House elves and some spoilers for Swordspoint WAS: realistic solutions

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 180935

> > >>Alla:
> > <snip>
> > I do not feel a need to look for additional word because I feel a   
> > need to not think of Harry as slave owner. I feel a need to look   
> > for that word, because to me there are enough differences to wish  
> > such word should exist no matter how many similarities are there as 
> > well( Thank you SSSusan).
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Then why are those arguing in support of house-elf slavery using the 
> exact same arguments those in support of African-slavery used back in 
> the day?  They're happier as slaves, they're not at all like us and 
> so have different needs, they're really more like animals than 
> anything.  (I believe Fredrick Douglas was equated with a dog trained 
> to walk on its hind-legs.)
> 
> If the situation of house-elves was so different from RL slavery, I'd 
> think the arguments in favor of the institution wouldn't sound so 
> creepily familiar.

Pippin:
The arguments in favor of the institution aren't exactly the same. No one
is arguing that owners shouldn't be deprived of their elves without
compensation, or that freed elves would want to mingle socially or
marry with wizards, or that they would displace worthier individuals
from their jobs or that freeing them would disrupt the economy and
throw the WW into collapse. Nor was the idea that slaves are not human 
ever widespread in our culture, much less considered manifestly obvious
to everybody. 

Since our knee-jerk reactions are based on conditions which only
partially resemble those of house-elf slavery, it follows that
they may not be   appropriate, as Hermione discovered. The trouble
is some of the conditions are the same. The situation as of HBP
is unfair to the elves, as I think everyone agrees. Thus our moral
discomfort with it. But human-prescribed solutions may not
be appropriate either. 

How would we like it if the elves decided that human woes are traceable
to our sick need to dominate one another  and what we need 
is to become the enchanted slaves of another race? 

Marion:
 If you decide that no sentient being should be owned by another, 
then you have to free all Elves from the enchantment that keeps them 
in ownership by wizards.

Pippin:
Right, and I demand an immediate end to global warming and a rollback
of nuclear proliferation, too.<g>  The solution you recommend isn't on
the table, for the evident reason that no one knows how to accomplish it.
It wouldn't be as easy as it sounds. Magically experimenting on house-elves
would be no different ethically than using them as poison testers.

Pippin