[HPforGrownups] Re: a sandwich

[Bart Ldiofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 178853

Katie Spilman wrote:
> Why is everyone so worried about house elves yet I don't anyone complaining about the gnome-abuse storyline that was prevalent throughout any time Harry visited the Weasleys.
>   
Bart:
It has to do with the fact that the line between animals and people is 
not quite as strong in the WW as it is in the RW. One major problem is 
that JKR is not really up on current scientific and philosophical 
thought on intelligence, and this confuses things even further. In 
consciousness studies, for example, there is a question, "What would a 
lion say if  a lion could talk?" and the answer most agree on is that if 
a lion could talk, it would cease to be a lion. Well, JKR gives a number 
of her animals a much greater understanding of human language (and 
English in particular) than they do in the real world. Therefore, one 
can assume that the ability to understand or even use human language in 
the WW does not connect to intelligence as well as it does in the RW 
(JKR has probably fallen for the Koko fraud, for example, and confuses, 
as do many people, speech and language). In any case, the question of 
"What is a ;person" becomes much more difficult in the WW than it is in 
the RW. However, it appears that gnomes are treated as if they are on 
the animal side. They are considered sufficiently high level that they 
aren't killed outright, but you CAN toss them out of your garden. The 
problem with house elves is on which side of the border do you put them. 
Since the history of house elves is not given in canon, we cannot 
determine whether house elves are people who have been enslaved, or 
animals with a higher level of consciousness than most. Is Dobby 
overcoming his programming, or was he driven insane by abuse? We have no 
idea; we can only guess. My best guess is that house elves need respect 
more than they need freedom.

Bart