The House System was Re: Chapter Discussion: Goblet of Fire Ch. 4: Back

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 191497

Otto:
> My use of "plumbers and tradesmen" was  a metaphor for how the English upper classes see the rest. Don't feel slighted, it's the way the American upper class sees the rest of society also. Remember there is much talk in Philosophers stone of Hufflepuffs being "duffers" or low talent under-achievers. Second, while I am willing to grant a concession that English prep schools may divide people with the best of intentions, what actually comes down the pipe (as in the original bond between the four wizards) is pretty much  the "not our kind dear" -- social segregation and stratification along socio-economic lines.
> 

Pippin:
No one is arguing that wizarding society isn't stratified -- but Hogwarts under Dumbledore was arguably less stratified than the rest of it. Nowhere else do we see half-Giants, House Elves or Centaurs treated as equals. 

What the inter-House rivalry makes possible is a leveling of boundaries inside the Houses that would otherwise exist because they are part of the WW as a whole. Now this, might not be any justification for the House System, but it is a tool that Dumbledore can use all the same. 

It's interesting -- Hogwarts as Harry first experiences it is far more egalitarian than the world as he knew it on Privet Drive. It's only slowly that Harry becomes aware that he is in fact living in a bubble of privilege, and that there are whole classes of Beings in the Wizarding World who have less freedom and fewer rights than Harry did in Little Whinging.

The Dursleys at their worst would not have dared to treat Harry the way Sirius treated Kreacher. 

Otto:
By the way, this whole "house folderol" was tried by American management in the 1980's or 1990's and divided whole plants and offices up into four teams to encourage inter-team rivalry to excel and be more productive. 

Pippin:
Quite aside from the dubious benefits of  applying the factory model to education, you are addressing the issue as if the students are the employees and the product is magic. But   the students are not employed by the school. They are treated as raw material,  and the product is trained wizards. 

So as long as there is a demand for more than one kind of wizard, more than one kind will be produced. And as long as the wizarding world insists on keeping others in their place against their will, it will need enforcers who are not too dainty in their methods, and other enforcers to keep those enforcers in line. 

If the bullies and their antagonists are not trained at Hogwarts, they'll be trained elsewhere, IOW, because the WW can't exist in its present form without them. 

Dumbledore, as I see it, inherited this system and tried to subvert it towards his goals of  protecting of the innocent and extending more rights to the underclasses. He was arguably more successful in persuading the Griffyndors, who already saw themselves as protectors, but he succeeded with  those of the Slytherins who realized that they too had innocents they needed to protect. 

> 
> Otto:
 Please note that in all of the dead that Rowling names at the end there is not one Slytherin. That's a fact and sympathy for Slytherin can't deny it. So exactly what was their contribution. No blood seems to have been shed.

Pippin:

Severus Snape. 

Regulus Black. 

 Rowling names them more prominently than any others. Albus Severus, of course. And "Fight! Fight! Fight for my master, defender of House Elves! Fight the Dark Lord in the name of brave Regulus!"

You're free to see the Slytherins as little better than Orcs in human form, but I don't recall any Hobbits calling  their children Shagrat  or doing battle in his name. 

Pippin