome his 
present state of being.  If he affirms himself he must deny
and reverse the order ....

"By glorifying and blessing himself as his own creator, he 
commits the lie against being, for truth shall no longer be 
what he experiences as such, but what he ordains as such."
 
The self-referencing way of moral reasoning is, I think, 
key to understanding what Rowling is trying to say about 
the nature of evil.

This is Voldemort, fully realized in the second stage of evil, 
as his own creator.  But this is also the path many of the 
other characters, including Harry, are heading down when they 
choose to act based on the reasoning that "I'm Good, so what 
I do is justified".

Hermione's decision to use enchanted coins based on the Dark 
Marks of the Death Eaters is picked up by Draco, so that whether 
"justified" or not, her action has an evil consequence.  
Likewise Fred and George's decision to put Montague in the 
vanishing cabinet leads directly to the attack on Hogwarts, 
regardless of whether or not they were "justified" in getting 
back at Montague for his abuse of power.  Their decision to 
collude in the importation of contraband into Hogwarts leads 
indirectly to the near death of their brother, however "justified" 
they were in making a profit and however innocent of any desire 
to do harm.  Because, after all, they are "good".  But their 
actions lead to evil all the same.