House elves and some spoilers for Swordspoint WAS: realistic solutions

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 180938

> >>Alla:
> <snip>
> It is society that lives under completely different rules, I mean 
> almost completely than our RW society.
> I think it is actually on purpose that some arguments sound 
> familiar, it may be to encourage us to not blindly apply our values 
> to this society.

Betsy Hp:
I've never liked that aspect of the prime directive *g*: to see 
behavior that I deem as not good behavior, but I'll just let it go 
because who am I to judge?  I do agree with the idea that I can't 
just swoop in with my superior armies and completely remake a 
society.  But I do feel I can judge or apply my own personal values.  
What use are my values unless I actually use them?  (For a RL 
example: I think female circumcision is an abominable practise that 
speaks very ill of those societies that allow or encourage the 
practice.  It's not my society, but I feel quite free, and in fact 
almost duty bound, to judge such behavior.)

> >>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.

Betsy Hp:
Right, those are arguments *not* being used.  And it makes sense that 
no one is looking at the issue of house-elf slavery through an 
economic lens.  The WW doesn't seem to rely on their slaves for their 
economy (which means they have less of an excuse for continuing the 
practice than the US did back in the day).

But the arguments being made for house-elves remaining slaves *for 
the sake of* the slaves are what those who supported African slaves 
argued back in the day.  Africans are child-like and simple and in 
need of European supervision.  Work is good for them.  They love it.  
Where would they go if freed?  Etc.

> >>Pippin:
> Nor was the idea that slaves are not human ever widespread in our   
> culture, much less considered manifestly obvious to everybody.

Betsy Hp:
Oh, sure it was.  Eugenics was all about it.  Africans were supposed 
to be a step (or three or four) below Europeans on the evolutionary 
scale.  They didn't feel pain like Europeans.  Didn't love their 
children like Europeans.  Didn't have the intelligence or the desire 
for freedom like Europeans.  Scientists wrote all sorts of papers 
that were taken very seriously purporting to prove all those ideas 
true.

Of course, house-elves are definitely not human.  But I think they're 
as near animals as goblins, giants or veelas.  All three creatures 
near enough to humans biologically-speaking to produce fertile 
offspring from cross-species breeding.  (I'm assuming Hagrid can have 
children, anyway.)  Their level of sentience is certainly above that 
of animals.  Per the rules of scifi anyway, house-elves count as 
essentially human.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentient#Science_fiction

Which is why it's interesting to me to read the arguments in favor of 
keeping a sentient race enslaved.  And why they strike me as pretty 
familiar.

> >>Pippin:
> 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?

Betsy Hp:
To anyone familiar with scifi, this is exactly what will eventually 
happen.  Worms *always* turn.  (The current Battlestar Galactica 
deals with exactly this issue.)  It's why, despite Harry's assurance 
that all is well, I expect the WW will rupture into destructive 
violence sooner rather than later.

Betsy Hp