The change v. stasis model is about as accurate as horseshoe theory

Odradek · 2017-09-19 03:34:07

Sorry

Obā-san · 2017-09-19 03:52:28

so, it's very accurate then?

Salix Babylonika · 2017-09-19 06:47:23

I don't even know what that is and I'm now inclined to disagree just because these threads are pointless

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 10:03:13

i should like some context as i have no idea what change v. stasis references in this context, or even if we're talking about politics or some other domain altogether

also horseshoe theory is, maybe psychologically accurate a lot of the time? but a horrible simplification in other respects

like i feel like there's a pretty core values disparity between left and right and horseshoe theory glosses over that

Odradek · 2017-09-19 13:01:58

https://heapershangout.com/index.php?p=/discussion/comment/983372/#Comment_983372

This thing Hex quoted uses it

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 13:42:00

oh

i love the Harry Potter books but when people here talk about stuff like that i find myself semi-siding with the Marxists

maybe i'm just a bit bitter about Rowling siding with the PLP, and the way people treat her political views as Important?

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 13:42:58

but i mean Harry Potter doesn't really do anything to challenge the magical world status quo, and it's not what you'd call an ideal society

the books are fun but i would call that a conservative position, in the same sense that, say, Slate Star Codex is conservative in relation to the status quo

Section42L · 2017-09-19 13:43:13

Their criticisms of HP are largely valid.

They're just really obnoxious about them.

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 13:44:43

how so? because they use the word 'liberals' pejoratively?

Section42L · 2017-09-19 13:55:07

There's that, and there's also how a bunch of them feel like they connect the dots in ways that don't really make sense, or are kinda a stretch.

That Calvinist Harry Potter article is a good example of this.

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 13:58:40

that's just literary critics getting overexcited and drawing dubious conclusions

happens a lot, definitely isn't exclusive to Marxist criticism of Harry Potter

Klinotaxis · 2017-09-19 13:58:45

Here let me try

At the end of the books, one extremist has been stopped, but the wizarding world is still extremely regressive and deeply based on racism. Therefore the main character becomes a cop to keep that going

Smash the state

Salix Babylonika · 2017-09-19 14:03:17

all media is inherently interpretive which occasionally means we get things like some dipstick thinking Harry Potter is Calvinist or anti-Communist or whatever.

I'd still rather have that than live in a world where the creators actually get to decide how people interpret their shit, which is what you get otherwise.

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 14:05:11

agreed

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 14:06:23

pulling this back to change vs. stasis

i think it has a certain psychological import, even if that's all it has

which i guess is what i said about the horseshoe theory ok you win Odie

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 14:08:19

but what i mean is, take the Brexit referendum

it didn't actually matter that most people over here don't have a clue how the EU works and don't particularly care

what mattered was that they didn't like the way things were, and they were offered a change

there are times when the political mood is more towards stability, other times when change looks attractive

to that extent (perhaps that extent alone) change vs. stasis is a valid model imo

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 14:09:53

Klinotaxis said:
At the end of the books, one extremist has been stopped, but the wizarding world is still extremely regressive and deeply based on racism. Therefore the main character becomes a cop to keep that going

incidentally i don't see how you can really dispute this reading

Harry certainly seems largely passive and unquestioning of the way things are, a lot of the time

any positive developments in the Ministry subsequent to Hermione's appointment are not considered important enough to discuss in the books themselves

Klinotaxis · 2017-09-19 14:15:59

i don't remember the aurors being very cop-py in terms of cracking down on criminal jellybean gangs or whatever stupid analogous shit

personally though i find it hard to take harry potter very seriously. i understand how one would, but it's just not very coherent. the wizarding world is like an entire separate universe. practically any political contact between the ministry of magic and the british government is nonsensical since like, hundreds of years before the civil war. but only sometimes.

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 14:22:08

well i guess they're British cops, not the FBI, which certainly ought to make a difference

but no, you're right, it's not really a serious political story, but when you have fans and Rowling herself presenting it as such of course you're going to see it analyzed as one

Yarrun XIX · 2017-09-19 14:25:26

Section42L said:
Their criticisms of HP are largely valid.

They're just really obnoxious about them.

I have seen more fair Marxist criticisms, but yes, the one Kex linked was, like, the worst

You're already stepping on a popular fandom, mate. No need to grind the heel in

Klinotaxis · 2017-09-19 14:25:31

Yeah, that's what I mean. It started out as a non political story and that's fine

and then all this stuff about wizard nazis and such gets brought in and it's like ehhhhh you probably should have started with a better foundation for that

all these questions that would be stupid nerd gotchas in the former situation, like i don't know, did the Nazis proper have wizards? what happened to the wizards at Warsaw? bla bla bla, while still stupid nerd gotchas, are now relevant stupid nerd gotchas

Yarrun XIX · 2017-09-19 14:28:22

There's really no way to do a secret society stemming back centuries without asking how they intersected with history's great atrocities. You gotta pick your battles.

Obā-san · 2017-09-19 14:30:45

Minions

Fossilmaiden · 2017-09-19 14:30:47

Yarrun XIX said:
There's really no way to do a secret society stemming back centuries without asking how they intersected with history's great atrocities. You gotta pick your battles.

And this is how the Nasuverse ended up with "the Nazis allied with certain mages".

Of course, in the Nasuverse, the first rule of becoming a mage is that you have to be a colossal dick.

Klinotaxis · 2017-09-19 14:35:56

You don't even know how many problems I have with Minions continuity. First off, in Despicable Me there's charts for their design, apparently by Gru, so what the fuck is with Minions? Now, if you accept TorgDid911's theory of CIA involvement, it

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 14:38:25

Klinotaxis said:
Yeah, that's what I mean. It started out as a non political story and that's fine

and then all this stuff about wizard nazis and such gets brought in and it's like ehhhhh you probably should have started with a better foundation for that

all these questions that would be stupid nerd gotchas in the former situation, like i don't know, did the Nazis proper have wizards? what happened to the wizards at Warsaw? bla bla bla, while still stupid nerd gotchas, are now relevant stupid nerd gotchas

reminds me

i remember one lefty blogger type (might have been Jack Graham?) arguing that Rowling created a framework in which young, left-leaning fans identified positively with her views and the political messages in her work, and that this led to the Corbyn-Dumbledore comparison

it doesn't matter that the two aren't actually very similar, or that Dumbledore is kind of an irresponsible dick a lot of the time; there's a theme in the books about Dumbledore being this benevolent old guy who gets demonized by a right-wing press, and so it's fairly understandable that HP fans who felt the same way about Corbyn drew parallels

Rowling, who had sided with the media narrative of Corbyn as a regressive-but-ineffectual socialist dinosaur undermining the Labour party from within with his legion of internet trolls, saw this interpretation as an affront to her authority as the author of the books, hence her attempt to stamp on it and the ensuing twitter row

Salix Babylonika · 2017-09-19 14:42:17

that's the thing though, she has no authority over the books, she just wrote them.

Preaching to the choir here I realize, but

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 14:44:45

yeah but she's never seen it that way, neither have her fans in the main

she has a long track record of making statements about the world and characters of the books, which are taken as Canon and listed on the wiki and sometimes make appearances in subsequent potter-related media

Klinotaxis · 2017-09-19 14:51:54

i think in world statements like "there's a pan-asian wizard school on Iwo Jima" are somewhat distinct from interpretation.

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 14:59:34

well true but since they're not in the books i think it's a little strange to insist they be brought to bear on your interpretation of the books

in any case she's also confirmed or at least given support for fan interpretations such as 'the characters in The Tale of the Three Brothers all represent characters in Harry Potter' and 'Hermione might very well be black'

Section42L · 2017-09-19 15:01:08

If the bad stuff Rowling says can't be brought into account when interpreting the books, then neither can the good stuff.

Klinotaxis · 2017-09-19 15:01:21

It's not a sharp line but I think there's a difference between that stuff and Corbyn.

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 15:10:18

there is, i'm merely noting that when people who identified positively with the books and their political themes compared a character who is portrayed favourably in the books to a real world left-wing politician, Rowling appeared to try to shut that down

Obā-san · 2017-09-19 15:10:24

I feel like JK Rowling can be viewed as a definitive source on The Things In The World Of Harry Potter, because in some ways, her books are as much statements about that world as her interviews and remarks. her books to not gain privilege in terms of relevance to the cannon over her other sayings just because they are published in book format.

THAT SAID she cannot be viewed as a definitive source on how the facts that she states can be interpreted in the context of the world around us, because that interpretation is a collaborative work. she may plant the seeds, and try and groom how they develop, but she ultimately does not have direct control over that.

Obā-san · 2017-09-19 15:15:43

so she can say "Dumbledore is Gay" or "Hermione is Black" or "throughout the series there was a 17 foot tall horse that stood around in every single scene that not a single character commented upon", and it's all just as true as everything she wrote in the books

but she cannot say "Dumbledore is unlike Jeremy Corbyn" because while she is an authority on Dumbledore, she is not an authority of Jeremy. She is the god of that world, not this one.

Salix Babylonika · 2017-09-19 15:23:32

Tamlin said:
She is the god of that world, not this one.

Hexartes · 2017-09-19 15:30:36

I'm just

So tired of Harry Potter discourse

And I hate that it always either settles into "Harry Potter is liberal garbage" or "Harry Potter is meaningless junk food fiction for children"

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 15:32:54

Tamlin said:
so she can say "Dumbledore is Gay" or "Hermione is Black" or "throughout the series there was a 17 foot tall horse that stood around in every single scene that not a single character commented upon", and it's all just as true as everything she wrote in the books

but she cannot say "Dumbledore is unlike Jeremy Corbyn" because while she is an authority on Dumbledore, she is not an authority of Jeremy. She is the god of that world, not this one.

that does make sense

i just don't like how statements made in interviews, in pottermore or on twitter can get deployed as a kind of gotcha whenever someone reads the books for the first time and objects that x story element seems kind of racist or what have you

especially not when some of said statements are themselves iffy on those lines, like her comments on how Navajo skin walkers and racism in America fit into the magical world (so basically what Section said)

Odradek · 2017-09-19 15:33:42

Hexartes said:
I'm just

So tired of Harry Potter discourse

And I hate that it always either settles into "Harry Potter is liberal garbage" or "Harry Potter is meaningless junk food fiction for children"

https://heapershangout.com/index.php?p=/discussion/comment/940071/#Comment_940071

Klinotaxis · 2017-09-19 15:35:25

Tachyon said:
there is, i'm merely noting that when people who identified positively with the books and their political themes compared a character who is portrayed favourably in the books to a real world left-wing politician, Rowling appeared to try to shut that down

yeah that sounds silly fosho

i feel like i should say some crap about justified true belief but i'm a joke of an epistemologist

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 15:37:07

Hexartes said:
I'm just

So tired of Harry Potter discourse

And I hate that it always either settles into "Harry Potter is liberal garbage" or "Harry Potter is meaningless junk food fiction for children"

well part of the point i was making was that there was an instance in which Harry Potter was being interpreted in a way that was both explicitly left wing and taken seriously, by fans of the books, and Rowling evidently had a problem with that

but in any case i really haven't seen a lot of 'Harry Potter discourse' in a long, long time, at least not outside this site, so i guess it hasn't worn on me in the same way

Hexartes · 2017-09-19 15:39:38

Not liking Corbyn is one of those weird European centrist things I don't have any real context for

Odradek · 2017-09-19 15:43:30

You know I've noticed there doesn't seem to be as much "Corbyn is a filthy socdem capitalist running dog" grumbling from grumpy orthodox marxists as there is about Sanders

Not complaining, just something I've noticed

Hexartes · 2017-09-19 15:46:21

Anyway I don't understand why the WW not being explicitly changed by the main characters means JK Rowling is endorsing all the regressive worldbuilding elements she specifically created to criticize, like, Harry Potter was never a series about radically overhauling a governmental system.

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 15:50:24

she's blatantly not endorsing them, but it is true that she doesn't challenge them very much

i think when the books ridicule Hermione for being a soap box sadie or w/e it's worth remembering that Rowling said she based Hermione on herself

that what we're reading is probably to some extent self-criticism

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 15:52:12

as for Corbyn i mean, mainly centrists don't like him because he's a left-winger

there's a perception he won't be taken seriously, but then that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when he gets repeatedly lambasted in not just right wing, but also ostensibly neutral or centrist papers

Section42L · 2017-09-19 15:52:53

Odradek said:
You know I've noticed there doesn't seem to be as much "Corbyn is a filthy socdem capitalist running dog" grumbling from grumpy orthodox marxists as there is about Sanders

Not complaining, just something I've noticed

Corbyn was in the Labour Party back when it was still socialist.

Sanders has had no known affiliation with any socialist groups.

Hexartes · 2017-09-19 16:04:22

Tachyon said:
she's blatantly not endorsing them, but it is true that she doesn't challenge them very much

i think when the books ridicule Hermione for being a soap box sadie or w/e it's worth remembering that Rowling said she based Hermione on herself

that what we're reading is probably to some extent self-criticism

I mean the characters don't challenge it but the text of the books themselves is obviously and consistently critical

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 16:04:53

i would have said, predominantly but sometimes ambiguously critical, personally

Tachyon · 2017-09-19 16:05:46

also i feel like i'd have better, more interesting things to say about this if the books were fresher in my memory, and if i had more than a passing familiarity with her other work

Hexartes · 2017-09-19 16:07:29

But either way the criticism is happening throughout the books as a major theme.

It's not entirely sufficient, I could see the argument for that, but it's far from not there.

Maybe I just don't damn give a shitted fuck if the series is ultimately expressing a liberal view, idk

The change v. stasis model is about as accurate as horseshoe theory

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