Potter Ping!!
I have to admit, I totally lost interest in this article about half the way through so I don't know if there are spoilers or not, but the author says he hasn't even read the books so I doubt it. Click at your own risk.
Posted on 07/18/2005 9:57:30 PM PDT by Eurotwit
What accounts for the success of the Harry Potter series, as well as the "Star Wars" films whence they derive? The answer, I think, is their appeal to complacency and narcissism. "Use the Force," Obi-Wan tells the young Luke Skywalker, while the master wizard Dumbledore instructs Harry to draw from his inner well of familial emotions. No one likes to imagine that he is Frodo Baggins, an ordinary fellow who has quite a rough time of it in Tolkien's story. But everyone likes to imagine that he possesses inborn powers that make him a master of magic as well as a hero at games. Harry Potter merely needs to tap his inner feelings to conjure up the needful spell.
"Tonstant Weader fwowed up," Dorothy Parker reviewed A A Milne's "Pooh" stories in the New Yorker, and I am sad to report that reverse peristalsis cut short my own efforts to read J K Rowling's latest effort, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In any event I am less interested in reviewing the book than in reviewing the reader.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but complacency is the secret attraction of J K Rowling’s magical world. It lets the reader imagine that he is something different, while remaining just what he is. Harry (like young Skywalker) draws his superhuman powers out of the well of his "inner feelings". In this respect Rowling has much in common with the legion of self-help writers who advise the anxious denizens of the West. She also has much in common with writers of pop spirituality, who promise the reader the secret of inner discovery in a few easy lessons.
The spiritual tradition of the West, which begins with classic tragedy and continues through St Augustine's Confessions, tells us just the contrary, namely, that one's inner feelings are the problem, not the solution. The West is a construct, the result of a millennium of war against the inner feelings of the barbarian invaders whom Christianity turned into Europeans. Paganism exults in its unchanging, autochthonous character, and glorifies the native impulses of its people; Christianity despises these impulses and attempts to root them out. Western tradition demands that the individual must draw upon something better than one's inner feelings. Narcissism where one's innermost feelings are concerned therefore is the supreme hallmark of decadence.
A culture may be called decadent when its members exult in what they are, rather than strive to become what they should be. As God tells Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust, Man all too easily grows lax and mellow, He soon elects repose at any price; And so I like to pair him with a fellow To play the deuce, to stir, and to entice. [1] What characterizes the protagonists of great fiction in an ascendant culture? It is that they are not yet what they should be. The characters of Western literature in its time of flowering either must overcome defining flaws, or come to grief. Austen's Elizabeth Bennet must give up her pride; Dickens' Pip must look past the will-o'-the-wisp of his expectations; Mann's Hans Castorp must confront mortality; Tolstoy's Pierre must learn to love; Cervantes' Don Quixote must learn to help ordinary people rather than the personages of romance; Goethe's Wilhelm Meister must act in the real world rather than the stage. Goethe's Faust I have long considered the definitive masterwork of Western literature, first of all because its explicit subject is the transformation of character. As Faust tells Mephisto, Should ever I take ease upon a bed of leisure, May that same moment mark my end! When first by flattery you lull me Into a smug complacency, When with indulgence you can gull me, Let that day be the last for me! That is my wager! [2] Failure to correct defining flaws, of course, leads to a tragic outcome, as in Dostoyevsky or Flaubert. More consideration is required to portray characters who change rather than fail, to be sure; that is why the late Leo Strauss thought Jane Austen a better novelist than Dostoyevesky. Finding the right partner in marriage, after all, is the most important decision most of us will make in our lives. Whatever good we otherwise might do has little meaning unless another generation draws its benefit, and that character of the next generation depends on the character of the families we might form. If we take inventory of all the married couples we know, how many of them can be said to have done this with due consideration? Courtship is a high drama that should keep our teeth on edge. Instead, we relegate the subject to the genre of romantic comedy, and to the consoling familiarity of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.
The more one wallows in one's inner feelings, of course, the more anxious one becomes. Permit me to state without equivocation that your innermost feelings, whoever you might be, are commonplace, dull, and tawdry. Thrown back upon one's feelings, one does not become a Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker, but a petulant, self-indulgent bore with an aversion to mirrors. To compensate for this ennui one demands stimulus. That is the other ingredient in J K Rowlings' success formula. Magical devices distract us from the boredom inherent in the characters, and one cannot gainsay the fecundity of the author's imaginative powers. She manufactures new enchantments as fast as Industrial Light and Magic churns out new computer-generated graphics for the "Star Wars" films, or amusement parks erect faster roller coasters.
Pointy hats, it should be remembered, were made to fit on pointy heads. Rowling's fiction stands in relation to real literature the way that a roller coaster stands in relation to a real adventure. The thrills are cheap precisely because they could not possibly be real. The "boy's own" sort of adventure writing popular in Victorian England had a good deal more merit.
When we put ourselves in the hands of a masterful writer, we undertake a perilous journey that puts our soul at risk. Empathy with the protagonist exposes us to all the spiritual dangers that beset the personages of fiction. In emulation of the ancient tale in which a seven days' sojourn among the fairies turns out to be an absence of seven years, Thomas Mann sends Hans Castorp to the magic mountain of a tuberculosis sanitarium - but it is the reader is captured and transformed.
We are too complacent to wish upon ourselves such a transformation, and too lazy to attempt it. We find tiresome the old religions of the West that preach repentance and redemption, and instead wish to hear reassurance that God loves us and that everything is all right. We have lost the burning thirst for truth - for inner change - that drives men to learn ancient languages, pore over mathematical proofs, master musical instruments, or disappear into the wild. We want our thrills pre-packaged and micro-waveable. Above all we want our political leaders, our pastors, our artists and our partners in life to validate our innermost feelings, loathsome as they may be. I do not know you, dear reader; the only thing I know about you with certainty is that your innermost feelings would bore me.
Western literature, along with all great Western art, is Christian in character, including the product of a putative heathen like Goethe, whom Franz Rosenzweig correctly called the prototype of a modern Christian.[3] It is Christian precisely because it deals with overcoming one's "inner self". A jejune Manichaeanism pervades the Potter books as well as the “Star Wars” films, and I suppose a case could be made that such a crude apposition of Good and Evil corresponds in some fashion to the emotional narcissism of the protagonists.
In that sense, Christian leaders who disapprove of the whole Potter business simply are doing their job. According to some news reports, Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, disparaged Rowling's books in a private letter written two years ago. But according to NZ City on July 18, "New Zealand Catholic Church spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer says there is some question over the validity of the letter. She says more importantly, Vatican cultural advisors feel the book is not a theological work and is just plain children's literature. Ms Freer says it's wonderful children are being encouraged to read, and the Potter books are no different from the likes of Grimms' Fairy Tales and Star Wars." How reassuring it is that the ecclesiastical authorities of Auckland have taken the initiative to correct the pope on this matter.
He didn't wear pants either, so he was clearly some kind of swinger.
Most of the Medieval works show us as all too human. The idea of the Superman is far more Pagan stemming from ancient myths and legends. Arthur, Cuchulain, and Beowulf fall on the pagan side, while the Decameron and Canturbury Tales are more classically Medieval.
Cheers,
CSG
Potter Ping!!
I have to admit, I totally lost interest in this article about half the way through so I don't know if there are spoilers or not, but the author says he hasn't even read the books so I doubt it. Click at your own risk.
TS
I am a big fan of Spengler. Oft times wrong but never fails to make you think. Thanks for posting this. You might want to ping Spengler himself, he sometimes responds on these threads.
How reassuring it is that the ecclesiastical authorities of Auckland have taken the initiative to correct the pope on this matter.Let me get this straight: news reports (we know what they're worth) of a private letter (if it's private, what the hell is it doing in news repoers?) written by a guy who later became Pope (but wasn't at the time) expressing some unspecified dislike ("disparaging" for what?) of Rowling's books, ought to be theologically binding on Catholics everywhere, because this anonymoid doesn't like the books either. Left hanging is what Ratzinger didn't like about the books: the cutesy names?
Actually less to the Pope's supposed objection that that.
When Cardinal he recieved a letter from a Gabrille Kuby saying she had written a book exposing Pottery.
She got back a fairly generic letter saying how good is was that people are made aware of the "subtle seductions" that are out there and it might be nice if she sent a copy os her book to Msgr. Peter Fleetwood, then an official at the Pontifical Council for Culture. Catholic News Service
With the release of Half Blood Prince she announced to the media that HP was evil and the Pope agreed with her.
Subsequent to that, on Thursday Vatican Radio interviewed Msgr. Fleetwood, who may be the only person at the Vatican who has actually read either Kuby's book, or the Potter ones.
He said the Potter Books were OK, and was fairly scathing of Kuby
She sent me the book, and I found it a very unsatisfactory bookIn view of the timing of the interview, it is difficult to see this as other than a slapdown by the Vatican (not just the ecclesiastical authorities of Auckland ) of Kuby's claims.
This Draco character in the HP books is a stand in for reptilians. The author has been stealing from David Icke. This New Age nonsense is bad for children and leads to harmful fantasies. If adults want to dabble in magic, astrology and sorcery that's different. But this Harry Potter book will just confuse children who don't get enough solid religion as it is. Instead they'll get a Harry Potter style religion
People want to transcend the mundane and here is where the Harry Potter New Age cult comes in while prayer is kept out of our schools
Oh, I so agree. I recently tried to read LOTR after failing as a pre-teen. I laboriously waded through a third of Fellowship, and quit.
I thought it was excessively wordy and rather boring myself.
What accounts for the success of the Harry Potter series, as well as the "Star Wars" films whence they derive? The answer, I think, is their appeal to complacency and narcissism. "Use the Force," Obi-Wan tells the young Luke Skywalker, while the master wizard Dumbledore instructs Harry to draw from his inner well of familial emotions. No one likes to imagine that he is Frodo Baggins, an ordinary fellow who has quite a rough time of it in Tolkien's story. But everyone likes to imagine that he possesses inborn powers that make him a master of magic as well as a hero at games. Harry Potter merely needs to tap his inner feelings to conjure up the needful spell.
Rewrite:
What accounts for the success of the Speed Racer series, as well as the "hot rod" films whence they derive? The answer, I think, is their appeal to complacency and narcissism. "Racer X/Spridle/Chim Chim/the Mach 5's rotary saws and pneumatic jacks will save you, regardless of what brain dead stunt you pulled, Speed, and regardless of how many times Trixie gets kidnapped and needs to be rescued". No one likes to imagine that he is Frodo Baggins, an ordinary fellow who has quite a rough time of it in Tolkien's story. But everyone likes to imagine that he is a naturally gifted racer who has a long lost older brother race car driver who wears a mask who is also an agent of the government and will be there to rescue you when you foolishly try to jump the Mach 5 over a canyon in a rainstorm. Speed merely needs to tap his inner feelings to drive the Mach 5 into the winner's circle, even though Racer X would have won if he didn't have to continually stop mid-race to pull Speed's ass out of the wringer -- clearly this is a thinly-veiled attack on the Western concept of meritocracy. Speed, by simple virtue of having the coolest car, the hottest girlfriend, and a seemingly limitless supply of free technical resources, is "destined" to win, whereas the working man, no matter how talented or dedicated, cannot possibly prevail against the "aristocracy". The Racer family is, after all, "better" than the proletariate by virtue of simply being the Racer family. Rex, in self-imposed exile from this aristocracy after a symbolic act of disloyalty to the "crown" (Pops racer, with the name Rex Racer being an obvious ironic social commentary), is doomed to forever fall short, regardless of personal integrity and heroism, since he is no longer of the correct social status, while Pops Racer, playing the role of King Lear, lavishes all his riches and affections on the least deserving of his children, having written Rex out of the peerage for his "disloyalty". It is Milton's Paradise Lost writ small. We can see, therefore, that Speed Racer is nothing more than an ill-concealed celebration of a feudal class-structure, designed to corrode the very metal of the modern Western libereralism championed by the likes of Locke and Mill.
What's the alternative: examing in detail the claims made by a fathead who hasn't read the books?
I am sure you did not intend it to be, but that statement is pretty insulting to a lot of FReeping parents.
Like many other parents, I read the HP books before my kids do so I know what we will be discussing--and we do discuss the books. We also read the Bible together, followed by more discussions. We also go to church together, followed by more discussions.
FWIW, I read all of my kids' books before they do--all of them. Textbooks, library books, magazines, you name it.
And some of us still "fwow up" when faced with Milne. Literature will always be subjective.
That's how I read it. One could almost hear the disdainful sniffs each time the author deigned to mention HP or Rowling.
The denouement is the letdown you get after sex. Schadenfeude is your partner making fun of it.
And here I had been thinknig she was stealing from Matthew 10:16 "Therefore be wise as serpents" in attributing the virtues of wisdom and caution to Slytherin House (emblematic animal: the serpent)
That's who I assumed had written this piece.
I wouldn't know...
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