We in middle-class, muggle America can learn something from Harry Potter.
My daughter got me reading the J.K. Rowling’s fantasy series years ago. I eagerly followed the growth of an 11-year-old to a young man of 18. This “boy who lived” was orphaned as a baby when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the evil, dark Lord Voldemort killed Harry’s parents. For seven books, Voldemort tries to kill Harry. For seven books, Rowling imparts some important lessons.
At the end of the second book, the wise headmaster Dumbledore, tells Harry, “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” The fourth outing even made the case for term limits. “You are blinded,” Dumbledore tells a selfish government minister, “by the love of the office you hold.”
So, when the final movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2, was released last Friday, I was one of those buying tickets … at a cheapskate Sunday showing with two of my kids.
Once again, the movie climaxes with a cogent moral.
After defeating and killing the evil Voldemort, Harry possesses the world’s most powerful magic wand. His friend Ron says that wand would make Harry invincible. Harry then proceeds to break the wand in two and throw it into a deep ravine.
How many of our political leaders today, possessing such an advantage, would have the self-control to destroy such power?
Fantasy world, yes — but it’s a real-world problem.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
4 replies on “Another Worthwhile Lesson for Muggles”
While our choices reveal who we are, or who we aspire to be, the sins of our fathers and grandfathers force us to those choices. Just as our grandfather’s generation allowed Woodrow Wilson to subvert and to lay the groundwork for today’s subversion of our republic, so to does the “confusion of the multitude” foisted on us by the 17th amendment destroying the states’ balancing of federal power allow the current administration to force choices that will have far-reaching destruction of the freedom of our progeny.
So it’s our current choices but no longer what we aspired to.
In another fantasy series, references are made to “being seduced by the dark side of the Force.” Take out the second definite article, and the point becomes clear: The “dark side” is power lust. A desire for power over others is one of the true mental diseases. By “true mental disease” I mean a condition that degrades a person’s ability to live a good life, when that condition is caused by something mental, such as overpowering emotional events or wrong ideas.
“Mental disease” is commonly used to indicate a condition where one’s mental state is affected, but the cause is generally unknown. Not a good definition. I think the term needs redefinition, as above, and one true mental disease is power lust. Another is faith, when it blocks rationality. PTSD is another.
John McCain (broken clock du jour) clarified the label, calling the little “r“s: Tea Party Hobbits.
I like that.
Mental disease would have to be a level of function that routinely causes distress in either one’s self or in one’s community. Much of what passes for the political routine would be only recognized as an illness once the politician had to return to real life.
I know nothing about anything Harry Potter. But I do know of an individual who ‘broke the wand’, so to speak. His name was George Washington.