Intolerance and Its Foundation

I remember the concept but forget the lesson. When I was in graduate school a professor spent part of a class demonstrating how the beginning of a novel that we had just completed contained the essence of the remaining story -- not only a very brief and very tight summary of the plot, but also an explicit introduction to the themes awaiting exploration by the reader.

I share this approach to literary interpretation when my students and I read Elie Wiesel's Night together. Contained within the first three pages of the book is the story of Moshe the Beadle. This brief encounter for the reader with Moshe, what happens to him, and how he acts afterward, is reflected in great and horrific detail throughout the remainder of Wiesel's re-telling of his journey to Hell and back. For all intents and purposes, Moshe's tale becomes magnified by Elie into his novel. In this particular instance, I find the literary observation more interesting than I find it instructive. On the other hand, following this approach to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone can be most instructive, not only for this novel, but for the series in its entirety.

From Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, page one, paragraph one:

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense." (emphasis mine)

Here we have the first paragraph of this seven book series, and all we learn about is the Dursleys and their main concern: making sure that they were thought of as normal. I beg to ask the question -- what is normal? To the Dursleys, apparently, this means not standing out or being different in anyway. I really like the ending to the first sentence - it transfers an air of haughtiness, of superiority, thank you very much. It says that we appreciate the way things are because we exemplify the way things are, and we do it very well, thank you very much.

The second paragraph holds only one phrase that concerns us here: Aunt Petunia "spying on the neighbors." The Dursleys do it and their neighbors do it - this is what they fear. But why?

Here is one of the most meaningful quotes about life that I can share with you. Considering the depth and breadth of the topics and themes that Ms. Rowlings explores, I do not find it unlikely that she has read the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. I find that Nietzsche nails it when it comes to human behavior, and I see this thought within the beginning of the Harry Potter Series, not to mention its middle and end.

The passage below belongs originally to Nietzsche's Schopenhauer as Educator, published in 1874. It has been copied from Walter Kaufmann's anthology, Existentialism from Dostoevesky to Sartre, pages 101-102. (I found this internet version on http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/ - I have the book.) BTW - timorous means fearful.

"A traveler who had seen many countries and peoples and several continents was asked what human traits he had found everywhere; and he answered: men are inclined to laziness. Some will feel that he might have said with greater justice: they are all timorous. They hide behind customs and opinions. At bottom, every human being knows very well that he is in this world just once, as something unique, and that no accident, however strange, will throw together a second time into a unity such a curious and diffuse plurality: he knows it, but hides it like a bad conscience -- why? From fear of his neighbor who insists on convention and veils himself with it. But what is it that compels the individual human being to fear his neighbor, to think and act herd-fashion, and not to be glad of himself? A sense of shame, perhaps, in a few rare cases. In the vast majority it is the desire for comfort, inertia -- in short, that inclination to laziness of which the traveler spoke. He is right: men are even lazier than they are timorous, and what they fear most is the troubles with which any unconditional honesty and nudity would burden them. Only artists hate this slovenly life in borrowed manners and loosely fitting opinions and unveil the secret, everybody's bad conscience, the principle that every human being is a unique wonder."

The central point of this quote applies directly to the Dursleys, and to many of the characters in the Potter series. Think of how each and every different type of creature is considered unworthy and substandard at some point by someone: wizards and witches, muggles, house elves, goblins, giants, half giants, centaurs, etc. I like this long list. It is proof of the many opportunities that intelligent beings have within the Potter series to express and demonsrate their feelings towards other races. But back to chapter one:

"The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that." (emphasis mine)

This paragraph seems to completely characterize Nietzsche's quote above about fear of the different. Returning to my eighth grade lessons, Animal Farm, bastion of all that is Facist, offers a similar example when the pigs declare that piglets are not allowed to play with the other farm animals. (We shall explore George Orwell and Facism within Harry Potter later on, particularly within Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). We see this within Holocaust literature, doumentaries, or primary-source documents - as the Nazi party arose within Germany, such feelings regarding "others" resulted in Jewish children being segregated from their peers. J. K. Rowling has firmly established the theme of intolerance within the first three, if not the first alone, paragraphs of this many-thousand-paged story.

We need more examples of intolerance, and fear and hatred fall under the category of intolerance. The comment section awaits all.