A Time for Harry Potter

National Review ^ | 10/27/01 | Thomas Hibbs

[jrherreid]

A Time for Harry Potter
Hollywood sets to contribute to our post-September 11 culture.

By Thomas S. Hibbs, associate professor of philosophy at Boston College and the author, most recently, of Shows About Nothing.
October 27-28, 2001

 

n the wake of the atrocities of September 11, Hollywood has engaged in the sort of self-scrutiny typical of Hollywood: trivial self-absorption. Various studios have pulled or delayed projects now deemed too sensitive for the viewing public; there has even been talk of removing the Twin Towers from scenes shot in Manhattan, as if their absence would make it easier on viewers. Hollywood narcissism peaked with the director Robert Altman's insistence that the terrorist plots had to have been inspired by Hollywood films. Yet, almost in spite of itself, Hollywood may in the coming months make significant contributions to our post-September 11 culture. Hollywood will soon release two films, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and The Lord of the Rings, that, if they attain anything close to the dramatic excellence of the novels, will have much to say about good and evil and the necessity and nobility of fighting evil for the sake of justice.

Although there is a settled consensus about Tolkien's artistic and ethical success in depicting a cosmic battle between good and evil, some, notably Christians, have voiced severe reservations about J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, especially about the role of magic in the books. To my mind, these objections are absurdly wide of the mark and none of the critics that I have encountered gives evidence of having read the books with care. (A thoughtful response to these criticisms can be found in Alan Jacob's essay, "Harry Potter's Magic" in the January 2000 issue of First Things.) In fact, I would argue that Rowling's series is not only not part of the problem, its is part of the solution to what ails our popular culture, especially our youth culture. In the aftermath of September 11, the books are remarkably timely, offering precisely the sort of lessons and examples young persons need to prepare them for life in a nation at war with the evil of terrorism.

Over the past 20 years or so, our popular culture has been preoccupied with a) destructive evil as a form of entertainment, b) freedom as a form of adolescent self-expression, and c) narcissistic individualism as characteristic of ordinary American life. By contrast, Harry Potter insists a) on the clear distinction between good and evil and between both of these and mere entertainment, b) on the importance of the responsible or virtuous use of freedom, and c) on the nobility of sacrifice for the common good.

In a culture where demonic evil is reduced either to a pointy-headed comic-book figure (think Jon Lovitz as Satan on Saturday Night Live) or to a sinister but ultimately playful aesthete (think Hannibal Lecter), Harry Potter offers a credible figure of diabolical evil: Lord Voldemort, traitor, murderer of Harry's parents, and Harry's enduring nemesis. As is true in our world, so too in Harry's world, evil often seems more attractive and complex than goodness. As Quirrell, one of Voldemort's faithful followers, makes clear, the logical term of the pursuit of evil is a raw will to power. Quirrell recalls the first time he met Voldemort : "A foolish young man I was then, full of ridiculous ideas about good and evil. Lord Voldemort showed me how wrong I was. There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it."

But for all their ability to wreak havoc, to spread a culture of death (Voldemort's very name means "death wish"), evildoers in the Potter universe are either pathetic, weak sycophants or malevolent beings who rule through fear, hatred, and preying upon the innocent. Indeed, the very act of attempting to kill the infant Harry (an attack that left Harry with his trademark, lightning bolt scar) backfires on Voldemort, rendering him impotent, barely alive, forced to lead a vicarious, parasitic life, feeding off of and inhabiting the very bodies of others, hoping desperately to regain his power.

Although the books are always clear about the difference between good and evil, the contrast is never simplistic. There are a rich spectrum of character types, embodying a host of virtues and vices. Even those who are on the side of good can find themselves tempted by vice, momentarily uncertain whether their path is the right one. So struck is Harry by certain unsettling similarities between himself and Voldemort that he begins to doubt his destiny. As he often does in times of trouble, Harry turns to Dumbledore, the wise headmaster at Hogwarts, whose courage and force (he's repeatedly said to be the only wizard Voldemort fears) remains concealed behind his gentle, avuncular visage. Harry continues to be troubled by the fact that the Sorting Hat, a magical hat that in a public ritual assigns each student to a particular school within Hogwarts, at first wanted to put Harry into Slytherin, which produced Voldemort and many of his followers. Recalling this, Harry says to Dumbledore:

"So I should be in Slytherin," Harry said, looking desperately into Dumbledore's face. "The Sorting Hat could see Slytherin's power in me, and it--"

"Put you in Gryffindor," said Dumbledore calmly, "Listen to me Harry. You happen to have many qualities Salazar Slytherin Prized in his handpicked students. Resourcefulness … determination…a certain disregard for rules," he added, his moustache quivering again. "Yet the Sorting Hat placed you in Gryffindor. You know why that was. Think."

"It only put me in Gryffindor," said Harry in a defeated voice, "Because I asked not to go in Slytherin."

"Exactly," said Dumbledore, beaming once more. "Which makes you very different from [Voldemort]. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." Harry sat motionless in his chair, stunned.

The books affirm in multiple ways the complex interconnections among choice, habit, character, and destiny. Indeed, those who criticize the presence of magic in the books fail to see the way the stories underscore the inherent limitations to magic. The strongest limitation concerns truth, which Dumbledore calls a "beautiful and terrible thing" that must be treated with "great caution." At one point, Dumbledore informs an astonished Harry, who had expected Dumbledore to come up with a magical solution to a particularly vexing situation, that he has "no power to make others see the truth." Thus, those who stand with the truth will at times find themselves at a disadvantage in their battle against those who believe that the use of any means is justified so long as serves the end of their own aggrandizement and power. But this means that those who fight against dark forces must be ever vigilant in their exercise of the virtues of courage, loyalty, prudence, and justice. It also means that the virtuous must be willing to die in the service of the common good, especially to defend the innocent. In a marvelous passage at the end of the most recent entry in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore urges his students, "we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as are divided. Lord Voldemort's gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust."

Is not this among the things that young readers find so attractive in the Harry Potter books, an invitation to participate in a series of quests, to find their proper place, their dramatic role, not alone but in friendship with others, in the battle between good and evil?

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Magic does not exist. But if it did, it would be evil, because it presumes to usurp God's domain.

Therefore, the depiction of such magic, taken as fact, is not a positive influence on young, impressionable minds.

It doesn't sound like you know much about kids, either.

[OWK]

People testify with absolute sincerity (and even corroborating witnesses) to everything from Abominable snowmen, alternate lives, and even alien abduction.

You'll pardon me if I remain skeptical.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Let me paraphrase C.S. Lewis. If magic doesn't exist, then why would you worry about it? If magic does exist, then why wouldn't you be very concerned about it? To act contrary to these two statements in inconsistant. You state that magic does not exist, and yet you are concerned about what it might do if it did exist.

I believe that magic does exist, OWK already knows I believe things that cannot be objectively proven so this should come as no surprise to him, and I believe that magic is use of demonic power. What I do not believe, however, is that an author can write into reality a fictional world. Tolkien's Middle-Earth does not exist. Rowling's Hogwart's does not exist. These are sub-creations, below creation (make believe), and as such the creators of these sub-creations can create whatever rules they want for these sub-creations. Just as God created the rule that the area of a circle is always PiR2, and he created the rule that the use of magic is evil, Tolkien and Rowling created their world with the rulesthat magic is neutral and the intent of the magician gives it's use morality. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia as a work of allegory, and as such he mirrors the real world in his sub-creation, which is why the rules are much closer than Tolkien and Rowling, but this is clearly not what the latter two have done.

As for not knowing kids, do you understand how important using the imagination is for children's development? Up to about the age of 4, most children would have some difficulty distinguishing between real and imaginary. After that time, however, children start having tea parties with their dolls, start playing army men in the dirt, start pretending they can fly like superman, etc. The reading of a book like Harry Potter is easily understood by children to be "make believe".

[Dr. Eckleburg]

You've proven my point. You do not have children.

Therefore, on a deep level you do not comprehend the mistrust parents have for books about witchcraft aimed at their impressionable eight-year-olds, or the contempt parents hold for those who would corrupt their kids under the guise of "literacy."

Read whatever you want. Just don't tell me you understand anything about the mind of a four-year-old, except what you remember from your own childhood, what you've seen on TV, or what you've read in the Child Psychology 101 syllabus.

Because that's not proof enough for most parents that you know what you're talking about, especially those parents who've read Rowling for themselves and find H.P. vapid, derivative and dangerous.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

And people of sincere faith can tell the difference.

Can you?

[Aquinasfan]

In the Catholic Church, a miracle is defined as a naturally occuring event that has no natural explanation.

For example, an unexplained healing is regarded as a miracle. So would be resurrection from the dead. But miracles are generally regarded as tangential to one's faith life.

Why? Well, one reason is because it is pretty easy for someone who adheres axiomatically to materialist philosophy to rationalize any miracle or supernatural with a natural explanation. For example, an atheist might believe that it is impossible to levitate, so would explain any report of a levitation as a lie or misunderstanding.

But what if an atheist witnessed a levitation? Even then, the atheist could believe that he halucinated. Or sometime later come to believe that his memory was faulty. So even first-hand observation might not suffice.

That's why I like to point to the Shroud of Turin as an example of the supernatural to hardened skeptics. Here we have a natural phenomenon, an image on a cloth, but lacking a natural explanation. Moreover, the phenomenon is persistent, it has existed for years, and has been subjected to endless, rigorous scientific investigation. It's impossible to explain in materialist terms. Which explains why many atheistic or agnostic scientists who have examined the cloth have converted.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Thanks for the corroboration. There's ample evidence of D & D's negative influence on young minds, some with dire consequences.

Remember, were talking about KIDS. They are not simply smaller adults. They are different, more impressionable and far more fragile than people without kids would ever imagine.

Just because a person was once a child, doesn't mean they know children.

[Aquinasfan]

The 3D images are very cool –and inexplicable.

[MHGinTN]

Back in the 1860's men crept into caves in North Georgia and Alabama, and mixed potions, reciting to each other the 'spells' to make the potions most powerful. Then, after drying these potions sufficiently, they rolled the potions up in paper twists. After rolling thousands and thousands of these portions of potions, the paper twists were carried by mule and wagon ... to battlefields, where the potion portions were used to end the lives of human beings.

Magic? Most definitely, and tens of thousands set out to stop the practice. Many would protest, "NO! That's not magic!" But if the same activity were undertaken by two or three men somehow transported back to the days of clubs and stone weapons, the ones that would be slaughtered by the potion portions properly plied, would plop the play in the magic category very quickly, and rightly so, for it is magic to them that perish.

Supercilious example? I don't think so ... it is the wordy affirmation of the notion that magic is advanced technology misunderstood. Is that applicable here? Only if one truly wishes to keep the mind open to the range of perceptiona nd knowledge not at present accessible to we technocratically inclined.

It is fundamental to Judeo-Christian development that the supernatural is possible. What is supernatural? By definition, merely that which is beyond the current natural. We have a great example of the principle in Moses and Pharoah and the 'miracles' duplicated by the Egyptian 'sorcerers'. It is assumed in scriptures that Moses cast the staff down and supernatural power from someone/something changed it into a serpent. when the Egyptian 'wisedudes' duplicated the feat to Pharoah's satisfaction (and it is important to note that he had a vital stake in accuracy of perception), Moses and his demands were dismissed.

Only when the last and much more frightening feat was performed did Pharoah realize his sorcerers were mortal but the message brought by Moses was coming from an Immortal. When the Angel swept into Egypt and took the first born, except where the blood was applied to the doorpost and lintel of the houses, then Pharoah relented. Oddly, after the escape was accomplished, even the haughty pride of Pharoah could not allow the God of Creation the position only moments before acceded to ... Pharoah was so mad at God, he sent his army after the freed slaves, an army which was consumed in yet another 'supernatural' event.

So, for those of you who've given this screed the courtesy of a full read, what is the point? Namely, whether there is actual magical manipulation of the spacetime physical realm or not, the lessons most important lie outside the actual physical manipulations. As such, the Potter series function nobly to inspire thought and wonder in kids. But such inspiration must be then channeled to the wise growth of the individual soul, else the forces not in the physical realm will reach to pervert the lessons, just as something whispering in Pharoah's ear perverted the lesson and led to the destruction of his army!

The ultimate threat perceived in the Potter series comes from the fear that once incited to wonder, the parents will be lacking in their proper responsibility to channel the wonder.

Frankly, the scenes described in Judeo-Christian scriptures are far more powerful for the direction of the soul/spirit, if applied responsibly. My son was deeply into D&D growing up, but he understood that the incident of handwriting on the wall of Belshazzar's palace was more real than the imagined powers and influence he and his friends conjured in their games, because I and his mother taught him so and now he applies those lessons in his life, in bringing up my precious granddaughter.

Discernment is a parental responsibility to develop. It will not happen as it is intended unless the parents raise up the child in the way that it should go, such that when old they will not depart from it.

Rowlings has opened doors that the mire of TV and Hollywierd would never be able to open; now, it is up to the parents of the children to take their responsibility in channeling the awakened wonder, rather than trying to prevent the awakening, utilize it to teach the young! If you don't, my novels, written for the adults so that they can confront some of the deeper notions of the human/heaven paradigm, will molder in obscurity. Rowlings writes of spells and Wizards. I write of a secret garden and a Tree of Immortality. Harry confronts dark witches and evil wizards; my characters confront the greed and powerhunger of men, and resist the temptations of real physical attraction between men and women. If the world becomes too 'sophisticated' such resistence of real physical temptations will be passe, and the human race will sink into the oblivion of self-gratification over living in and with, overcoming reality, the reality of human frailty.

[pchuck]

On the day you are called to account for how you raised your children in the fear and admonition of God you will not be able to say you didn't know..

Thanks for the lecture; however, I like to view God as more intelligent than you suggest. I would think that God knows the difference between someone reading a book and deriving a message from part of the work as opposed to someone turning to black magic.

You sound like some of those who only read the Koran and nothing else.

[RnMomof7]

As I said pc..it was just something for you to think about..you will do as you choose to do.each of us have to answer to God some day..perhaps you are right,God doesnt care what you expose your kids to!

2 Kings 17 16 And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. 17 And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
18 Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.

[pchuck]

perhaps you are right,God doesnt care what you expose your kids to!

Or, perhaps God is wiser and more intelligent than you take Him to be.

[pchuck]

I read MacBeth in high school. Again in college. But most eight-year-olds aren't devouring Shakespeare.

Parents object to the fact that Harry Potter glorifies witchcraft to young, impressionable minds. Rowling presents a perverse, Godless world order that looks to be lots of fun.

I better not have them read the children's series by C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narina. They sound similar (in some ways) to these Harry Potter books.

In the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, four children—Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy—go to stay with a reclusive old professor in a mysterious country house. While playing a game, Lucy, the youngest, hides in a wardrobe and discovers that it leads to a magical world called Narnia. This land, which is inhabited by talking animals, is ruled by the lion Aslan, a good and powerful king. Narnia, however, had come under the spell of the evil White Witch, who had caused it to be always winter but never Christmas there.

Sounds like my kids are going to turn to the dark side when they read these in several years.

[MHGinTN]

Perhaps He is so loving that His patience appears endless ... but I am persuaded that our deeds will find US out, and that we have been instructed to raise our children, not leave the job, the responsibility, to the media and its engines dedicated to profit and subversion to mob mentality.

[RnMomof7]

I do believe that God is smarter than both of us..

Deuteronomy 9 When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.

10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.

11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

13 Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God.

[jrherreid]

Oookay...

[jrherreid]

BTW, A Christmas Carol was actually based on a book by Charles Dickens. And Christ is mentioned in it--in the very title, too.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Evil white witch...

Bingo. Operative word being "evil." C.S. Lewis knew what he was doing. The Chronicles are wonderful adventures, a cautionary tale of the nether world.

H.P. portrays witchcraft in a positive light, encouraging kids to follow a path away from God, towards mysticism.

Like I said, read them for yourself.