House elves WAS: realistic resolutions

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 180950

> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180889
>
> a_svirn:
> That looks a bit too selective for objectivity. SPEW's only one
> of many elves subplots. You dismiss Dobby as an oddity, but SPEW
> is an oddity too. Hermione is quite comically wrongheaded in her
> approach to the problem, on many levels: practical, theoretical,
> ethical. SPEW on the whole can be more easily dismissed, than the
> existence of a free elf.

Mike:
You're right and that's a fair point. Hermione was an oddity. Though 
it does appear that Harry would initially have agreed with her on 
the "slavery is bad" issue alone, if he could cut through the rest 
of the foolish SPEWishness. It was more my take on the elf issue that 
I looked at Hermione's "free them all" as the starting point of the 
main house elf story line. That's my reading, FWIW.



http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180936
> 
> Magpie:
> You're right it's not real world slavery--it's fantasy slavery
> where the slave is magically compelled to obey you, for one thing.
> But I haven't seen anybody show that it's actually different than
> slavery in the way it works.

Mike:
But that is the difference, Magpie. It's fantasy slavery, house elf 
slavery, not real world human slavery. That's why I'm not willing to 
attach real world values to it, nor condemn the wizard slave owners 
like I would real world slave owners. It doesn't work *exactly* the 
same, humans weren't enchanted to be slaves, slave humans were sold, 
bought, traded, not bound magically to a family/homestead, human 
slaves didn't have magic that they couldn't use without their 
master's permission, and the vast, overwhelming majority of human 
slaves would not have eschewed freedom because it was an insult to 
their being.

My way of reading the house elves is that they are magical creatures 
with this imperative to serve humans and human households. NOT that 
they were compelled to do so by humans, manufactured by humans, or 
otherwise forced to be slaves by humans. That house elves as slaves 
is a natural condition for them in every sense of the word "natural". 
I have no proof of my opinion, that's just the way I read 
enchantment. That they are slaves for the same reason that merpeople 
are aquatic beings, they just are.


> Magpie:
> What they've said is that it "feels different" if the slave wants
> to serve--and that's perfectly true for human slaves as well.

Mike:
Well, not exactly. What I'm saying is that house elf slavery in the 
Wizarding World should not be judged and held to the same standards 
as human slavery in the real world. That's my opinion based on the 
way I read the story. I'm not saying slavery is a good thing or a bad 
thing in the WW. It just is, it exists as a fact of nature.


> a_svirn:
> How about OotP? Kreacher's subplot was crucial there, and
> Kreacher did not want to be owned by his master, he even
> rebelled against him.

Mike:
It's never been who the master is for me. Kreacher didn't want 
freedom, he wanted a different master. But the key here is that he 
never considered himself NOT to be a slave. Heck, even the freed 
Dobby says he can chose who to serve now. But notice he didn't say 
he could chose NOT to serve, just who. The way I read that is that 
elves have always served, from the beginning of their time. YMMV.



> Magpie:
> <snip>   Why not just say, as I think people have for years,
> "house-elf slavery?" That identifies that we're not talking 
> about slaves in the human population.

Mike:
As I've said, that term works for me. But I understand the search for 
a new word. Take the moving stair cases in Hogwarts. One walks up and 
down them like stairs, one moves to a different floor with them, and 
other than the cool headmaster's circular escalator, one must provide 
one's own propulsion. All just like regular stairs. Except they are 
enchanted to move, so one doesn't end up at the same place every time 
after one takes the same stair case. I don't have another name for 
them besides "stairs", but they don't have all of the same qualities 
as real world stairs. So simply calling them stairs seems lacking to 
explain all that they are, they don't *exactly* equate to real world 
stairs.


> Magpie:
> The differences lie in how the enslavement is enforced and how
> it's viewed imo. The institution fits all the requirements for
> regular slavery only with a magical component, and that's
> considered mutually beneficial rather than a bad thing. It's
> culturally approved slavery.

Mike:
Yes, I think you've got the essence of it. That magical component is 
critical and is also what makes it culturally acceptable in the WW. 
The mutual benificity is certainly helpful on that score, but it's 
more the fact that that magical component precludes any other 
relationship, imo. The enforcement feature, self-punishment, could 
and should be changed, since that was the additional thing added by 
wizards - again, all my opinion. That's the way I read Dumbledore's 
complaint of the way wizards have treated elves. YMMV, again.



> Magpie:
> You can fully support the system and think it's the most 
> responsible and compassionate thing for house elves while 
> still thinking it's slavery.

Mike:
I don't disagree. Like I said before, wizards are stuck with elves as 
natural born slaves regardless of their personal moral convictions. 
Therefore, it becomes their moral imperative to remove the draconian 
measures imposed in the past, a road that I believe Hermione was 
shown to be heading down. NOT to try to impose their cultural norms 
to elves that simply can't survive under those norms, the road 
Hermione had originally started down. That's my reading, that seems 
consistant with canon in my opinion.