Salazar, Slytherins and Bigotry

[Goddlefrood]

No: HPFGUIDX 179983

> > Goddlefrood earlier:
> > On opposite sides of the pond,... The Aristocracy is actually 
> > considered by many people in the UK to be a bunch of inbred 
> > loons with the intellectual capacity of gnats. Centuries of
> > marrying your cousin will do that to you.

> bboyminn commented:
> Yes, but is that the Aristocrats view? Certainly it is very
> likely the common person's view, but I am writing from the
> perspective of Slytherin. He most certainly view himself
> as the aristocracy of the wizard world. But there is a 
> difference between believing yourself superior, and believing
> all inferiors should be killed and/or enslaved.

Goddlefrood responds:

I'm not sure if it would be available on DVD or via download 
from some source, but The F***ing Fulfords, a documentary from 
some years ago about a landed family would probably give an idea 
of how the aristocracy views themselves. They're not backward in 
coming forwards about their deficencies. The titles are still 
highly prized in some quarters (and can be purchased for around 
ten pounds from several online sources). The whole thing about 
buying titles was not the fact of the buying but the fact of 
Tony and his cronies benefitting from the same. That due to its 
having been the source of lucrative funds for the party coffers. 
Donations for titles is nothing new, it was just that Blair, and 
several others, were foloish enough to get caught at it. The time 
honoured tradition may continue indefinitely.

As to how Salazar saw himself, well, you're quite correct that at 
the remove of a millenium it's rather difficult to tell how he saw 
himself. I do think that he, like his fellow founders, saw himself 
primarily as an eductaor. His views on who should be eductaed are 
expressed by the Sorting Hat in its songs, songs that often refer 
to Slyhterin's pure-blood leaning. Why else, other than to wreak 
havoc, would he leave a basilisk in the Chamber, is something that 
perhaps should press our minds. I suppose one could argue that it 
was left there to kill indiscriminately, after all how would a 
basilisk distinguish between a pure-blood, a half-blood or a 
muggle-born?

> bboyminn (on muggle-borns):
<SNIP>
> ... But we have no evidence that he was not willing to work 
> with them and teach them if the danger had not been there.

Goddlefrood:

Other than this being one of the professed reasons for his 
leaving the school ... of course, that may not have been *the* 
reason, but I'm sure it played a part.

> bboyminn:
<SNIP>
> What Binn's says by implication is that Slytherin had a very
> justified distrust of muggleborns.
 
> So, again we have people's claims of what Slytherin did or
> didn't stand for, but Slytherin isn't there to speak for
> himself. Just as Christ wasn't there to speak for himself
> during the Crusades and just as Mohammed isn't there today
> to tell fanatic Muslims to knock it off.

Goddlefrood:

In a way I agree, however, what other reason than bigotry would 
there be for Slytherin's mistrust of muggle-borns? Those muggle-
borns we have met would not lead to a conclusion, IMO, that they 
can not be trusted. The other factor to bear in mind on this point 
is that during Slytherin's life time the wizarding world and the 
muggle world mixed. How freely we don't know, but we do know that 
the Statute of Secrecy only came in around 700 years after the 
founding of Hogwarts, so from that I would have to conclude that 
he wasn't worried about the exposure of the WW, as some more 
recent pure-blood supremacists might have been.

> bboyminn:
> I see your point, but don't fully agree. Let's face it
> Houses are about schoolboy rivalries and they never die down.
> Harvard and Yale are still at it as I suspect Oxford and
> Cambridge are, even after centuries.
<SNIP>

Goddlefrood:

As are the houses from my own alma mater. The rivalries are 
still there, as your examples indicate. That they wane with 
time and maturity is a given, they are still there, though. 
In the Hogwarts system Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor 
all get along fine, or so it appears. Slytherin house is 
somewhat of a pariah and it is the attitude towards it as 
much as its own attitude that keeps this otherness alive. 
In order to move towards reconciliation, as many, including 
myself, had expected, there should be compromise on both sides, 
and there's really not too much sign of that, is all (to borrow 
an Americanism for a moment).

> bboyminn:
<SNIP>
> While I'm sure Slytherin was convinced of his own pureblood
> superiority, I don't think we have enough real proof to 
> brand him the flaming bigot that some would brand him as.

Goddlefrood:

Not so much a flaming bigot, but certainly a bigot. It is just 
a little fun, as you say.