Exposing Oneself To Those Who Are Different Has Practical Purposes
By reading the Muggle papers, Dumbledore was informed of the murder of Frank Bryce and thereby able to keep track of Voldemort’s rise to power. Through his communication with creatures in the Forbidden Forest, Dumbledore was able to hire the Centaur Firenze as Divination instructor, thereby preventing Umbridge from sending Professor Trewlawney off the Hogwarts grounds, which would have put her and the entire Wizarding World in danger as Voldemort could have found her and forced her to reveal a prophecy concerning Harry.
In our world, wars often end because each side recognizes the others’ humanity. One small but profound example is Northern Ireland where Protestant women began attending the funerals of Catholic men – and vice versa. As these women gradually discovered that they were all suffering the loss of their husbands and sons, it was no longer the “other side” that was the enemy, but the war itself.
Conversely, the US invasion of Iraq was led by an administration with very little background knowledge of the rich and diverse cultures in Iraqi society and a lack of curiosity to learn about them. The head of the original invasion, Paul Bremer, could not even speak Arabic and to this day the current administration continues to allow many of the small number of Arabic translators we do have to be fired for being gay. Imagine if this were different. Perhaps, if children and adults in both countries had formed friendships with each other, there never would have been a need for such a war in the first place. Some may call this wishful thinking. I believe Dumbledore would have called the building of friendships as an impediment to war, “realism.” And through video pen pal relationships that are already forming through Skype Video Chats, this is starting.
Yes! This is exactly what psychology has found. When others are not one of us (an “out group”) we treat them as though they are all the same, using stereotypes and prejudice, and don’t consider that they have the same feelings or care about the same things as us (our “in group”). But when someone is now one of our own group in whatever way, even small things like enjoying the same music or liking the same colour, we treat them and think about them differently, considering them as individual people with feelings. Everyone has this tendency; it’s just what we do as humans. So we all need to think about this lesson and apply it to our own actions and thoughts. Treating people differently is something we often do without noticing, but it also something we can easily change if we want to once we recognize it. Following this lesson will help us a great deal in achieving peace and preventing conflict. To me, it is one of the most important lessons in the HP books.
It would seem that the tenant espoused fails under scrutiny.
First, Dumbledore, in this example, appears to be implementing the principles of Sun-Tzu: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Or, if you prefer: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Second, wars often end because there is a clear victor. Empirical humanity is not specifically relevant.
Third, The ‘…rich and diverse cultures in Iraqi society…’ are well known and were not summarily dismissed as purported.
Fourth, Paul Bremer was the American envoy, or ambassador, to Iraq. He was not the ‘head of the original invasion.’
Fifth, that persons lose their employment due to their sexual proclivities is a matter of sound policy that exceeds the scope of this board. In short, however, deviant behavior has been shown to be a reliable indicator with respect to influence.
Sixth, the video pen-pals are a direct result of liberating the peoples of Iraq from the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein.
What, exactly, is the agenda here ?
Treating someone different and treating someone poorly are two entirely different things. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons to treat someone differently. For example, is the arabic world, showing someone the bottom of your feet is insulting, so if you know that you treat someone who is a traditional Arab differently. You naturally don’t behave the same way you might around friends who have no issue with crossing your legs, feet propped up, or stretching out your legs. Anyone these motions could lead to insult.
Some people WANT to be treated differently than some people treat their friends.
That said, ALL people deserve to be treated with respect. With Dignity. With sincerity. Not the same. Not all people want to be treated the same, and if they did where is the diversity? The elimination of diversity through completely homogenized experience and preferences is actually potentially destructive.
People want equal consideration, not equal treatment. You treat me like a 10 year old and I will be offended. You treat a 10 year old like a 40 year old and he will grow up with issues.
This shows some naive thinking. Wars happen for many reasons; some good, some bad. But the fact of the matter is that while hatred towards another is wrong, there are simply evil people and civilizations in the world that only wish to bring destruction to those around them.
So I issue the challenge. Fight evil. Join good. Stand with the Confederates.
While I personally agree with the sentiment expressed in the first post, I am not convinced that Dumbledore would have read the Muggle (or Arabic) news so that he could understood and respected them as full humans and, thereby, prevent war. I think that he read the Muggle news because he knew that their understanding of what was happening was valuable and important and helped him fight Voldermort in the most effective manner. Our (and I’m American) failure in Iraq wasn’t just that we didn’t understand the inhumanity of war (though I think that was true also). It was that we totally discounted the local knowledge of their society, community, religion, and struggles. And we, therefore, made all kinds of stupid mistakes, unrelated to whether our purpose was an honorable one or not. Dumbledore had the good sense to understand that , if you were going to fight a war, you’d better understand how the Goblins and the House Elves see wizarding history. Because their understanding and resulting actions may (and did) determine the ultimate outcome of the battle.
Peyetoboy and Bob are accurate in their assessments of the situation. Only a person who is ignorant of the true facts and unknown to soldiers who have been in Iraq and Afghanistan would ever allege that we “failed” in Iraq or that “we totally discounted the local knowledge of their society, community, religion, and struggles.” Our country’s military is not as mighty and powerful as it is because of chance. It is because we study the enemy intently and know everything we possibly can about who we are fighting BEFORE we go in. There were countless native Iraqis that helped gather intel for the US and helped direct critical missions because of their knoweldge of what was really going on in their country and because of their desire to end the tyrranical control of Saddam Hussein. To ever say that our country is stupid or irresponsible in the way we waged the few wars that we have is a ridiculous and uninformed statement made only by those who rely solely on mainstream liberal media for their information. Maybe you should be more like Dumbledore and investigate things to find out what’s really going on in the world and not just trust the pretty pictures on your TV and perfect hair of your favorite anchor.
Would it be possible to change the name of this lesson? “Exposing Oneself” conjures images of perverts in trench-coats in my mind. I know the Dumbledore of Potter Puppet Pals loves a little naked time, but maybe “Gaining Understanding about those who are different has practical purposes” gets the point across better.
Why is there even a war??? Wars do nothing. What do people expect to get out from it at the end? Happiness? Gratification? Praise? War gives people nothing but more pain and destruction.
Not So Easily Led: I really want to respond to what you have to say here but I don’t know if I have the energy. It’s just so 2003 when we were living in dark times where any one that questioned any thing was considered unpatriotic. I’m going to leave it to someone else to talk about whether or not the United States invasion of Iraq was moral. Strategically speaking, it was a disaster. This is not a reflection of our brave men and women in uniform – it is a reflection of those who led them to war by manipulating intelligence, war profiteering, and NOT having a good understanding of what they were doing once they occupied the country. Everything from Abu Ghraib to Blackwater to the amount of civilians that were killed to the amount of translators that were killed to the amount of disastrous decisions that were made to the amount of people that were pressured to lie about what was going on on the ground….it seems to be that your version of patriotism is about not questioning any thing your government does. Mine on the other hand is utilizing the fact that I am allowed to question my government when my government betrays its people and its soldiers – and cuts taxes for the first time during a war in history for the super rich while our own military was not given proper protection against an insurgency that was growing in number because of the torture that the administration had either condoned or ordered in Abu Graib. Your version of patriotism works very well in dictatorships but not in a great democracies like the United States of America. I suggest you send your comment to Fox News though. They’d love that. And by the way: I don’t know what kind of liberal media your referring to. The media is either extremely right wing or sensationalist and out to sell a story. MSNBC leans liberal, but that’s about it in terms of mainstream media. Unless you were to listen to Stephen Colbert who complained at White House correpsondent’s dinner that reality has a liberal bias, there is no liberal bias in the main stream media. As for our country never making any mistakes or waging war – um, you should probably read it up on Nixon’s condoning genocide in East Timor BEFORE it started, on the Project of the Americas and the dictatorships that we armed in Latin America that killed countless civilians on the purposeful genocide that we committed against American Indians on our take over of a recognized sovereignty that was the nation of Hawaii our takeover of the Philippines our take over of countries int he Carribean our manipulation of debts in African nations our wars against Canada. Yes, World War II was one place where it was us that was provoked – but then again had we acted on our compassion and done a Marshall Plan for Germany during the 1920s we could have saved 100 million lives including brave American men and women and six million Jews and five million others. Any way, yeah.
This is indeed a great country because we have freedom to speak because we have a constitution that protects us because there are times when we do what is right and when we do it is beautiful because we have honest people here who care about each other and who care about humanity – who work for Civil Rights who work to help their neighbors who work to protect the environment. And then we have people who seem to prefer to live in a dictatorship and accuse any one who questions any thing we do or criticizes it must hate it. That’s not the country I live in. This is a great country. Let’s keep it great by questioning it. After the Declaration of Independence was signed a woman asked Benjamin Franklin: “And what have you given us” to which Mr. Franklin replied, “Madame, we have given you a Republic, if you will keep it.” And to Franklin and the other signers the only way to do that is to ask questions and make amendments and not allow for any king to send us to war without any rational explanation except that we had to or we hate America. That sounds like a Banana Republic not a Republic. We live in a Republic if we will keep it. Let’s keep it!
Not a lot of support for the main idea. Try again.
I don’t think approval or disapproval of culture had anything to do with the war. 9/11 ring a bell? The culture is just the frame for the beliefs that caused the conflicts…
In the end, their pursuit of ‘the greater good’ was what they thought was needed at the time. Some people think it was about oil…it may have been…but it was some ‘greater good.’ Not just disapproval at their culture…wow.
Not So Easily Led–I’m sorry if I was unclear. I’m not for a minute criticizing our very professional military or their understanding of what we had gotten ourselves into. I live in a military town and have many friends who are military and who are doing their duty with great courage. I am, instead, criticizing our political leaders who didn’t understand what they were sending our brave young men and women into and who didn’t seem to care that this was, basically, a stupid war. Our soldiers performed admirably. Our politicians much less so.