[HPforGrownups] On the trivial and the profound (was: On lying and cheating)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 165420

eggplant:
> I wouldn't have even been tempted to return that potions book, even if
> I thought it was wrong to use it (and I don't) I still would have used
> it, And when push came to shove I don't believe many real life flesh
> and blood human beings would be saintly enough to act much
> differently. But for the sake of argument let's assume I'm wrong and
> it was immoral; was it worse than murder? There has been far far more
> criticism of Harry over this than there has been criticism of Snape
> for murdering Dumbledore, and that's what I meant about Snape getting
> a free pass.

Magpie:
Interesting comparison and I definitely see where you're coming from, but 
I'd make a different analogy. The trouble with Snape's murder of Dumbledore 
is canon itself obviously sets it up as a mystery. We don't yet know exactly 
what or why he was doing it, and the possibility is open that Snape was DDM 
the whole time. So I don't think arguing for DDM (and so not exactly murder) 
is giving Snape a free pass, that's a valid plot issue. Peter Pettigrew is a 
murderer for sure, and I don't think anybody considers him better than Harry 
because Harry was dodgy in class.

What I would compare it to is Snape doing things that are "lesser evils" and 
seem to be about his own short-term pleasure or ease. For instance, picking 
on Harry in class or being impatient with Neville. That is the sort of thing 
where yes, I have seen Snape defended in the way Harry is being defended 
here, where he's not picking on Harry and Neville, he's trying to teach them 
for their own good or whatever. That, to me, is the equivalent of looking at 
Harry giving himself a secret advantage in class and saying, "Oh no, it's 
like he's just studying hard on the side. Or he's not really at an advantage 
at all." That, to me, is a similar thing and I don't buy either of them.

And then there's the third issue, which seems to be that if you call it a 
bad thing you're being mean to Harry or claiming you yourself are holier 
than thou, which I don't think is true. My own view that Harry is giving 
himself an advantage is not at all based on my being "saintly" or thinking I 
would never do such a thing. It's knowing I would and having no illusions 
that I wasn't being scrupulously fair or honest in doing it.

Regarding Snape, I think my position is pretty consistent with Harry's here. 
I don't see anything good in his picking on Harry and Neville. I think he's 
picking what is pleasurable over what is right. But I still think Snape is 
on the good side and perhaps one of the more valuable good guys. Same with 
Harry.

eggplant:
I don't recall Harry doing any faking, his potions worked. But to answer 
your question, I would MUCH rather drink a potion prepared by someone 
familiar with Snape's instruction than from someone who only knew the 
idiotic standard textbook methods.

Magpie:
All the more reason for the instructions to not be hoarded by Harry for his 
own advantage.:-)

Magpie:
I don't see that it really matters whether an academic advantage is foremost 
in Harry's mind when he does it. It seems like you're whole argument is that 
things like academic honesty are petty when you're a
guy like Harry who's got the weight of the world on his shoulders. And 
that's a possible position, **but these things being "petty" in Harry's eyes 
doesn't mean Harry's not taking the easy way over the
right way in his Potions class sixth year.**


Valky:
My position is that it does.

Magpie:
And I don't understand that position. Let's try a different analogy. I'm 
running to get help for someone choking to death. I jay walk across the 
street to get to the doctor more quickly. I don't think anybody would say I 
was doing a bad thing there. But of course I'm taking the easy way instead 
of the 'right' way according to a law that says I'm not supposed to jaywalk. 
I might not be doing anything wrong--in fact, doing "right" there would be 
wrong in the larger sense, but I see no reason to say to myself that I 
wasn't really not crossing at the corner. On the contrary, I'd own that I 
was taking the easy way. The next day, if I were going back to the doctor to 
get medicine for the person, I'd cross at the corner even though I was still 
going to the doctor to help someone else.

Not that that analogy completely fits Harry, since his taking the easy way 
in Potions is not like my crossing the street in the middle. But to me it 
still seems like Harry's basically choosing easy in one area of his life.

Magpie:
Maybe in your view he's owed this bit of easy because the restof his life is 
so right, but that's different than it being right because Harry's life is 
hard.

Valky:
> Do you mean '.. owed... because the rest of his life is so **hard**'.. 
> please accept my apology if I'm mistaken, I'm assuming that's what you 
> meant and *right* is a typo. <

No that's not it.. LOL ;)

It's right because it's right. Mike helped to clarify this position a 
little, I believe, by pointing out Harry using the HBP notes in his effort 
to soften Slughorn up for information, that is a helpful point to this 
position.

Magpie:
I think I chose right meaning right, actually, because that seemed more what 
you were saying. And I still disagree with the way you're seeing Harry. 
Harry often acts in HBP in a way that goes against softening Slughorn up. If 
he needs to soften him up he might have considered playing up to him--but he 
doesn't, because he doesn't want to. Occasionally he does use the Prince's 
notes to help him smooth things with Slughorn when he needs something, just 
as occasionally he encourages Slughorn to talk to him about Lily--but not 
always.

And again, this is not about Harry *using* the Prince's notes. Using them is 
fine. It's the dishonesty in the way he presents himself and giving himself 
a secret advantage over other students that makes the other students see him 
as "cheating."

This is not particularly necessary for getting the memory from Slugorn. When 
it comes to doing that Harry picks and chooses what he is *willing* to do, 
and it's not like Slughorn's good regard for Harry rests on his Potions 
genius. So while sure, there are times when Harry uses the Prince's book in 
his quest to get the memory from Slughorn, I don't see it as his guiding 
motivation in keeping the book. He likes having the book, he likes the 
advantage it gives him. When the choice comes between keeping the book in 
general and using it to give himself a good rep in Potions, he of course 
chooses the former, because that's what he really wants, and doing so well 
in Potions isn't all that necessary. It doesn't even change his standing in 
the class, since it will take more than bad Potions to make Slughorn 
consider Harry less than his favorite student.

Valky:
The way I see it is this.

The argument Carol made was - using the book to gain an academic advantage 
over other students and a reputation he didn't deserve is choosing easy over 
right.

And my response is - Yes, it is.

Magpie:
So that's great, we agree.

Valky:
And Harry wasn't using the book to get an academic advantage over other 
students or a reputation he does deserve. As has been repeated in this 
thread many times, he offers no defense to that at all.

Magpie:
But some of his defenders on the list do, and that's when we argue about it 
it. Harry himself does not defend himself by claiming he's not getting an 
academic advantage over other students or a reputation he doesn't deserve. 
He is getting those things.

Valky:
Harry uses the book initially because its all he's got in the classroom, he 
has to use it and in some cases the notes are clearer than the original 
text; he uses it later because its interesting and like Steve noted, because 
the book is more friendly and open with him
than he believes the adults around him are, but seemingly as wise as them. 
And later he uses the reputation he has earned through it as an
advantage in the cause of his mission to defeat Voldemort, as Mike noted; 
beyond that he has become unhealthily attached to the book and
this is not a good thing, but something I have empathy for... and then 
beyond this he furthers his use of the book to.. apply a tip from it to save 
his best friends life, apply a spell from it in his defense in a battle 
which he later regrets deeply.

Magpie:
But regardless of the sympathetic reasons our young scamp has to want to use 
the book, he's giving himself a reputation he hasn't earned and an advantage 
over other students.

I actually found Sherry's post on this subject really interesting and 
relevent here:

Sherry:
When I read HBP and all the potions lessons with the prince's book, I wasn't 
thinking about cheating, lying or anything like that.  I was thinking about
what a bad effect the book had on him, seeming to change his character.  I'm 
not really interested in the morality part of whether he was cheating and
lying or not.  It seemed to me--and long before I knew who was the half 
blood prince--that the book was very dangerous and seemed to enchant Harry
in a way, causing him to think and act in ways we'd never seen from him 
before.  Learning the identity of the Prince didn't change my mind.  In 
fact, that book, and its effect on Harry and the knowledge of the person who 
created those spells and potions was more evidence for me that Snape was not 
a good guy.  So, I never thought about the so-called ethics of Harry using 
the prince's book in terms of academics.  I only thought that he was 
behaving strangely and I wished the book would disappear.  If Harry was
cheating by using it to do his potions work, for me, that's another piece of 
evidence that the book was a very bad influence in his life and not the 
friend Harry thought it to be.

This is not about defending Harry and saying he can do no wrong, this is 
about my first instinctive reaction to the book and all that Harry did in 
relation to it.  Much as I disliked Snape, before knowing he was the HBP, I 
was upset Harry didn't give him the book after the bathroom scene.  Not 
because I cared that he lied to Snape--teenagers lie to teachers--but
because I wanted someone in authority to take the book away and break its 
hold on Harry.

Magpie:
I think she's describing something very true in the story--not that the book 
has a hold on Harry in terms of possession or anything, imo, but that the 
book *is* bringing out something knew in Harry. I think Sherry is picking up 
on something different in Harry that the book has a hand in bringing out. In 
previous books it's hard not to see the kid who's the subject of Slughorn's 
shameless favoritism while other kids are hilariously not and who goes along 
with it happily being held up as somebody Harry defined himself against all 
the way.

Valky again:
Not one of these things is what you would call a willful decision to gain an 
unfair **academic reputation**. He is feeling guilty about that sometimes, 
he's caught up in that sometimes, sometimes it even causes him to be 
compared to is mother which must have been nice to feel. But overall, he is 
not purposefully going for a big letter E on a NEWT he barely expects to 
ever see, that's not his purpose at all, so how in any way can choosing an 
easy path to that end apply to his situation ? It's not even his life.

Magpie:
I don't think Harry's such an innocent that even he would believe that he's 
not willfully deciding to gain an unearned repuatation in the moments he 
accepts Slughorn's praise for just that. It may not have been his reason for 
doing it, but once it happens he knows that's what's going on. I don't have 
the book in front of me, but I don't recall a pressing need for Harry to 
pull the bezoar trick. He could have just struggled along with everyone 
else. I certainly understand why he decided to use the Prince's joke, but I 
don't think he doesn't know the other kids probably thought him a real 
stinker at the end of class--just as he himself would have done had he 
watched another teacher's pet do it. (That goes back, I think, to Sherry's 
being disturbed at Harry's behavior when he's using the book.)

But whether or not his goal is to get himself a rep as a Potions genius he 
knows perfectly well he is giving himself an easier path in his Potions 
class than he'd have if all things were equal. Even if, as you say, his 
reason is that he thinks he's dying and will never see his NEWTS.

Valky:
I am saying IF getting an E in potions was the point to which Harry was 
striving in using the book, THEN it applies that he is choosing the Easy 
rather than the Right way to do it.

My position is, he's not.

Magpie:
Right, and I'm saying that the fact that it's not his goal doesn't change 
what he's doing. It seems odd to me to suggest that the only possible way 
one can be choosing easy over right is if your goal begins and ends with the 
circumstances in which you're making things easy. I suspect far more evils 
are committed by people with bigger goals in mind that make them think the 
little things don't matter.

Think, for instance, of a kid who gets someone to take the SATs for him not 
because he wants to give himself an academic advantage but because his 
parents pressure him to go to a certain level of college he can't get into 
on his own, and he'll be unfairly punished otherwise. He might not want to 
go to an Ivy League college for himself at all--perhaps he'd rather go to 
some other college and going to Harvard would make him miserable. One might 
feel totally sympathetic to him. But he's still given himself an academic 
advantage even if that wasn't something he wanted for himself.

Valky:

This is not how I had read the post I initially was answering, but I  see 
what you're saying and how it is relevent.

In this, I guess, most simply I see 'credit' as a loaded word, it's just 
academic credit. The word credit has positive connotations, but to the Harry 
Potter of sixteen years old, that *Academic* credit is
the currency of kids with "Normal" lives. Its the positive connotations that 
don't apply to him, not so much the rules of attainment. He offers no 
defense for having it, and he knows it's not rightfully his, but that 
doesn't wipe out the fact that no matter how
much he has it's ultimately a useless attainment, he doesn't really intend 
to use the academic credit for anything.

Magpie:
I would say that "credit" in this sense is perhaps more than just Academic 
in terms of grades, but regardless taking credit for something you don't 
deserve has, in the past, been an important issue in canon. As schoolkids 
it's one of the things the characters tend to focus on in others, respecting 
those who can put their money where their mouth is and suspecting those who 
get a free ride in any way.

Whether or not it's going to matter in the long run that sixth year that one 
teacher thought Harry Potter was a lot more of a natural at his subject than 
he really was--and I agree it really might not matter in the long run at 
all--Harry is still being a fake about it. Even if one doesn't think it's a 
big deal, that's still what he's doing. He doesn't become not a fake because 
it doesn't matter. I think Harry has often been resented by others for the 
very impression that he's above "normal" kids.

As to whether he's going to use his academic attainment in anything, well, 
he's going to use it for the same things other kids are--he's going to take 
his NEWTS and become an Auror. Whatever Harry thinks is going to happen to 
him, I don't believe he's going to die. He's going to wind up having a 
normal life just like everyone else. Of course, when it comes to NEWTS he 
might be forced to compete on an even field anyway, at which point if he's 
faked his way through class he'll be the one paying for it anyway. So he may 
not reap longterm benefits from it. At that point he may be seeing the 
benefit of choosing right over easy even in something as petty as your 
schoolwork.


Valky:

LOL Betsy is that like Snape's "listie" girlfriends saying Not my Snapey 
Pooooo! <eg>
Ahh it's okay, that's our empathy with the characters, they are something 
else, no doubt :) And I'm flattered that you recognise my maternalist 
dynamic with Harry's character, it's fine with me.  I *would* give him a 
slap for losing his better judgement to this
Potions text, of course. But I'd also try to understand his relationship 
with it correctly, or else I'd be just shouting at the wind "You cheated to 
one up Hermione and Draco in potions!!" and I'd
be wrong.

Magpie:
Yup, I think it often is like Snape's girlfriends doing that (though they 
wouldn't be calling him Snapey-poo, which immediately gives them a leg up in 
my book!). But by the same token, if you were called in by the school and 
told your kid was doing this and said, "But he's not doing it to one-up 
Hermione and Draco-that's just a pleasant side effect!" other people might 
not see how that was relevent.

And I (Valky) reply:
I agree Betsy, not "to the exclusion of all else". But *with* greatly 
diminished interest and enthusiasm for *else*. Apathy, I think, is a fairly 
appropriate term, and its a kind of judgemental apathy, like with Sluggy. 
It's almost a clearheaded apathy, a sense of putting his energy into a 
winning battle, as opposed to anything that ultimately has no seeming 
reason. A 'la the very thing at the heart of this
debate - Academic acheivement.

Magpie:
I'm really not seeing much of his apathy here. I'm also not seeing his 
battle with Voldemort always making sense as his main motivation. I would 
say there are places where the point is actually clearing made that Harry's 
not always got that clear in his head at all. It just doesn't fit Harry's 
behavior throughout the year. To me it seems as off as claiming that Harry's 
passion for Ginny is his guiding motivation, or his grief over Sirius. Both 
of those things are there in the text in their places, but I don't think 
they work as the overall main motivation for Harry in all aspects of his 
life.

After all, isn't one of the themes of Dumbledore's lessons with Harry that 
Harry *isn't* seeing it this way? Isn't that why Dumbledore gets impatient 
with him at times? And I don't remember Harry thinking to himself, "How can 
Dumbledore think I'm not totally focused on this--I'm giving myself a fake 
reputation in Potions for completely this purpose!"

Valky:
So to say, the analogy is more like a girl who says to her teacher - " I was 
told I have three months to live, I'm dying now and nothing can change 
that... except, there may be a way for me to look to a brighter
future, doing the essay to perfection doesn't look like it will help that 
right now and I'm sorry I don't care how its done and I have no defense in 
that regard I'll probably die anyway and it won't matter, however, there are 
reasons to stay and get the essay of my back that just might save my life. 
So I offer no apologies for that, I'm doing it. "

Magpie:
And the teacher might say that's great. You can pretend to be a student and 
I'll pretend to give you a grade--your real grade on the material will not 
become an A because you don't care.

The other thing that makes me a little more curious about the position as 
well is that sometimes the same people who say this is a petty thing and it 
doesn't matter *also* sometimes argue Harry into a position that's a little 
less Goofus and a little more Gallant. (For people not familiar with them, 
Goofus and Gallant were characters in a kids' magazine who were always 
contrasted in their behavior. Where Goofus would leave his bed unmade, 
Gallant would always make his bed when he got up. While Goofus ran around 
making noise, Gallant was considerate of others etc.)

I completely understand the position that Harry is doing a wrong thing here, 
but that doesn't make him unredeemably wrong.Certainly he does have more 
important things in his life than his Potions work.I don't think he should 
be judged soley on whether or not he's a scrupulously honest student in 
class. But I also don't think that means he can't be judged as a not 
scrupulously honest student in class.

-m