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.

[dragonblustar]

How do we know if Rowling didn't post that herself?

"He's my character," she asserted. "I have the right to know what I know about him and say what I say about him."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071024.ROWLING24/TPStory/Entertainment

[RightWhale]

Milner displays no philosophic thought in this critique. Political and literary criticism, maybe.

[Stoat]

Milner displays no philosophic thought in this critique. Political and literary criticism, maybe.

His books (and, by extension, his ideas) aren't selling, and this is his way of achieving notoriety and perhaps boosting the bank account as well as invitations on the cocktail circuit.

Only one of his titles is currently available as a new book at Amazon US, and it's a Spanish language translation.  Everything else of his is only available used

And this Spanish language title is ranked in sales at #5,127,585.

Amazon.com El Paso Filosofico de Roland Barthes Books Jean-Claude Milner

By comparison, Immanuel Kant's major works are all easily available as new books, and his essential Critique of Pure Reason is currently ranked at #53,414 in sales, or almost a hundred times better than Milner's only work that's still in print in the USA..  And Kant has been dead for over two hundred years.

Although I'm sure that Milner is selling better in France, I have no doubt that he would like to become relevant in academia and perhaps he thinks that by expounding upon one of the most popular series of books of all time with an (easily discredited) political theory is his attempt at generating interest.  It certainly can't make his sales much worse than they already are.

[RightWhale]

Barthes. That explains everything. It is literary criticism especially as it pertains to mythology. Barthes at least had the good grace to find contemporary mythologies in the newspaper. Paul Ricoeur is the one to read for the philosophy behind narrative. And Gadamer, of course.

[SuziQ]

Rowling refered to Dumbledore as gay, not once gay but as being gay his whole life.

I don't remember her ever saying that either, you must have just assumed that.

I never read anything into the relationship between Dumbledore and Grindenwald, and I daresay many adults didn't, but she is the author so she can write any 'back story' for the character she wants. You can obsess on it all you want, I prefer not to do so. It is FICTION, after all.

[dragonblustar]

I gave you the links, you can read for yourself.

[hinckley buzzard]

I agree. Back in my college days, shortly after the printing press was invented, we entertained ourselves by doing critical analyses of comic books and pulp novels. Anyone can do it, even a French philosopher. They're about the level of American college sophomores after all.

[SuziQ]

I gave you the links, you can read for yourself.

No, thanks. As I said, I don't obsess over petty things like this.

[dragonblustar]

No, thanks. As I said, I don't obsess over petty things like this.

What ever. You mentioned that you thought I made this up then when that facts were presented you go off into the land of denial and act sanctimonious about it.

Good day and good bye.

[Wuli]

Not being one to associate with drag queens, I wouldn’t know one way or another.

One does not have to “associate” with a drag queen to recognize the look. Between TV and the movies there are more than enough examples presented all the time.

If that picture was of Ms Bardot, it did not do her justice.

[RightCenter]

Thatchero-Blairism?