karabou @ April 26 2003, 10:28:52 UTC

Any thoughts?

Yeah... I think you explained it wonderfully. I mean, basically I agree with what you've said. :)

princess_draco @ April 26 2003, 10:31:15 UTC

I agree with you completely. I noticed the conspicuous lack of posts from Remus' end last night. Perhaps he thought Sirius could better deal with ps - he is more aggressive than Lupin.

I think that Remus still has that kind of sad quality from the books - he has seen so much and he is sad that this little boy is wasting his time being immature in a way that truly wounded many. Not to mention it probably wounded him as well.

I don't think he restrained commenting because of Narcissa. I think he did it for personal reasons, and because he knew ps would be like, 'Whatever, I'm not going to listen to you'.

I think he wants to give PS space to come to his own understanding of how horrible, and self-destructive, and life-denying his own behavior was.
The entire paragraph following that sentence was perfect. My thoughts exactly.

*sighs* it's scary how much one comment can affect everyone so deeply.

katrionaa @ April 26 2003, 11:29:35 UTC

I also agree with your post, I noticed Remus' general absence from the posting last night other than to inject reason when things got really out of hand but thought it definitely fit his character.

Remus is much more a one-on-one person, as seen when he spoke with Ron at Easter and at other times. He would be more likely to speak with Draco privately, not rebuke him publicly. I'd imagine he would be pretty direct about how dreadful Draco's words and actions were but he would also be kinder about it than anyone else has been.

black_dog @ April 26 2003, 12:01:04 UTC Re:

He would be more likely to speak with Draco privately, not rebuke him publicly.

I think you're right. And he's been careful to keep the channels of communication potentially open, by not joining the bashing. If anyone will get through to Draco on this, I suspect it will eventually be Remus.

sistermagpie @ April 26 2003, 11:47:01 UTC

My main comment is just to say that was brilliant!

This is so Remus all over--he's always got that weariness and sadness to him. I think because of his own situation--and this is one of the things I truly love about him--he's so quick to recognize cruelty and unfairness for what it is instead of getting sucked in by righteousness as the studnets (especially Gryffindors) often are. He let both Ron and Seamus deal with their anger, but when they passed over into being just as bad as ps he put a stop to it. For both of them it was when they got into the real issues behind Draco's post--his own anxiety about his sexuality and his pain over his parents' treatment. Those are both things that Draco should not be teased about just as Harry shouldn't be. I think Remus is painfully aware of what things are people's fault and what aren't and these two things are pretty much the only things in ps's post that were acceptable for him to feel and express.

black_dog @ April 26 2003, 12:16:55 UTC Re:

these two things are pretty much the only things in ps's post that were acceptable for him to feel and express.

This is dead on target, I think -- and it takes a Remus to see the sexual anxiety, and the despair about parental neglect, behind Draco's posts. And he wants to find a way not to crush or delegitimize those feelings, because Draco is going to have to face them and work through them if he's ever going to get saner. (And, to cross-pollinate threads here, I'll say again what a pointed contrast this is to the hypocrisy of Vector, specifically.)

<3's Remus.

conversant @ April 26 2003, 13:19:03 UTC

This is tangential to your thread, Black Dog, but I hesitate to start a separate one for it. You are getting at some ticklish issues raised by the responses of certain teachers to Draco's post. For instance, you've just introduced the issue of Vector's hypocrisy. As a way of contributing to that discussion, I'd like to offer this quotation from Dumbledore's opening comments on the 'LJ assignment' that is Nocturne Alley: I would like you all to feel free to make these as personal as you wish. There is no one here to judge you. (Albus Dumbledore, "About: Rules," NA website)

While it is true that Draco said reprehensible things, and while his post itself was designed to be hurtful (albeit not as hurtful as it turned out to be), and while it is obviously important that his peers, his teachers and his parents should make clear to him that he has behaved very badly, the faculty must all also take into account that the journal project was set up as a place for students to express themselves. There is a danger that punishments for Draco's post will violate the original promise that personal expression would not be judged.

Draco's post has demonstrated the idealism of Dumbledore's promise. In fact, there are teachers reading the LJs and judging students for their posts: student LJ posts will be 'judged' if they violate certain unwritten rules of good citizenship. (And other rules that are even less clear--remember some of Snape's reactions to J_H's posts on occasion.) Draco has expressed himself, and in the process he has given the community its strongest demonstration to date that personal expression can be devastatingly hurtful to others.

I'm not saying that he should have received no punishment, but I do think we are seeing that school policies about student behavior and about this LJ project are in real need of clarification and reconsideration. The game is touching very firmly at the moment on the uncomfortable issues surrounding freedom of speech. Nothing says that the NA Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry must uphold freedom of speech in full or in part, but if the teachers intend to punish students for their posts, the rules of the game should be amended to clarify what restrictions on speech will govern student conduct.

black_dog @ April 26 2003, 13:37:43 UTC Re:

Dumbledore = Deus Absconditus, I fear.

I want to give a longer reply tonight -- must cut away from PC for a bit. Really, really interesting though. There has certainly been a great deal of abuse by certain professors, not to mention prefects, according to that standard.

Is an explicit "outing" really an expression of views?

More later. *glomps*

sistermagpie @ April 26 2003, 14:02:34 UTC

Actually, I think it might be fine since Draco is recounting his own experiences. Just as he would be allowed to describe Lucius' dressing down to him in his journal I guess he's allowed to tell what happened to him that night. Not that I have a clue about the legal implications.

I just really agree with the ideas here. I think taking away the Prefect's badge makes sense because there's probably a stated Code of Behavior there that Draco violated. But other than that it's simply not against any law to hold these opinions or express them in one's journal.

conversant @ April 26 2003, 14:23:15 UTC

Is an explicit "outing" really an expression of views?
Ah, but BD, was it an explicit "outing"? I think Seamus is the one who outed J_H.

I'll give my interpretation of PS in a minute, but I do want to honor your real point first. You are asking (I take it) whether speech is "just" expression or whether it constitutes an action, especially when the nature of the speech is to "out" a gay person who wished to remain closeted. I think speech should be viewed as an action in some cases, but I'm aware that any attempt to define what those cases are will run into muddle very quickly. I think in this case that if Draco had outed Harry, he should have been punished for that. I think, too, that even though he was not really the one to out Harry, his journal post should be treated as an attack on a fellow student (as a case of libel), and I believe that it is the interests of the school that he be disciplined for his cruel, anti-collegial behavior (and susequently for his insubordinate responses to teachers).

About Draco as the "outer": I believe Draco's profession of cluelessness. His post charged J_H with coming on to him while drunk, but PS clearly thought he was exaggerating the report and slandering (rather than exposing) J_H's sexual preferences. (Ignorance doesn't make it prettier... don't get me wrong.) PS expected the whole thing to pass with some howls of indignation from the (heterosexual) trio. Maybe he thought (hoped?) it would bring J_H down to the dungeons for a physical fight, but I don't think PS had any notion of "outing" J_H. PS's post was an ill-directed howl of pain and jealousy, and at some level I think he should get credit for lashing out in words rather than with fists or spells or potions. However, the whole affair illustrates a real need for conflict management training at NA-Hogwarts!

black_dog @ April 26 2003, 19:57:04 UTC

Verdant --

Aaaaah, I'm well fed and oiled and I've warmed up on the Pansy post. Now to your points!

1. To be honest, I find myself shrinking from any purely formalist/proceduralist notion of justice here. Maybe that makes me authoritarian -- although I certainly would totally agree with you if we were dealing in an adult world. I just think that bright line rules, however necessary for due proces in the adult world, rarely capture all the subtlety of right and wrong. And it's perhaps permissible in a school environment, where part of the purpose is educating and shaping the kids, to have a more hands-on and humanist authority that goes beyond serving as a legal referee for behavior that is extreme enough to be criminal.

So I don't really have a problem in principle with the rules being unwritten or dynamic, with teachers feeling free to hand out points when their intuition tells them a line has been crossed. What you have is (presumably) morally responsible adults trying to shape and regulate a community of immature people, on the fly. It doesn't matter of Draco's remarks are technically libelous or technically an invasion of privacy. At this stage of his life, he needs to feel the weight of disgust at what he's done, dropping on him like a ton of bricks, because he needs to learn that it's not OK, just from the perspective of being a decent human being.

He also needs more, of course -- he needs guidance, he needs some insight into himself and his rage, he needs a more nuanced explanation of what he did wrong and he needs some help in working through his own issues. And I by no means deny that the Professors, for the most part, are failing to live up to their role, are indulging in posturing and petty power games and self-regarding displays of indignation. That's a whole other post (as you know, because we've both posted there!) But I'm more concerned about their failure to be there for the genuine emotional needs of the kids than I am about any technical abuses of the rules.

2. I partly believe Draco's protestation of cluelessness. I think it was a very complicated form of denial, involving some of his own urges, and not really simple obliviousness -- the confirmation that Harry is gay is a confirmation of something he was afraid to believe, maybe because he was ashamed of how much he hoped for it. But whatever the case was, I think he knew he was getting into highly charged territory, I think Seamus had his number when he said PS was recklessly, deliberately playing with fire. I don't entirely agree, by the way, that it was "really Seamus" who outed Harry -- this is becoming conventional wisdom to an extent. But as I posted elsewhere, Seamus is pretty discreet in his first posts, and part of his denunciation of PS is based on the fact that Harry is the kind of person who, confronted with this sort of accusation, would be unable to lie about it. He'd rather out himself than lie. The full responsibility remains with Draco, I think.

conversant @ April 26 2003, 21:24:45 UTC

Good stuff, here. In regard to the first point, I can see this both ways at the same time. I agree with you that the teachers need to keep the rules and their application dynamic enough to make judgment calls on the spot and to avoid legalistic appeals that subvert authority and justice. (Hogwarts would fall to rubble if PS [thought he] stood a chance of appealing his punishments on semantic grounds about the phrasing of rules.) On the other hand, I continue to think that one of the interesting issues revealed in this moment in the rpg is the way it is illustrating that some speech acts are unacceptable in civil society and should perhaps be made impermissible, though to do so is to retreat from humanist ideals of academic freedom and freedom of expression. At the moment, the dynamic application of justice is in conflict with the stated openness of the journaling assignment -- and that has left the door open for Pansy (and Draco if not in this instance, then at other times) to argue that the rules have been applied unjustly. The truth is, of course, that the journal assignment and the teachers have never been as liberal as Dumbledore's message implied. I guess I'm saying that I clearer articulation of the school's procedures would have helped all concerned, including PS.

I agree with you completely about the teachers' failures with regard to their students' emotional and moral development. In this respect, surely the Slytherins have a substantial reason to feel that J_H has an unfair advantage. All of the other children (and they are *children*) at the school are cut off from their families (one source of emotional support and moral instruction), but J_H has a pair of godfathers eager to make up for lost years by showering him with attention(admittedly spotty attention, but it's more than anyone else gets). Imagine the Slytherins looking to Snape for guidance! This is one of the facts of boarding school, of course: teachers may serve in loco parentis, but they are charged with more children than this metaphor can support (many more children than even a Weasley-sized family contains), and they are simultaneously expected to retain a professional distance. Too much closeness between teacher and student would threaten discipline and might invite questions of impropriety. I agree, however, that these particular teachers have done an especially poor job and we are seeing the result writ large across NA.

I'm content to leave the issue of outing as an area in which our interpretations diverge, I think. I agree, at least, that PS is responsible for occasioning J_H's outing. [And yet, I can't quite leave it there.] I'm not convinced that Seamus was discreet. You say, "Seamus is pretty discreet in his first posts, and part of his denunciation of PS is based on the fact that Harry is the kind of person who, confronted with this sort of accusation, would be unable to lie about it. He'd rather out himself than lie." The discreet thing for Seamus to have done would have been to keep silent or to have restricted his comments to a critique of Malfoy's homophobia, but he does much more than that. As you say, he supposes that Harry is the kind of person who, when confronted would not lie -- but it is not Seamus's right to act on that supposition. He needed to let Harry speak or not speak for himself. I think the telling thing is that J_H was clearly choosing NOT to speak. Meanwhile, Seamus shot off at the mouth, changing the Gryffindor tactic from denial (Sirius, Ron) to confirmation and defense of J_H's homosexuality. I'm not saying that what Seamus did was terrible, but he has a vested interest in having J_H out and he used J_H's trauma as an occasion for chastising the intolerant. So, I don't think that either responsibility or blame rests solely with Draco. Draco would be as culpable if Seamus had never spoken, but Seamus's actions deserve scrutiny.

sheron @ April 26 2003, 21:58:51 UTC

Draco would be as culpable if Seamus had never spoken, but Seamus's actions deserve scrutiny.

Actually I think you've just convinced me there. Draco's guilty part aside, Harry wasn't commenting, but Seamus went and said it.
I guess what makes me suspicious is that seamus has a vested interest in outing Harry. I think he could have been hoping for the outpouring of love for Harry from the community which would also touch Dean. But in that case the plan has certainly backfired, as even Seamus himself seemed completely blindsided by some people's reactions. (like Lavender's)

sistermagpie @ April 27 2003, 10:58:52 UTC

I think this is a key thing here. I think the reason Harry didn't want to be outed was because he was The Boy Who Lived and not because he was uncomfortable with who he was. He knows this revelation is going to bring attention of the world to his door. Having Harry Potter is a coup for Seamus, although I'm not implying that this is Seamus primary motive here, of course.

black_dog @ April 26 2003, 22:22:29 UTC

Extremely interesting, as always!

I continue to think that one of the interesting issues revealed in this moment in the rpg is the way it is illustrating that some speech acts are unacceptable in civil society and should perhaps be made impermissible, though to do so is to retreat from humanist ideals of academic freedom and freedom of _expression.

And I guess I continue to be extremely reluctant to generalize from what is appropriate in a custodial situation such as Hogwarts, to what is appropriate as a rule for civil society. I tend to be very skeptical of the merits of speech codes, etc., even at the university level, in part because I think groupthink is such a very powerful social phenomena at the university level and one of the imperatives of a university education is to find one's own voice. And as far as civil society as a whole is concerned, I strongly believe that the proposed criminalizing of speech is profoundly wrapped up in issues of the corruption of power and the incipient totalitarianism of ideologues on both ends of the political spectrum. So although I find your premise very interesting, I am reluctant to endorse it -- certainly the events at Hogwarts can suggest parallels to events and issues in civil society, but I think the radically different purposes and ground rules of the two settings make it very tricky to generalize any principles of regulation.

I think you make an excellent point about the sheer unfairness of the resources available to Harry. This is one of the paradoxes of J_H's character -- though he is genuinely self-contained and unassuming, the circumstances of his fame, the agendas of people close to him, the luck of his proximity to Sirius and Remus, and his political significance for Dumbledore mean that he objectively seems to be someone who enjoys favoritism and has other extreme advantages over his classmates. He seems to deal with this by ignoring it and by making himself available, without any snobbery or attitude, to anyone who takes the trouble to know him. Which is probably all he can do about it. But the reactions of Justin and Ernie, in particular, suggest that he's not getting the message through to a lot of people who have no particular reason to be hostile to him.

On the subject of Seamus, I recognize an "agree to disagree" when I see it, but I'd just make a couple of textual points to make sure we're arguing from the same evidence. On his 19:52 response to Draco's initial post, Seamus comes as close to a lie as he probably can while maintaining his self respect -- he implies that Draco has picked an inappropriate insult in calling Harry "queer." That's what I'm calling his "discreet" post. From 20:33 to about 21:15, he's telling Ron, as urgently as he can, to talk to Harry -- and he knows where Harry is, which suggests he's with him or has recently been with him. His "outing" post to Draco also happens at 20:30. So it sounds like Seamus was with Harry, and had personally observed Harry's reaction to Malfoy's post and to his friends' "defense" when he confirmed in public that Harry was gay.

It's not definitive proof, but combined with his outburst about Harry's inability to lie, and the position Malfoy's post put Harry in with his friends, it just feels to me like Seamus' "outing" was authorized by Harry himself. I could definitely be wrong, but I think a refutation would need to both account for the evasions of Seamus 19:52 post and be reconciled with the evidence that Seamus was observing Harry, during or just before the 20:30 post. As for Harry choosing not to speak publicly, well, Harry almost never speaks publicly about things that are likely to attract attention.

You make a very, very provocative point, though, about Seamus' vested interest in having Harry out. I've made the general point that even Harry's defenders are by and large self-interested and self-regarding, and I think your point about Seamus is a very strong illustration of this. So I agree that Seamus' motives should bear some scrutiny, even if I disagree about his responsibility for the outing itself.

conversant @ April 27 2003, 05:09:48 UTC

BD, I'm with you on the chronology, but I draw different conclusions. At 19:52, Seamus tells Malfoy that "queer" is not an insult: if he wishes to sling general mud he should choose another term, and if he means something more specific by the accusation, "then you're more of a fucker than even I thought you were." [Ironically, it is this post by Seamus that invites/provokes PS to narrate the 'debauched' hallway incident. I'll grant that PS needed little provocation, but his first post was not an 'outing' of any sort; it's the fuller account with which he answers Seamus that qualifies as PS's 'outing' of J_H -- and even that post would have been easy for everyone to write off as the usual PS fact-twisting lie.]

At 20:30, Seamus's next post, he confirms that Harry is gay: "Men, and women, are gay, or they aren't. . . . Harry Potter is. And it was his privilege, as it was mine and Dean's and Lupin's and Black's, to tell people when he was good and ready. You have taken that from him with this OUTING, and that is a low thing even for you, Malfoy."

In between those two posts, Seamus -- to his credit -- went and asked Harry if it's true. Harry didn't lie to Seamus. That doesn't mean he authorized Seamus to announce it. (I agree that he might have, but I have a hard time imagining that part of the conversation having happened.)

At 20:33 and 20:38, Seamus tells Ron to go find Harry. He doesn't say "come [to the S.P.E.W. headquarters]," he says "go." Seamus isn't with Harry then.

I read the 20:30 post as a moment of terrible irony. "Harry Potter is. And it was his privilege, as it was mine and Dean's and Lupin's and Black's, to tell people when he was good and ready. You have taken that from him with this OUTING, and that is a low thing even for you, Malfoy." I think Seamus is the one who outs Harry to the LJ-reading public in the course of asserting that it is each person's right/privilege to select their own time to reveal their preferences. "You have taken that from him": ouch, no, it was all just hysterical PS-rage until then.

See, I think Seamus leaps from the fact that Harry answered him and was honest when he asked to the assumption that Harry would choose to be open with everyone else.

You may, of course, be right. J_H may come forward eventually and say that he told Seamus to just bloody settle the question for him. I simply choose to think that my ironic reading of Seamus's first two posts is more lovely-painful than yours. ;p

black_dog @ April 27 2003, 07:01:08 UTC Re:

Ah, you know how to get under my defenses with your "lovely pain." ;) I will concede the point, because even if you're mistaken, you ought to be right!

*pins on Harold Bloom Strong Misreading button, and carefully pats lapels*

sheron @ April 26 2003, 13:43:45 UTC

There is a danger that punishments for Draco's post will violate the original promise that personal expression would not be judged.

Exactly, and Draco even says it. When Vector asks him to stop, he says, "no I don't think I will. it's my journal." (or something to that extent)

Anonymous @ April 26 2003, 16:24:41 UTC

Inconsistency at Hogwarts? Someone call the Prophet!!

conversant @ April 26 2003, 18:42:18 UTC

*barks with laughter*

sheron @ April 26 2003, 13:45:59 UTC

I think Remus, more than any other character, has a profound and humanizing sympathy for everyone's pain, even PS's, and is simply more interested in the possibilities for redeeming and improving people than in punishing them. I think this is grounded in his own experience of being a werewolf. He knows that undeserved suffering is real and a fact of life; he knows that real pain can't be cured by politeness and political solidarity but only by genuine, personal love; he knows that everyone has to struggle with flaws and ignorance that are a barrier to that kind of love; and he tries to teach by enlarging people's imagination and sympathy rather than giving them rigid rules of behavior. (See his werewolf lectures).

That is just wonderful. Great post :)