Philosopher: Potter is a lefty (Magic a resistance vs. triumphant middle class)

News 24 (South Africa) ^ | October 26, 2007

[Stoat]

Philosopher: Potter is a lefty
26/10/2007 16:21  - (SA)  

 

Paris - Harry Potter is a left-winger and the seven books by JK Rowling are a diatribe against Thatcherite Britain, a French philosopher said on Friday on the day of the last novel's publication in French.

"It must be said from the start that Harry Potter is deeply political and that the books speak of today's England," Jean-Claude Milner told the left-wing newspaper Liberation.

"Reading it, one can see that JK Rowling - like many cultured English people - believes there was a real Thatcherite revolution, that it was a disaster, and that culture's only chance is to survive as an occult science."

According to Milner, Harry's world of magic - and especially the elite public school setting of the Hogwarts school of wizardry - offer a means of resistance against a triumphant middle-class represented by the non-magic Muggles.

"Harry's uncle and aunt - Muggles par excellence - live like heroes of Margaret Thatcher's world, in a neat little estate where all the houses are identical," he said.

"One can equally say that modern England is a world where the Muggles have indeed taken power, first with Margaret Thatcher and then with Tony Blair - a world where the omnipotence of the middle class is given free rein," he said.

According to Milner - a professor of linguistics at Paris university - the scene in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in which Harry's aunt is blown up like a balloon is a satire on Thatcher.

'Clear allusion to Thatcher'

"Here we can see a reference to (the film) The Great Dictator by Chaplin, featuring an all-powerful middle class figure gone mad. And one cannot help but note that the aunt is called Marge - a clear allusion to Thatcher."

For Milner, Hogwarts provides a refuge for the minority who wish to preserve civilisation from the dangers of globalisation.

And he says Rowling's use of Latin and Greek words in her magic vocabulary is a kind of antidote against the value-for-money society of modern Britain.

"In the world of Hogwarts there are certainly inequalities. But at the same time, since culture is open to all, Hermione - the child of Muggles - can outperform Malfoy, the child of wizards," he said.

"So what appears as elitist is in fact real equality, as opposed to the false equality of the Muggles. In this, Harry Potter is a war-machine against Thatchero-Blairism and the 'American way of life'.

"JK Rowling is a real libertarian motivated by a desire to conserve. It is as if she is saying ... the real magicians are not Tony Blair's spin-doctors but people who know Latin and Greek."

'Lacks nobility of soul'

As for the evil Voldemort, he is the "super-spin doctor". A wizard himself, he is proof that culture alone is not enough to save the world. Power-mad, he differs from good wizards because he lacks "nobility of soul".

"So we have on one side the Muggles, where oppression means power over things; and on the other hand Hogwarts, where knowledge enables one to resist the materialism of the Muggles - but also opens the way to power over people.

"This terrible power, which Voldemort seeks and which we call tyranny, is one of the themes of Harry Potter - and indeed one of the themes of English literature since Dickens and Orwell," he said.

Some British critics have in the past accused JK Rowling of conservatism for setting her books in a nostalgic era of boarding-schools and steam trains.

The finale of the series - Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows - went on sale in France and Germany on Friday, three months after it came out in the English-speaking world.

[Wuli]

A “French philosopher said on Friday”..........

That tells you enough.

[Stoat]

A “French philosopher said on Friday”..........

That tells you enough.

LMAO

Few things of French origin have commanded my focused attention based upon their intellectual merits

 

A “French philosopher said on Friday”..........

That tells you enough.

[Corin Stormhands]

Again. Her comments were AFTER the book.

As for you quoting Wikipedia? Please, you’re embarrassing yourself.

[PurpleMan]

And C.S. Lewis was an aetheist and a brilliant scholar of English literature. I guess we should ignore everything of his prior to his cionversion.

BTW: Potter has seven books. The Chronicles of Narnia has seven books. Coincidence or an evil Rowling plot to undermind Lewis?

[Corin Stormhands]

Yeah, you'd think that it would be Clinton, however with the talk of terrible hurricanes, that makes it Bush.

Okay, now you're just being ignorant.

Believe what you will. The heck with facts.

[oldoverholt]

You are ‘right on’. Harry Potter’s birthday was 07/31/1980. At the time of the story in question he is 16 years old, that would make it 1996. If she was talking about the US president at all(which she wasn’t), it would have to have been Clinton!

[dragonblustar]

What facts have you shown?

[Corin Stormhands]

I’m sorry, you’re confusing our hysteria with facts.

[Corin Stormhands]

What facts have you shown?

Apparently none that are readily available at your level of understanding.

Sorry to have bothered you. Foam on.

[longtermmemmory]

J K Rowling copied the ARISTOCRATIC bording school structures for the priviledged class. (ironic given Rowlings recent comments and some of the sexual deviants that came out of the british boarding school system)

[Hoodlum91]

“The Brits made fun of Clinton but they hated George more than anything”

That may be true, but it’s also fairly true from your posts that you haven’t read the books and really don’t know what you’re talking about.

Keep talking anyway. It’s amusing.

[Hoodlum91]

Tsk, tsk. No more facts. Must have ignorant rantings from now on. ;-)

[MarkL]

Well, having read the books, and seen the movies, I can state that the person who wrote this article is clearly a complete whack job... Saying that this analysis is completely ridiculous is an incredible understatement.

Mark

[longtermmemmory]

sorry did you say something?

what was this thread about again?

:-)

[dragonblustar]

Asked whether the final Potter book with lots of killings made it suitable for young children, she replied: "I know what you mean, and it filled me with unease to hear that Harry Potter is read aloud to 5-year-olds. They should be at least seven."

http://www.antara.co.id/en/arc/2007/10/26/i-wont-allow-a-harry-potter-sequel-author-jk-rowling-says/

"I don't take any responsibility for the lunatic fringes of my own religion,” she added.

"The truth is that, like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes that my faith will return. It's something I struggle with a lot," Rowling admitted. "On any given moment if you asked me [if] I believe in life after death, I think if you polled me regularly through the week, I think I would come down on the side of yes — that I do believe in life after death. [But] it's something that I wrestle with a lot. It preoccupies me a lot, and I think that's very obvious within the books.”

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/harry.potter.author.reveals.books.christian.allegory.her.struggling.faith/14052-2.htm

"My truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay," said Rowling, whose comments were posted on the Potter fan website

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=578de009-03fd-46df-8722-cef9de657d32&&Headline=Harry+Potter+author+'outs'+Dumbledore

[dragonblustar]

Hate to break your Potter idol.

[dragonblustar]

How so?

[MarkL]

She once belonged to Amnesty International,

I once belonged to AI too. I had written to them, asking for a list of "prisoners of conscience," and a list of government officials to whom I could write. When I never received either, I wrote again. I finally received a letter stating that THEY were supposed to take care of putting pressure on governments, while us peons were to just cough up the cash.

Mark

[Corin Stormhands]

Begone before someone drops a house on you like they did your sister.

[dragonblustar]

She marked that as one of her accomplishments. That says a lot. If she didn’t want anything to do with them, she would not have listed them.