Philosophy of Dumbledore (was:Moody's death...)

[muscatel1988]

No: HPFGUIDX 179616

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> wrote:

> Pippin:
> I figured out that in practice it's naive to think that there is a 
> simple answer to that question, and we may question the wisdom or 
> the motives of any character who suggests there is one. But in 
> theory, evil is  doing to our fellow beings that which is hateful to 
> us, and good is learning not to do it.
> 
> Some learn best from the experiences of others, some learn best by 
> making their own mistakes. Both methods are valid, though making 
> one's own mistakes is undoubtedly more painful. But as Hermione 
> says, how else will you learn? Therefore if the characters  wish to 
> live in a more moral universe, they must tolerate the moral mistakes 
> of others as long as they're not life-threatening.
> 
> Does that help?

It helps (for me, at any rate) because it is manifest good sense, and
it's true in our world.

But for me, it's simply not true of the Potterverse.  One of the first
things we learn (and are meant, I think, to admire) about DD is that
he has powers he's too noble to use (though by the end I was kinda
wondering what they might be), and this contrasts him with Evil LV.  
 In other words, we're set up initially to expect that there are
objectively admirable properties in this world, but the rest of the
series makes it clear that "admirable" can be summed up in one word:
Gryffindor.  By the end, all that has changed is that LV is gone. 
Children are still categorised at 11 as good or bad, everyone is now a
Weasley, and Ron's still getting one over on the Muggles in true
wizardly fashion.  Along the way, we got Fred and George
muggle-baiting, four-on-one bullying, UCs being used with relish,
"sometimes we sort too soon", the collapse of the anti-slavery thread
and all the rest.  The next Dark Lord will be along in just a while,
because nothing else has changed much.  Our heroes never reflect on
what they do, and the only change I can detect is that they've got
bigger and learnt more magic.

I certainly agree that a very interesting story could have been told
where the Trio (at least) reflected on their moral choices and tried
to learn from them.  But that's not the series we were given.  Harry
has a "saving people thing" not, as Hermione suggests, as a character
flaw, but because he *is* a saving-people thing.  He's a device, and a
largely unknowing one, for ridding the world of LV.  But the
extraordinary thing is that JKR drew for us a world which is rotten to
the core, and by the end has shown us no change in it, and little
desire for change.  Harry, at the last, is shown taking his allotted
place as a slave-owner.  

Someone on another board has suggested that a problem with the books
is that whereas fantasy literature uses the fantasy world to tell us
things about our own world, JKR uses our world to tell us things about
the WW.  By doing so, she imports much more than she intends to, I
think.  For example, when she tells us that goblins have different
ideas about ownership than wizards do, she evokes the notion of many
native peoples' different ideas of ownership in our world, and once
she has done so, the reader (or this one at least) thinks "Hang on -
the goblins have a *point*".  Having raised the idea, though, she just
blows through it as if there weren't a moral issue there at all, but
there is, because she evoked it.  Nothing, I think, would have changed
materially if the goblins had just been (understandably) distrustful
of wizards and so wanted to keep as many objects as possible, but she
went to the trouble of showing us a coherent goblin view of ownership
only to treat it with contempt.  If house-elves had been more like
their antecedents in folklore, the slavery problem wouldn't have
arisen.  But she gave us the house-elves she chose to, drew the
slavery analogy, and then turned round and presented it as the natural
order.  

The extraordinary thing, for me, is not that the WW contains so much
injustice, but that the author took such trouble to point that
injustice out to us, and then did either did nothing about it or
applauded it.

So yes, Pippin, I agree entirely that moral choices are important, and
living with the morality of others is difficult, but I honestly can't
see that that's in the books.  And I'm truly sorry about that.

Mus, who is posting in between making bread, and whose home smells
wonderful in consequence.