Danger in designating an "Other" / Bad magic (wasRe: Deathly Hallows Reactio...)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 173890

> > >>Betsy Hp:
> > > I disagree.  I'll admit to being a bit of an optimist, but 
I     
> > > really prefer to think that on the whole, most people 
are        
> > > basically good. That there's a fixable reason societies 
descend   
> > > into madness, and that a prime function of civilization 
is       
> > > limiting or fixing those reasons.  And that's something DH 
does   
> > > not do.
> > > <SNIP>
> 
> > >>Alla:
> > I don't know. I snipped out the most of your message, because the 
> > mention of Anne Frank just made me realise how much I respect 
JKR's 
> > world view. I mean, yeah, she remained optimistic and where did 
it 
> > get her?
> > Woudn't that be better if she was fully aware that just as there 
> > people in the world who will save jews, there are people who will 
> > betray them in the blink of an eye?
> > I mean, whether it would save her, probably not, but one 
would      
> > never know.
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> It would not have saved Anne Frank, no.  She'd have just spent her 
> time in hiding bitter and angry.  From what I've read Anne Frank 
was 
> pretty beaten down once she was at the camps (IIRC the fate of the 
> young Gypsy children affected her deeply).  But the hope contained 
in 
> her diary is, IMO, part of the reason her words are read so widely 
> today.  And why it resonates with so many people.

Magpie:
Why assume that she didn't know that anyway? I mean, having an 
optimistic view of human beings does not mean that you must also be 
naive and just not know how the world is--a cynical, hopeless 
worldview can be equally naive. The girl was living in an annex 
because of what was being done to her family, she wasn't exactly 
living in a bubble of optimism to begin with. I don't think saying 
that people are basically good necessarily means that she expected 
every individual person to treat her well, more that even where there 
is evil, the human race was a good one.

There are people who had similar experiences to Anne Frank and 
retained a positive view of the human race. Actually, one of my 
favorites was a guy in this documentary I saw which was about two 
friends. One had escaped the Nazis but later wound up in a Communist 
camp, the other was in a concentration camp and later became a 
Communist (but quit when he discovered they had such camps). 

And the second guy--okay, I should admit he was just really really 
cool to me personally, so I always love quoting things he said, but, 
like, at one point he was talking about how one day in the camp he 
was walking around with his feet cold and he looked at the guard and 
said, "Hmmm...if I were a guard, I'd have shoes." And he constructed 
this whole fantasy life for himself where he was a German boy and 
grew up a Nazi, it was very detailed. And at the end of it he 
said, "And I thought, how lucky I am to have been born a Jew!"

The point being, this is not some naive guy who didn't see how ugly 
people can be. His whole family was killed and he's having these 
thoughts in a concentration camp. Almost all his stories ended with 
some truly horribly ironic ending. But his nature remained, and he 
was still always understanding other people. 

And that's maybe the thing for me, that while I see that plenty of 
people that I respect find this story resonates for them (people 
probably more of the temperment the guy's friend had--and he was a 
remarkable man!)--and I don't think that's wrong--it doesn't for me. 
I find it odd to hear how unrealistic it is to think that a bunch of 
teenagers who are racists could change. It's just a downer of a book 
for me--I know there are plenty of racists in the world, but this 
isn't the world, it's a 7 book series that's supposed to be about how 
important tolerance is, yet it just doesn't seem to say anything to 
me about tolerance. It seems more comfortable in extreme situations 
where you're fighting against incredible intolerance--which is a 
courageous thing, but without much focus on exactly what it is in all 
the people in this society that makes this happen so easily, it just 
doesn't say much. Harry just kills Voldemort. It's not like a focused 
study on the "why's" of bigotry-and the bigotry of the good guys is 
often answered with, "They're not Death Eaters, you know!" There 
seems like a real need for these people in canon.

-m