The point of it all.

[sigurd at eclipse.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 191599

Dear List

I have a hard time seeing "a plea for toleration" as the mainspring in Harry Potter. I think that might have been an idea slapped on after the fact by Rowling to sound good; kind of like Miss America candidates always wanting "World Piece."

The assertion of "plea for tolerance" creates all sorts of other problems, not the least of which is the definition for tolerance. The classic definition of tolerance is "living with something you hate." This would mean in physical terms, forgoing a root canal for a very painful toothache and living with the pain. This type of toleration assumes (in non physical terms) living with and not destroying people who you absolutely despise, who cause you mental pain and suffering and who you hate with a passion equal to the pain of that tooth, and which you see NO reason for them to exist any more than your forgoing the root canal-- that is, your forgoing the root canal JUST for the benefit of the pain and suffering.

On the other hand our modern view of "tolerance" is not really tolerance at all. It is a casual indifference a sort of I don't care- can't be bothered attitude which comes from the fact that the person holding this is usually a third party. That is, he doesn't care about either side therefore because it is not important to him he can't see why it's important to those who hold it so. Thus the mystery for example of the deadly hate between Sunni and Shiite in the Middle East or a host of other intolerances around the world. This is a particular affection of "The West" now  but it was not always so. One can see these intolerances write large in blood in such conflicts as The Thirty Years War, the Civil War, and various other conflicts which have stacked up mountains of cadavers.


This type of benign indifference (and ignorance to what people believe) is not seen as a virtue to those we cluck at, and it very well could be that what we make a virtue of simply testifies that we have no morals and no feelings for anything.

But to return to Potter, I can't see much of a plea for tolerance.

Otto