[HPforGrownups] Re: House elves and some spoilers for Swordspoint WAS: realistic solutions

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 180941

> I've been reading this discussion for the past few days, and I'm so
> appalled by some of the arguments that I'm forced out of lurker-dom.
snip
> I want to ask
> you to look at the way men in Western civilisation have looked unto women
> until a good hundred years ago (although I bet there are still plenty men
> - and women - today who think exactly the same.
snip
> And no, I'm not claiming that women are slaves (although throughout
> history women *were* often chattel), I'm just trying to show how silly the
> notion is that Elves *want* to be slaves and are appalled at the idea of
> freedom that this is a legitamite cause of keeping them as slaves.
>
> The whole issue should not be 'do Elves want to be slaves', but 'is
> slavery a good thing or a bad thing'.
> Marion

Shelley now:
I disagree that it's a mere matter of deciding whether or not slavery is a 
good thing. Take two instances- women's rights, as you mentioned here, and 
the history of blacks in the United States. The economic and 
social-political conditions must be right to change on a grand scale the 
rights of a people group. For women, it took the World Wars for the men to 
be removed from positions so that the women could replace them in order for 
men to see that "yes, some women do have brains, and can do these jobs as 
well as men can!" Some women resisted the shoved back into the subservient, 
dominated role they had served previously because they got a taste 
economically of what it was to have a job and be paid for it, versus the 
non-paid work that is being a mere mother and wife.

Now take blacks- it took more than just a civil war and proclamation by a 
President to make black men free in American society- it took many years 
after that of riot, lawsuits, political reform, scandal and tensions before 
black men started being treated like equals in society as a whole. Many more 
black men and women died in the reform period than died when they were 
slaves.  It took reformation in work-place rules, reformation in education 
and many other areas of society to fully make "freedom and equality" work as 
the theory says it would.

Now back to house elves- you aren't going to change a house-elf's opinion, 
overnight, that he or she is PROUD to serve a wizarding family just as her 
family had done for centuries. Nevermind how "you" (generalized, or 
Hermione, or anyone else championing the rights of the house elves) think it 
is immoral and demeaning- the fact is the WW society functions well with 
house elves, the same way that the American economy functioned well with 
Black Slavery, and that families in general function well when you have a 
stay-at-home mom dedicating herself to the family needs. It's a moral 
judgment to say that house elf slavery is wrong, but just like Winky being 
told by the other house elves to get a life and serve her new master 
(Dumbledore, or Hogwarts) well, you aren't going to change their opinions 
overnight, and neither would a WW wide proclamation that all masters must 
"employ" their house elves (i.e. pay them!) really make House Elves free and 
equal to any other in that society. The blacks were stuck in poverty and no 
options for many years of not being able to get jobs that paid, or when they 
were paid, it was a pitiful lump of next-to-nothing. Some slaves rightfully 
said that as individuals, they had more respect and power being a slave than 
they did as freedmen, thrown out of the street with nothing to their name. 
Is it right to force that kind of change on house elves against their will? 
It's one thing for us to say "we think they should be free" and quite 
another if the cry of freedom was coming from within the rank of the house 
elves themselves, so that we were merely agreeing with them. The idea wasn't 
coming from the house elves themselves. Even Dobby is a bad example- he got 
sacked, and made the very best of his sacking. No one would hire him- and he 
wasn't championing the right of all house elves to be free- he was arguing 
"FOR HIMSELF ONLY" the idea of payment. He found a master who was willing to 
let him take a smaller pay- notice that DD offered him "equality", and Dobby 
himself rejected that as "too much". You can't ignore what the house elves 
themselves wanted, no matter how badly you want to insert your own moral 
judgment into that equation. To do so disrespects all the house elves who 
would say their lives would be make miserable by your meddling.

Like it or not, the WW isn't ready for that kind of change, and my guess is 
it wouldn't be ready for it for many years. It's my guess that it would take 
a big economic change in the WW economy to force the change of House elf 
slavery/servitude perceptions.