This cancer of racial intolerance and elitism is what is “ugly” about education at Hogwarts. The obvious question is why Dumbledore doesn’t do more about it.
In one sense, of course, he does do something hugely important about it—he works tirelessly and courageously to defeat Voldemort. But Voldemort was powerless for more than a decade after his failed attempt to kill Harry. Why didn’t Dumbledore do anything to address the problems with Slytherin then?
Maybe Dumbledore’s hands were tied by school by-laws or the tradition-bound Hogwarts Board of Governors. Maybe he would have been fired if he had tried to take decisive action. Maybe, as Travis Prinzi argues, he was a libertarian “gradualist” who believed in changing hearts and minds by personal example and gentle persuasion, rather than by coercive rules or policies.29 Who knows? There could be lots of reasons he refuses to take stronger action. I, for one, am happy to give him the benefit of the doubt. But it’s a fair question, I think, whether Dumbledore shouldn’t have done more than he did.
Like Bertie Bott’s Every-Flavor Beans, a Mix
Hogwarts, like most schools, has its pros and cons. Its students love the castle, the grounds, the camaraderie, the hands-on focus on practical magic. It’s definitely a fun and interesting place to go to school. Yet there are also a few big negatives about a Hogwarts education, including some ineffective teachers, a dangerous environment, a narrow curriculum, and a strong undercurrent of racial intolerance and elitism.
So, would I send my kid to Hogwarts? In the final analysis, yes. It’s just too special an opportunity to miss. But I’d also be sure, as I do, to teach my child about the fundamental equality of persons, the vital role of democratic freedoms, and the importance of a well-rounded education. For these are the values that can make our world a truly magical place.30
NOTES
1 Sorcerer’s Stone, p. 123. And for dessert: “Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding,” ibid., p. 125. You get the point.
2 Susan Engel and Sam Levin, “Harry’s Curiosity,” in Neil Mulholland, ed., The Psychology of Harry Potter: An Unauthorized Examination of the Boy Who Lived (Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, 2006), p. 31.
3 . Dewey’s major work on education is Democracy and Education (New York: Macmillan, 1916). His later book, Experience and Education (New York: Collier Books, 1963; originally published in1938), is shorter and more readable.
4 See, for example, Barbara Gross Davis, Tools for Teaching (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993), chap. 23; Ken Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 99.
5 Alfred North Whitehead, The Aims of Education and Other Essays, reprinted in Steven M. Cahn, ed., Classic and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Education (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997), p. 262. Of course, students need to learn lots of things they may have little natural interest in studying (irregular verbs and the multiplication tables, for example). For a useful caution about going overboard in catering to student interests, see E. D. Hirsch Jr., The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them (New York: Doubleday, 1996), pp. 86-87.
6 Prisoner of Azkaban, p. 93.
7 Goblet of Fire, p. 697. Moody’s disfigured nose and the insanity of Neville’s parents are apparently incurable. And as Harry’s and Dumbledore’s eyeglasses suggest, even bad eyesight apparently can’t be fixed by magical means.
8 That the books are fiction bears repeating. In pointing out shortcomings with Hogwarts if it were real, I am not criticizing either J. K. Rowling or the books. There’s no reason to think Rowling means to depict Hogwarts as an ideal institution. She portrays Hogwarts as she does (as dangerous, for example) because that depiction works as fiction. If Rowling herself were headmistress of Hogwarts, no doubt she would recognize and address many of the problems I mention.
9 Lupin might need an asterisk next to his name because of his unfortunate tendency to change into a lethal werewolf once a month. True, Lupin takes Wolfsbane Potion to control his symptoms. But as his dangerous transformation in Prisoner of Azkaban makes clear, there is still some risk to students.
10 Professor Quirrell isn’t exactly who he seems to be either—he has a bit of a split personality, actually.
11 Order of the Phoenix, p. 315.
12 Arthur E. Levine, “No Wizard Left Behind,” Education Week, November 9, 2005, p. 44. Levine’s critique of Hogwarts is tongue-in-cheek.
13 There are exceptions. Hogwarts students learn some social studies in History of Magic and the optional Muggle Studies class. They also study some conventional science in Astronomy.
14 A point also noted by Charles W. Kalish and Emma C. Kalish, “Hogwarts Academy: Common Sense and School Magic,” in Psychology of Harry Potter, p. 65; and Marc Sidwell, “No Child of Mine Will Go to Hogwarts,” ConservativeHome’s Platform, http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2007/08/marc-sidwell-no.html.
15 Mortimer J. Adler, The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), p. 18.
16 Adapted from Father Richard Connerton, C.S.C., founding president of King’s College (Pennsylvania), who stated that King’s “teaches students not only how to make a living, but how to live.”
17 Plato, Republic, translated by Benjamin Jowett (New York: Random House, 1937), especially Books 3 and 7.
18 Aristotle, Politics, translated by Benjamin Jowett, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, edited by Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941), especially Books 7 and 8.
19 John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, in John Locke on Politics and Education (Roslyn, NY: Walter J. Black, 1947), paragraph 200.
20 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, translated by Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1974).
21 Immanuel Kant, Thoughts on Education, translated by Annette Churton, reprinted in Steven M. Cahn, ed., Classic and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Education (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997), p. 216.
22 Dewey, Experience and Education, p. 36.
23 Mortimer J. Adler, Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (New York: Macmillan, 1988), p. 218.
24 J. K. Rowling, “Scholastic.com Online Chat Interview,” February 3, 2000, www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/0200-scholastic-chat.htm. Nor are there are any primary wizarding schools. Some wizarding children are educated in Muggle primary schools, but most are home-schooled. J. K. Rowling, FAQs, “What education do the children of wizarding families have before going to Hogwarts?” J. K. Rowling Official Site, www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq_view.cfm?id=101.
25 Adler, Reforming Education, p. 120.
26 Order of the Phoenix, p. 171.
27 Sorcerer’s Stone, p. 80.
28 Ibid., p. 118.
29 Travis Prinzi, “Hog’s Head PubCast #54: Revolutionaries and Gradualists,” http://thehogshead.org/2008/07/03/hogs-head-pubcast-54-revolutionaries-and-gradualists/. But see Beth Admiraal and Regan Reitsma’s critique of this interpretation in this volume, “Dumbledore’s Politics.”
30 My thanks to John Granger, Bill Irwin, Dave Baggett, and Travis Prinzi for helpful comments on previous drafts. Of course, these friends are partly to blame for any faults in the chapter, for as the Medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas says (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 3, chap. 135), “He who helps another shares in his work, both in its good and in its evil.”
PART FIVE
BEYOND THE VEIL: DEATH, HOPE, AND MEANING
16
THE REAL SECRET OF THE PHOENIX
Moral Regeneration through Death
Charles Taliaferro
The phoenix is a majestic mythical bird that has the power to ignite in flames and then be reborn from its ashes. This power to be reborn through death might simply be part of the magical background to J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter stories, or it might be something more. As part of that background, Dumbledore’s phoenix, Fawkes, plays a brave and noble role in protec
ting Harry in the Chamber of Secrets and in shielding Dumbledore in the battle at the Ministry of Magic by taking a killing curse. The key opposition to Voldemort is called the Order of the Phoenix, but such references might simply be there to enrich the plot. Yet the magical power of the phoenix may be a clue to a deep theme about the nature of relationships that philosophers have addressed.
Some philosophers propose that something similar to the process of death and rebirth of the phoenix is necessary in mending relationships through a process of remorse, seeking forgiveness, and then developing a new, reformed character. The basic idea is that the person who has committed a serious wrong needs to confess what he has done, express sincere remorse, repudiate any pleasure or gain that he got from the wrongdoing, and form radically new intentions and desires that make any future wrongdoing unthinkable (or at least unlikely). The act of repudiating the past wrong and any illicit pleasure has been understood by some philosophers as a kind of death; one burns up or dies to the self who committed the wrong. The reformed person emerges from this process of repudiation and remorse as an essentially new person. Continuity is maintained; the new person emerges from the one who did the wrong. But there is still a radically new self on the other side of this massive shift from bad to good, from evil desires to new, good intentions and resolutions.
This model faces some objections (we will consider two major ones at the end of the chapter), but it has much intuitive appeal. In a friendship broken by betrayal, it seems that the chief road to reconciliation has to involve remorse (the person has to be genuinely sorry about betraying you). And once there has been evident reform, there has to be a genuine acceptance of the person back again into friendship. Sure, both of you might never forget the fact that a betrayal took place, but don’t you both have to put aside any ongoing blame? You can’t have a very good renewed friendship if every other day you remind the person that she or he did wrong. In effect, the repaired relationship has to be reborn; you have accepted the return of your friend and see her or him in a new light, setting to one side resentment or focus on past injury.
This portrait of moral repair as a kind of death and rebirth is found most famously in some religious traditions, especially in Christianity, where the transition from sin to life in God is described as a dying and rising to new life (Romans 5). The Christian rite of baptism is traditionally seen as a kind of death to sin and rebirth into the household of God, in which the redeemed soul may even take on a new name. Secular, contemporary accounts of moral reform have also taken seriously the way in which repentance requires a clear departure from the self that did the wrong and an identification of the reformed person with a new set of desires and essentially a new identity.1
In this chapter, we’ll explore the ways in which this model may be seen in the work of J. K. Rowling, with a focus on The Deathly Hallows. As we’ll see, Rowling actually goes further than most philosophers have in illuminating the process of moving to new life through a kind of death by juxtaposing Harry and Dumbledore, on the one hand, and Lord Voldemort, on the other. Voldemort provides a fascinating inversion or, really, a perversion of the process of moving from death to life. Voldemort spreads death by clinging to life, whereas Dumbledore and Harry move to a deeper life by accepting death.
Remorse and Death
In their final confrontation, Harry gives Voldemort a last chance, a possible reprieve. That reprieve must involve remorse. In Harry’s invitation or challenge to feel remorse, Harry does not use the title Voldemort, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, or the Dark Lord, but instead his given name: Tom Riddle. Harry seems to be calling Riddle back from his role as a menacing, almost supernatural Dark Lord to take ownership of himself as Tom Riddle, the confused, angry, but highly promising child. The process that the one who calls himself Voldemort would have to undergo to admit and feel remorse for his sordid, ugly crimes as Tom Riddle is too deflationary for the Dark Lord. In other words, Riddle needs to shed or die to his past evil intentions and acts. Unwilling to undergo such repudiation and humility, Riddle as Voldemort attacks Harry and is undone.
Remorse is a key element in the process of reform and regeneration in the Potter stories—remorse and sorrow, as well as regret. The difference between reform and regret is perhaps most apparent when Voldemort commands his snake to kill Severus Snape. After giving the command “kill” to Nagini, Voldemort has this reaction:“I regret it,” said Voldemort coldly.
He turned away; there was no sadness in him, no remorse. It was time to leave this shack and take charge, with a wand that would now do his full bidding. He pointed it at the starry cage holding the snake, which drifted upward, off Snape, who fell sideways onto the floor, blood gushing from the wounds in his neck. Voldemort swept from the room without a backward glance, and the great serpent floated after him in its huge protective sphere.2
Regret involves sorrow or displeasure that some event has occurred, but remorse adds a crucial ingredient: a feeling of profound sorrow that one has committed the act. Regret need not involve any personal acknowledgment of guilt or personal accountability, but remorse implies grief or sorrow over one’s role in some past act or omission.
Perhaps Riddle could not begin to feel remorse because he had become so identified with Voldemort or, rather, Riddle had become Voldemort, the wielder of indomitable power, so that he could not see any new life beyond Voldemort through remorse. If one has committed wrong, and all that one feels is remorse for the deed, one is in an almost intolerable position. Moral reform requires that a person proceed to some positive new identity, passing through remorse to a new life.
Dumbledore comes to realize that he needs to pass through death when he recognizes his disastrous mistake of putting on the ring with the goal of using the Resurrection Stone. His error was not motivated by evil or spite. He even thought that he might in some way bring about new life through the stone. As Dumbledore confesses to Harry,“When I discovered it, after all those years, buried in the abandoned home of the Gaunts—the Hallow I had craved most of all, though in my youth I had wanted it for very different reasons—I lost my head, Harry. I quite forgot that it was now a Horcrux, that the ring was sure to carry a curse. I picked it up, and I put it on, and for a second I imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother, and my father, and to tell them how very, very sorry I was. [. . .]
“I was such a fool, Harry. After all those years I had learned nothing. I was unworthy to unite the Deathly Hallows, I had proved it time and again, and here was final proof.”3
Dumbledore realizes his wrong and is aware that this rash deed has released a poison into his system that will be his complete undoing, despite Snape’s best attempts to contain the damage caused by the curse. Dumbledore elects to work through this remorseful recognition of a wrong in order to protect Harry and to provide a path for Voldemort’s ultimate defeat. By arranging for Snape to kill him using Avada Kedavra, he sacrifices his life (and indirectly saves Draco Malfoy’s), dying (as it were) to his past self.
This moving beyond his past is evident in the dialogue between Harry and Dumbledore after Harry’s apparent death. Dumbledore fully discloses his plans and intentions, displaying through tears his position as a vulnerable professor and guardian who has (in his view) failed in his tasks. Dumbledore also painfully confesses his weaknesses as a young man with his parents, sister, and brother:“I was gifted, I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory.”
“Do not misunderstand me,” he said, and pain crossed the face so that he looked ancient again. “I loved them. I loved my parents, I loved my brother and my sister, but I was selfish, Harry, more selfish than you, who are a remarkably selfless person, could possibly imagine.”4
It is partly through this dialogue and through Harry’s own passage from death to life that Dumbledore and Harry are reconciled.
In the first few books of the Potter series, Dumbledore is a mentor, a father figure like Merlin or Gandalf; he is a teacher and a professor, a headma
ster and a half-guardian to Harry, the embodiment of all that is good and chivalric and noble. By the end of the series, we see another side of Dumbledore. We learn that he is a penitent who feels bound to confess his own shortcomings to Harry in the course of giving him the final, vital instruction that he needs to complete his coming of age. Dumbledore concludes by offering Harry this very Socratic-sounding advice: “You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying.”5
The completion of Harry’s great trial (his education or formation), which culminates in his combat with Voldemort, makes peers of Harry and Dumbledore in the end. The exchange between Harry and his mentor, which occurs through the portrait of Dumbledore, suggests that their relationship has changed; they are no longer mentor and mentee. A kind of equality is achieved in their reconciliation and in Harry’s victory and resolutions: after Harry told Dumbledore of his plans for the Elder Wand, “Dumbledore nodded. They smiled at each other.”6
The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles Page 24
