I'm trying to think -- what exactly is it we're reacting to when we're indignant about someone's racist behavior. And I was thinking that in my own reactions, I'm inclined to judge someone like Snape very harshly, for acting with deliberate, calculated cruelty. On the other hand, I find myself willing to make excuses for Slughorn, who may have passively acquired prejudiced habits of mind, because he seems to act without malice. And I may find him ignorant or embarassing, but because he seems open to revising his prejudices based on his experience of people, I'm reluctant to say his badness goes as deep as Snape's.
I wonder if I'd feel differently about that if I personally had had the experience of being on the receiving end of racist abuse. It might make me much less patient with Slughorn, more insistent that he really ought to have done more work on his attitudes by now, more willing to judge him harshly for his "unconscious" slights. But I think even then, I'd give credit for the difference between active malice and self-indulgent laziness.
I'm a little queasy, too, about judging people based on attributed internal states such as "being prejudiced" or "being right-minded" -- because people internally are such a mess. I guess I do think there are certain master traits that a person can properly be judged for -- what executive approach do they take to regulating their internal mental multitudes? Do they embrace their nastiness or wrestle with it? I do think they get points for effort, for introspection, for openness to other people, for a willingness to second-guess themselves. But there still has to be a minimum standard, here-- people can be work-in-progress as long as they are making progress, I guess. Complacency, even without malice, seems culpable. And when prejudices curdle into a defensive shell (as you so wonderfully described with regard to Draco), or get honed as an aggressive weapon, then I would be more inclined to call those people hateful.
Young Snape is an interesting case because the first thought is -- he can't possibly believe in pure-bloodism because of his own background. But as you say, maybe he does, a little -- maybe there's some self-loathing there, among other things. I'm also thinking that the context where he uses that word against Lily is important. We can't know, obviously, whether Lily felt any sense of self-doubt about belonging to the WW, or felt inherently vulnerable to the M-word; but the fact that Snape uses the word in front of James and Sirius may have the subtext of deliberately trying to embarass Lily in front of them, of emphasizing the difference between her and these two popular boys. So it's complicated: it's partly self-loathing, partly probing for a generic weak spot in Lily, partly the most context-specific way he can try to put her down.
Given all of that, I end up thinking that it's almost too simplistic to wonder "what are Snape's thoughts on yaoi purebloods, really?" It's like -- what are his thoughts on European Union? Maybe the abstract belief, expressible in essay form, really isn't the point. It's more important, in making a moral judgment about a whole person, to ask what use the person is making of racist concepts, both internally, for his own psyche, and externally, as a weapon or act of cruelty.
no subject
I wonder if I'd feel differently about that if I personally had had the experience of being on the receiving end of racist abuse. It might make me much less patient with Slughorn, more insistent that he really ought to have done more work on his attitudes by now, more willing to judge him harshly for his "unconscious" slights. But I think even then, I'd give credit for the difference between active malice and self-indulgent laziness.
I'm a little queasy, too, about judging people based on attributed internal states such as "being prejudiced" or "being right-minded" -- because people internally are such a mess. I guess I do think there are certain master traits that a person can properly be judged for -- what executive approach do they take to regulating their internal mental multitudes? Do they embrace their nastiness or wrestle with it? I do think they get points for effort, for introspection, for openness to other people, for a willingness to second-guess themselves. But there still has to be a minimum standard, here-- people can be work-in-progress as long as they are making progress, I guess. Complacency, even without malice, seems culpable. And when prejudices curdle into a defensive shell (as you so wonderfully described with regard to Draco), or get honed as an aggressive weapon, then I would be more inclined to call those people hateful.
Young Snape is an interesting case because the first thought is -- he can't possibly believe in pure-bloodism because of his own background. But as you say, maybe he does, a little -- maybe there's some self-loathing there, among other things. I'm also thinking that the context where he uses that word against Lily is important. We can't know, obviously, whether Lily felt any sense of self-doubt about belonging to the WW, or felt inherently vulnerable to the M-word; but the fact that Snape uses the word in front of James and Sirius may have the subtext of deliberately trying to embarass Lily in front of them, of emphasizing the difference between her and these two popular boys. So it's complicated: it's partly self-loathing, partly probing for a generic weak spot in Lily, partly the most context-specific way he can try to put her down.
Given all of that, I end up thinking that it's almost too simplistic to wonder "what are Snape's thoughts on
yaoipurebloods, really?" It's like -- what are his thoughts on European Union? Maybe the abstract belief, expressible in essay form, really isn't the point. It's more important, in making a moral judgment about a whole person, to ask what use the person is making of racist concepts, both internally, for his own psyche, and externally, as a weapon or act of cruelty.