The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles
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2 Ibid., p. 239. At times, Prinzi stresses the importance of the libertarian threads in the Potter series. For example, in his “succinct summary of the political philosophy underlying the Harry Potter series,” Prinzi lists Fabian gradualist, libertarian, and Christian themes (p. 241). At other times Prinzi speaks more modestly: there is, in the Potter series, “plenty to make a libertarian happy” (p. 233), and “libertarian elements are evident in the series” (p. 238). We will be evaluating the less modest claims. In a personal communication, Prinzi notes that he does not claim that Dumbledore is a political libertarian in any robust or overt sense. His claim, rather, is that Dumbledore is broadly libertarian in his personal interactions with people, in his respect for individual moral choice, and in the way he holds positions of power, and that this “lends credence to an intentionally libertarian reading of the series.” We are grateful to Prinzi for this clarification. As this chapter makes clear, we think of libertarianism as essentially a political view and thus find it misleading to speak of “libertarian elements” in the Potter books that have no reference to small government, individual freedoms, economic liberties, foreign entanglements, or other political themes characteristic of classic and contemporary libertarianism. For Prinzi’s own, more fully articulated take on Dumbledore’s politics, see his Harry Potter and Imagination, chapters 11 and 12.
3 “Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy,” Michigan Law Review 104 (May 2006):1523-1538, available online at www.michiganlawreview.org/archive/104/6/Barton.pdf. See also Andrew Morris, “Making Legal Space for Moral Choice,” Texas Wesleyan Law Review 12:1 (2005): 473-480.
4 The full quotation, from Thomas Jefferson’s first inaugural address, is “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations. Entangling alliances with none.” The phrase has been used more recently as the title of several essays by the U.S. representative and libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul.
5 Prinzi, Harry Potter and Imagination, pp. 236, 239.
6 Deathly Hallows, pp. 717, 718.
7 Especially in comparison to Hermione Granger. When Hermione learns that Hogwarts has house-elves, she forms S.P.E.W., the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, which advocates for fair wages and working conditions. A house-elf is freed from servitude if his master gives him an article of clothing, so Hermione begins to leave socks and woolly hats for the house-elves.
8 Goblet of Fire, p. 708.
9 Libertarians are often described as being against “big government.” This description, though true, isn’t very precise. Perhaps it is more illuminating to situate libertarianism between anarchism and modern liberalism. Anarchists, libertarians, and modern liberals each agree that there is a moral right to liberty but disagree—significantly—about how robust this right is. The anarchist believes in the strongest conception of this right. He claims that any political state, by its very nature, violates individual rights so significantly that a political state is morally unjustified. Freedom should reign; no person or group should be given the bureaucratic authority to restrict liberty in any way. A modern liberal, on the other hand, believes in a considerably weaker conception of the moral right to liberty. She thinks, first, that a political state should pursue political goals other than protecting and respecting personal liberty and, second, that the pursuit of some of these political goals justifies restricting the personal freedom of citizens. Libertarians stand between these two broad views; their conception of the right to liberty is less robust than the anarchist’s, more robust than the modern liberal’s.
10 John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983; originally published 1689), p. 26.
11 Prinzi, Harry Potter and Imagination, pp. 234-235.
12 Half-Blood Prince, p. 594.
13 Red Hen, “Case in Point: Albus Dumbledore,” www.redhen-publications.com/Dumbledore.html.
14 Deathly Hallows, p. 687 (emphasis added).
15 Libertarians usually defend their conception of the nightwatchman state by appeal to a “natural right” to personal liberty, often interpreted as a “moral right to full self-ownership.” If you have a property right to a material object—a laptop, say—that means that you get to decide who gets to use the laptop; you deserve compensation from anybody who steals or breaks it; and you have the right to sell or give the laptop to whom-ever you choose. Libertarians believe that people also have these same ownership rights over their own persons. A person has complete authority to decide what happens to her property, which includes her body. It is her right to decide whether to accept medical treatment, to take recreational drugs, to have sexual relations with another person, to join the military, and so on. If the state fails to respect this set of rights, it fails to treat the citizen with the dignity that she, as a person, deserves. The standard libertarian argument for a nightwatchman state takes this moral theory as a starting point. Libertarians believe that if there were no political state—if we were all living in “the state of nature,” a world without any political institutions—violations of the right to personal liberty would be (far more) rampant, and so a political state is necessary to protect the moral right to full self-ownership of each and every person. But a government “bigger” than the nightwatchman state would itself significantly and consistently violate this same right. And so, with due trepidation, human society should establish a political state, endow it with powers—very limited powers—and keep a very wary eye on bureaucrats, to make sure they do not overstep their bounds. For a classic discussion, see Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).
16 Contrary to anarchists, libertarians believe that it is necessary to create a political state—with a legislature, a police force, a court system, and an army—and to give this political state the authority to exercise coercive power. A libertarian regime would support and enforce legal rules that prohibit serious rights violations such as theft, breach of contract, rape, and murder. Also, it would promote the security and the economic interests of its own citizens, for instance, by actively preserving free market conditions at home and by sending ambassadors, trade specialists, and military negotiators abroad.
17 Barton, “Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy,” pp. 1523-1524.
18 Prisoner of Azkaban, p. 292.
19 Barton, “Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy,” p. 1526.
20 “J. K. Rowling Wants to See a Democrat in the White House,” available at www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/184525,jk-rowling-wants-to-see-democrat-in-the-white-house.html.Prinzi admits that Rowling would not “identify herself politically as a libertarian, and that there are no deliberate links to libertarian political philosophers or activists” in the books (Prinzi, Harry Potter and Imagination, p. 238). His claim is that there are implicit libertarian themes in the Potter series and that these themes support a libertarian “reader response” interpretation (personal communication). Far be it from us to impose any hegemonic constraints on readers’ ability to “respond” however they like to the Potter books. Our claim is simply that there is no explicit or implicit endorsement of political libertarianism in the books, and that any attempt to read libertarian themes into them is a stretch.
9
DUMBLEDORE, PLATO, AND THE LUST FOR POWER
David Lay Williams and Alan J. Kellner
Those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it.
—Albus Dumbledore
A city in which those who are going to rule are least eager to rule is necessarily best.
—Plato
Lord Acton, in an oft-repeated phrase, observed that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This phrase neatly sums up what most would consider common wisdom. Yet the world finds itself persistently burdened by the abuse of power. Rulers continually find new and creative ways to line their pockets, privilege their friends, and secure and even bolster their own authority. The list of offenses would shock even many Death Eaters—or
perhaps fill them with envy.
In an age that prides itself on its progress in technology and even in morals, why is it that we have progressed so little in protecting ourselves against the usurpations of our rulers? Perhaps it is because we have not learned the important lessons of the first Western political philosopher, Plato (C. 428-348 B.C.E.). Plato’s solution to this problem is ingeniously simple: power should never reside in the hands of those who lust for it. Rather, it should be granted only to those who would prefer to occupy themselves with other matters. It is disinterest in power that paradoxically makes the best rulers. This lesson turns out to be central to the climax of the entire Harry Potter series.
Plato and Dumbledore: Separated at Birth?
Albus Dumbledore lived in a stormy age. He saw the rise and fall of the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, as well as Voldemort’s reign of terror. He saw warfare, both with his wand and in the subtle forms of alliance building and intelligence gathering. He also had personal relationships with the most important players in the saga. Grindelwald was a close boyhood friend, and Voldemort was one of the most talented students at Hogwarts. These experiences taught Dumbledore about the precariousness of peace and the need for truly just rulers.
Plato likewise grew up in an age of remarkable political upheaval. His entire youth was consumed by the decades-long Peloponnesian War between his home city of Athens and the mighty city-state of Sparta. The war and its aftermath provided opportunities to observe both the best and the the worst in human nature. Like Dumbledore, Plato witnessed a power-hungry talented fellow pupil, the tempestuous Alcibiades, rise to high military and political positions, only to betray Athens by siding with her Spartan enemies.1 Athens would go on to lose the war and suffer the indignity of having an imposed tyranny, known as “the Thirty,” headed by the dreaded Critias. Critias was a bloodthirsty tyrant, who just happened to be Plato’s mother’s cousin. Several years later, Plato was invited to travel to Syracuse in order to train the petulant son of the tyrant Dionysius I. Indeed, Plato, like Dumbledore, had once seriously contemplated a career in politics—a natural choice, given his talents, family connections, and personal experiences.2 So, although Plato is sometimes regarded as a pie-in-the-sky philosopher, nothing could be further from the truth. His observations about politicians and their relationship with power are based on real-world experiences.
What did Plato learn from his encounters with political power? His most detailed reactions to his own personal experiences are recorded in his “Seventh Letter,” addressed to the rulers of Syracuse. The letter recounts his own flirtations with political power, including the opportunity to join the Thirty at the end of the Peloponnesian War. At first, he was deeply tempted to join with them in forging a new society, perhaps to promote the “greater good,” as the young Dumbledore and Grindelwald had desired. But he soon found that he could play no role in this new regime, which “made the former government seem in comparison something precious like gold.”3 The limitless power of the tyrants went to their heads and manifested itself in revenge killings, the settling of old scores, the confiscation of wealth, and ultimately, under the restored democracy, the unjust execution of Plato’s beloved teacher, Socrates. This was enough to make Plato “withdraw in disgust” from a life in politics and ultimately dedicate himself full time to philosophy, just as the duel with Grindelwald that resulted in the death of Dumbledore’s sister changed Dumbledore’s mind about a political life.4
Like Dumbledore, Plato turned from politics to education. Dissatisfaction with politics led him instead to establish the Academy, the first university in Western civilization. The Academy is the root of our present English word academic, and it was here that Plato experienced some of his greatest personal triumphs. The Academy’s notable alumni included Cicero and Plato’s own pupil Aristotle. Plato would also write many of his most famous works while teaching there, on a wide range of subjects, including art, ethics, science, mathematics, philosophy, and even love. So, both Dumbledore and Plato found solace from the burdens and temptations of politics in teaching the young.
Plato’s retreat from political life, however, was hardly a retreat from systematic thought about politics—in much the same way that Dumbledore remained integral to magical politics even as a professor at Hogwarts. Plato found the Academy the perfect place to reflect on the political world and to distill the wisdom he had acquired in experience. His political philosophy is most fully and artfully rendered in his work the Republic. Perhaps the most memorable proposal in this work is the office of the philosopher-ruler.5 The ideal society Plato sketches in the Republic consists of three classes—a working class, soldiers, and rulers. It is this last class that possesses all policy-making powers, as well as the day-to-day oversight of state affairs. Plato’s philosopher-rulers hold enormous power, and it is crucial that they be the best and most qualified persons to rule. In particular, they must possess each of the four “cardinal virtues”: justice, courage, wisdom, and self-control. To ensure that only the wisest and most virtuous citizens become rulers, Plato proposes a rigorous and lengthy educational process designed to sort out the wheat from the chaff. This process puts even Hogwarts to shame, lasting until age thirty-five, followed by a fifteen-year internship in public service. By the end, Plato hoped, we should be able to distinguish the Potters from the Malfoys.
To be sure, paramount for Plato among the qualifications to rule is intelligence. He makes it repeatedly clear that rulers must be quick learners and possess an unusually good memory. It is often rightly said that Plato was the first philosopher to advocate openly the joining of political power with intellectual heft. Indeed, this is why he insists that the only qualified rulers are philosopher-rulers—those who exceed all others in their cerebral powers.
Although this is perhaps the most celebrated element of Plato’s qualifications to rule, intelligence alone is not enough. From popular culture, we all know many brilliant criminals who employed their gifts for devious purposes—Lex Luthor from Superman, Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs, Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars, and even Dr. Evil from Austin Powers. Mere intelligence may be an essential prerequisite for ruling, but Plato’s demands transcend a super-sized cranium. Rulers must combine their brains with virtue. The question—in Plato and in Potter—is how to distinguish between the gifted who will use their power for good and those who will use it for selfish ends.
Most notably, those burdened by excessive self-love are unfit for ruling.6 They are often among the most intellectually gifted of the students but have difficulties in resisting their impulses and those who would flatter them. Like Voldemort, they view political power as a means to feed one’s desires, thus they lust after power. They crave it and climb all over themselves to secure it. But it is precisely this lust for power that suggests their unsuitability for wielding it, according to Plato: “When ruling is something fought over . . . civil and domestic war destroys these men and the rest of the city as well.”7 Tyrants like Critias usually live short lives and are capable of bringing the entire state down with them. Recall, for example, that Voldemort’s life—in any corporeal or physical sense—is relatively short as well. In Sorcerer’s Stone, he must drink unicorn blood to regain his strength; he must feed off the life of another until he can assume a physical form again. Even though Plato was assuming that magic could not be used to save oneself, his analysis of tyrants also holds true in Harry’s world. We should therefore rather seek out rulers who are disinterested in holding political power: a “city in which those who are going to rule are least eager to rule is necessarily the best.”8
Plato offered a useful test for readers to distinguish those who might succumb to the temptations of power from those who would resist, a tale known as the “Ring of Gyges,” a legend that J. K. Rowling resuscitates and mirrors in the tale of the Deathly Hallows with Harry’s invisibility cloak (more on this shortly). Plato’s tale is delivered by the character Glaucon, who was Plato’s brother in real life.
According to the story, a shepherd finds a magical ring uncovered by an earthquake and discovers that by turning the ring toward himself, he becomes invisible. Possessed of this new talent, the formerly modest shepherd immediately sets out to seduce the king’s wife, attack the king with her help and kill him, and seize the king’s power for himself, all in rapid succession. Glaucon argues that “no one ... would be so incorruptible that he would stay on the path of justice, or bring himself to keep away from other people’s possessions and not touch them, when he could take whatever he wanted from the marketplace with impunity, go into people’s houses and have sex with anyone he wished, kill or release from prison anyone he wished, and do all the other things that would make him like a god among humans.”9
Plato’s implicit reply is that Glaucon’s conclusions apply only to those who lust after power. The truly just and good—those fit for political power—would conduct themselves in precisely the same way whether they were invisible or not. For those few qualified individuals, there is no ambition to promote one’s selfish interests over that of friends and fellow citizens. So, there is no political benefit to invisibility. In the end, then, Plato wants political power to reside in the hands of the wise and virtuous. These qualities are best manifested in the indifference of rare individuals to the temptations of power. The Ring of Gyges is among the best tests to sort out those who can be trusted with this type of power. Indeed, this question of who can resist the great temptations of power is one of the central questions—if not the most important—to be investigated in the Harry Potter series.