Social Justice, Flawed Characters, and the Fabian Key to Harry Potter’s Sociopolitical Vision; audio clip from A Short History of Myth
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- Added: 7 photos from HBP film (including Slughorn – Why’s he wearing a graduation cap?)
- Free Audiobooks: Giveaway Details
- Another View on Social Justice in Harry Potter
- Portus 2008
- del Toro plans to do Frankenstein
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the further comments on social justice in HP, Travis. I think, too, that part of the problem some people may have when they read the books is that they expect the characters to be perfect & to always be consistent with their beliefs. But that wouldn’t make them characters but caricatures.
Take a look at the photos from the move if HBP. Gambon looks dazed. Grint looks like a total clown. And why is Broadbent wearing a brown graduation gown with a mortarboard?
Travis, I have no thought out opinion about gradual vs immediate social change, nor do I condemn Harry’s people for being imperfect, but it seems to me that there are situations where an immediate end to the tyranny and subjugation is imperative through radical action. I think most of us would agree that if a government is slaughtering thousands of its people daily, it behooves the world to step in and stop the genocide, and Fabianism be damned. I know it is very complicated, and of course we don’t usually step in, not so much for the sake of self-determination but because our own interests don’t support that kind of intervention. My point is, immediate and radical action is sometimes called for. So the question is, where do we draw the line? If Dobby wants to serve Harry without pay, that’s his right. Is it also his right to bash his head repeatedly against the wall because of a perceived transgression? Is it his right to let his master kick him for disobedience?
Red Rocker, important and challenging questions. Do you crusade for the abolition of house-elf punishment, but not servitude? It gets very complex. The ideal situation – while the house-elves work out their own identities – is to remove slavery and its accompanying magical bonds, but to allow the house-elves to choose what they want, even if that is continued servitude. It seems like that’s an idea to explore that was only realized in Dumbledore – and it would have been helpful if Rowling had spelled that out more. But, then, there are lots of things in this 4,100 page series that she just didn’t have room for.
I think a loose parallel can be drawn between Dumbledore/Hermione (their social conscience) and first-century St. Paul, who thought slavery was a sin, but did not command a revolutionary overthrow of the whole system. Instead, in his epistolary exhortations, he commanded a Master-Slave relationship, in Christian households, that in effect subverted the oppressive system. In short, St. Paul seemed to believe that only self-sacrificial gospel-love could ultimately overthrown inequality and injustice, so for the sake of the gospel and its viability in that culture, he did the silent subversion, rather than radical revolution.
And that would put St. Paul in the same category, because we’d have to ask the question: “Paul, what about all the slaves who are getting abused?” And I think his answer would probably be – go preach the gospel to them and their masters; tell the slaves One suffered with them and for them, and tell the masters they’ll have to give an account for the way they treated image-bearers; and the whole thing can be remedied in Christ.
In Rowling’s world, the “metanarrative of love” (to borrow John Granger’s phrase) is the sort of general parallel to the gospel.
Awesome pictures, thanks for posting the link… It’s nice to see Draco without a sneer on his face, I really like the picture with Harry and Hermione.
Slughorn wearing the graduation cap? Slughorn seems to me to be the type of fellow to prize his own intellectual achievement, he’s a very self-centered man really. Not to mention he has a bit of the ridiculous in him. I think it’s perfect.
Great thoughts about St. Paul Travis, never really thought of it that way before.
I do have some faith in the transformative power of love, but a lot more faith in the emancipating power of a bill of rights enforced by law. And if Winky subsequently chooses to drink herself into a stupor sitting by the side of the fire-place, so be it. Her children, if she has any, will be born free. (Aside: Do elves marry and have children? Do their children belong to the master of the she-elf or the master of the he-elf? Do you see where I’m going with this?)
Nothing against St. Paul – well, actually, I do have a few beefs, but let it pass – but to preach virtue to those whose abuse is made possible by an unjust system while leaving that system intact, well, that just doesn’t work for me.
Looking specifically at Hermione, her mistake, if we can call it that, was in acting before understanding all the forces in play. Had she realized that house-elves didn’t all long for freedom, she would have started consciousness raising classes in the kitchen and handed out the socks afterwards. She could have had slide-shows. Or shown a few movies. Roots might have gotten some discussion going. Her actual strategy was flawed as well as futile, but her goal was right and good.
Hermione is a very interesting character in a lot of ways. As a mud-blood, she wasn’t born into the status quo of the wizarding world. What seemed the norm to Ron and most of the other kids at Hogwarts was inarguably unacceptable to her. Compare her to Harry, who was also raised by Muggles, but who wasn’t moved to indignation by the general status of the elves. His own anger was roused by a specific instance of abuse, which he dealt with. Hermione is the social crusader, Harry is the moral man.
I do have some faith in the transformative power of love, but a lot more faith in the emancipating power of a bill of rights enforced by law.
I’d reverse this statement entirely, personally.
to preach virtue to those whose abuse is made possible by an unjust system while leaving that system intact, well, that just doesn’t work for me.
This is hardly what St. Paul was doing. Preach virtue? Sure, it can be found in Paul’s writings as an application of the gospel. But the gospel – not legislative action – was the message of Paul. The gospel has sociopolitical realities, but the gospel itself (transformative, self-sacrificial love in Rowling) is the only thing that can create lasting change. I’ll correct my statement above. I don’t have “little faith” in a legislative bill of rights; I have pretty much zero faith in it where the gospel has not done its transformational work. This was St. Paul’s point entirely; the law is powerless to achieve its stated purpose.
I think everyone agrees Hermione’s goal was right and good; how we get there is the issue.
Won’t say much except to say you’re on the right track, Travis. Laws, while sometimes good & necessary, only curb outward behavior. They cannot change the heart. And in the end, it’s the heart that needs to be changed because the world will go on in its own ways. This is what Jesus is getting at when he says the poor you will always have with you. He’s not saying ignore the poor or abuse the poor but recognizing that no matter how much you try to save the world you cant because the world is destined for the fire.
Which is why the church preaches the Gospel & not the Social Gospel.
Radical, revolutionary change may sometimes be necessary but historically radical revolutionary change usually turns out badly or has lots of unforeseen consequences.
In England & her colonies, minus the USA, slavery was eliminated through a gradual, thoughtful process. In the USA slavery was stopped by a violent conflict which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the destruction of the South, the prejudice & hatred engendered in a beaten nation by an occupying army, & the destruction of the constitutional republic. Slavery was already on its way out in the USA & more than likely would’ve been ended within 50 years or more in the same way it ended in England.
Well, I least I didn’t say much.
revgeorge, your words remind me of the last lines of Orwell’s Animal Farm :
“No question now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
But just because that may happen, doesn’t mean that we should accept today’s tyrant, does it?
And 50 years used to be the life-span of a man, give or take. There was a generation of people who lived free because of the Civil War.
Red Rocker said, “But just because that may happen, doesn’t mean that we should accept today’s tyrant, does it?”
I’m not sure I said that or even implied it. What I’m trying to convey is that radical, revolutionary change generally can have more harmful consequences & more long term ones than gradual change. Especially in regards to institutional wrongs or especially long held wrongs.
Look at house elf enslavement. It was apparently a long held institution & even the elves had bought into it. So, what happens if Hermione comes along one day as a Ministry of Magic official & says, “House elf slavery is officially banned?” All the problems of the institution suddenly go away? Wizards & elves immediately fall into a society of equals? The house elves immediately know how to be free beings & live autonomous lives? Or even want to be free?
Reminds me of how Captain Kirk would always run around freeing people who were beholden to computers in the Original Series. One day every decision you make is made by the computer; next day Kirk says, “You’re free. Run along & be happy.” Not a necessarily nice or helpful situation for these newly ‘free’ people.
Which isn’t the same as saying that these people shouldn’t be free or that it’s not wrong that they’re enslaved. It’s just how do you go about helping them become free people?
Hermione’s solution smacks of taking a bird who hasn’t learned how to fly yet & throwing it off a cliff while saying, “Fly! Be free!”
PS Isn’t Animal Farm also about revolutionary change?
As far as I know, Animal Farm is about the Russian Revolution in particular, and how revolutions go bad in general because of the corrupting influence of power.
The problem with deciding how much freedom people can handle is that we’re taking a parental role towards them. Which assumes that they are not capable of making their own choices, that we know better than they do and should use our wisdom to help them.
Now we may indeed know “better”, but I don’t think this gives us the right to determine for them. I don’t think too many people would choose to lose their slavery gradually. Do you?
But I think that perhaps the clearest way to look at this is is to think of ourselves in a situation of servitude. Would we choose to maintain that servitude because we don’t know how to handle freedom? Would you?
But I think that perhaps the clearest way to look at this is is to think of ourselves in a situation of servitude. Would we choose to maintain that servitude because we don’t know how to handle freedom? Would you?
That is, in general, a good principle – except that it does make you and I, who have not experience slavery, the authority on what should be done for/to people who have experienced the subjugation.. It’s not really a good principle with the house-elves. There is a clear, almost completely universal response by house-elves to freedom. In the case of house-elves, it seems the “parental” role to make the choice for them to give them clothes because of a moral principle; it’s, in effect, to make that choice for them, when they themselves would have chosen otherwise.
The house-elves are clearly a stand-in for slavery, but they’re not an allegory for historical human slavery; they have to be taken in their own context with their own history and experience when analyzing what Rowling’s trying to say. I don’t think she was ever trying to say, “Look, there really are such things as happy slaves, and you just have to let them go on being slaves, because they’re happy.” But in principle, she was taking a slap at both morally self-righteous crusaders (Hermione) and dysconscious racists (Ron).
By the way – haven’t said this yet, but I love the new avatar. After all those “Red Rocker” avatars, the actual rocking chair is comic gold.
I’m really feeling my way along in this, because it is complicated.
I agree that both in introducing freedom gradually and in giving freedom all at once the “liberator” is making a choice for the enslaved and taking on some kind of parental role. So we need to decide what is the worse of two evils: taking on the decision to free someone against their will? Or taking on the decision to keep someone enslaved for their own good?
For me, the choice would be clear.
Another way of looking at it is by considering what enslavement actually entails. Does it involve pain, suffering, death? Humiliation? Indignity? Would we maintain that condition out of concern for the dire consequences of freedom?
Yet another way of looking at it is by making some assumptions about what is good and a right for all people. That is where a bill of rights comes in. Or the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
I realize that the Declaration isn’t talking about House Elves, but I think the same principles apply.
I’m not sure that JKR is making fun of Hermione’s moral righteousness as much as of her naivete and blind zeal. Moral righteousness implies pride and ego, and I don’t see too much of that in the earnest Ms. G.
I think we’re talking past each other, for the most part. I don’t think either Travis, Red Rocker, or I don’t see any problems with either situation. It is a complicated issue, which means that the difficulties caused by the issue makes it harder to come up with solutions. But generally for difficult issues, simple nor easy answers will work. Or they will end up causing more problems than the ones they intended to solve.
I think what I was intending to convey was that the prejudices & underpinnings of an institutional evil must be gradually broken down, to the point where the people instituting the evil, like house elf slavery, see their unjust system & do away with it themselves rather than having it forced upon them.
Thus the comparison between the British model & the American model. The British model where slavery was outlawed after those involved in the system came to realize that it was a necessity to end it or the American model where the realization about the evils of slavery & the need for ending it was gradually coming into the consciousness of the enslavers & was moving forward until it was interrupted by those attempting to force a violent, revolutionary change like John Brown or when the issue of slavery was subsumed into the much larger issues which caused the Civil War. The idea that slavery was one of the primary causes of the Civil War is one of those lies my teacher told me. It’s just been repeated often enough to become a truism.
But that aside, that’s what I was trying to get at, that an institutional problem is generally best dealt with by gradual change rather than radical. Sometimes it can’t be dealt with that way, of course, but that tends to lead to other problems down the road.
I said, “But generally for difficult issues, simple nor easy answers will work.”
I meant to say, “…neither simple nor easy answers will work.”
revgeorge, I dimly knew that abolition of slavery was not the primary cause of the Civil War – I believe the cause was economics and autonomy, as in, who gets to control the resources. Abolition was , however, a major result.
The gradualist argument reminds me of the lyrics of the Leonard Cohen song “First We take Manhattan”:
“They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within”
And you know what, slavery was abolished through the gradualist and the radical way in different parts of the world, but neither way did away with the prejudice against people who are different – in this case, having a different skin colour. So I am skeptical that changing the system “from within” changes people “from within”.
Give me a bill of rights any day.
Red Rocker said, “So I am skeptical that changing the system “from within” changes people “from within.”
Being a believer in original sin, I’m a skeptic too. As far as human abilities go.
Bills of Rights are nice but they’re only pieces of paper unless people are willing to enforce them & bind themselves by them.
So I am skeptical that changing the system “from within” changes people “from within”.
Me, too. I think it’s gotta go the other way around.
Good Luck & Safe Travel for Portus, Travis. Don’t worry about us wanting a full & complete breakdown & analysis of the convention after your return.