I'm tired of saying this, but I guess I should again. The fact that most house elves are for the most part at peace with their situation is not even the issue.

And I want you to pay attention to what I'm saying next 'cause this is the crux of my argument.

They don't have a choice.

If they don't want to serve their masters they can't refuse to do so. Dobby and Kreacher were both stuck with masters they hated, but they couldn't leave them could they?


People in this thread have given very good arguments regarding how even their compliance is a product of exploitation. But I'm not talking about that. I'm merely emphasizing on their lack of choice in the matter of who they want to serve and their inability to refuse direct orders no matter how much they want to.

The house elves you are talking about are in Hogwarts who for the most part are treated well and hence have no grievance. But as demonstrated by Kreacher and Dobby they can get rebellious if they aren't treated well. At the end of the day they can't do much about their situation no matter how deplorable because as you so succinctly put it...... they are house elves not 'people'.

 

I guess this argument wasn't so much about slavery of house elves but rather if they should be treated as humans, which is where we reached an impasse.

It all comes down to one last question here and I hope people answer with a simple yes or no and avoid getting drawn into technicalities and semantics.

Should house elves have the choice to choose their masters and/or leave them if they feel like it?

 

I don't have a problem with it if it is properly introduced. "Oh look, a gun!" No.

But I'm planning a future fic that has Harry and Ron as Aurors joining with some Muggles to go to the mideast for some research. Since everyone is trying to kill everyone else over there and the problem involves Muggle and Magical Britain alike, A group of royal marines will assigned to protect them, especially since they can't use magic in non-magical areas.

But no, neither Harry nor Ron will be using the guns.

 

Sesc, yes I looked over your example regarding ancient Rome.

We have different vantage points then. Mine can be summed up by:

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." - Desmond Tutu

Therefore, I see the house elf issue as one of civil rights and injustice.

If I were beamed down into Ancient Rome due to being female, not being European backgrounded and not speaking the language things would be dangerous for me and could be quite unpleasant. Therefore, I'd probably have to do something drastic to not become a slave.

As for ignorance. Some people say ignorance is bliss and at times I wish it were so but ignorance is really such a narrow life that its better to be informed and realize how harsh things are\can be than have a false bliss.

I see house elves as sentient and equatable with humans but perceived as inferior and not human by a majority. Considering that there are quite a few things that are wrong with wizarding society (Pureblood, Half Blood, Mudblood distinctions of humans themselves), it seems like house elves might seem a more minor consideration but they still are one. I suppose it has to do with my application of J.K. Rowling's thoughts regarding the real world parallels to the Harry Potter world. Whereas you see them as a folkloric creature, I find them to be symbolic of and parallel the ideology around race from ancient Greek times to now.

We differ on two key points but this discussion was interesting.

 

One problem with the idea of the House Elves Social Imperius is that we're not told anything of the House Elves origins. For all we know they have always lived as they do. There's nothing to suggest that they were once a democratic society who valued freedom above all else. So when you say that we should free them from this Social Imperius. What you're really saying is that we should remove they're culture and values and substitute our own.

We may believe that freedom is good and so we have decided that it is to be a Universal right. To what ever degree House Elves value freedom from the books we can see that they do not believe it to be a Universal right. What we do know is that they believe work is good and I think it's reasonable to say that they may believe that it is a Universal Right. In fact they seem to consider work to be one of the most important things possible.

Therefore when we tell a House Elf that they ought to be free. It would be perfectly reasonable for the Elf to take a look the existence of something like unemployment and and vehemently decline.

For the Elf to hear us say they ought to be Free and reply "Yes please!" Would take the substitution of the fundamentals of Elf culture with the fundamentals of our one. The reeducation this would require would be so dramatic it is brainwashing.

After the Elves 'reeducation' has be performed the Elves may all be free but we will be guilty of violating the Right to freedom of the Elves that first motivated us to act.

That is not to say they the House elves gaining Freedom or their culture changing to one which values freedom is impossible or wrong. Doby is a prime example. He grew to long for and achieve freedom through no ones imperative but his own. As such it is apparent that the attitudes of Elves and by extension their culture can change by themselves

As a result I believe that there is an answer to the House Elf problem that satisfies both the and any concerns for their free will. Wizards should allow the House Elf culture to change as it wants while passing some laws to ensure that no Elf is stopped from pursuing freedom should they choose. These laws could include one which prevents House Elf abuse (i.e the Malfoys treatment of Doby) and one which guarantees an Elf freedom or compensation should he ask for it.

 

Finally! Someone acknowledgement of the problem. The problem was never them working for wizards, but the fact that they didn't have a choice doing so and often subjected to abuse and neglect by their masters without any consequences to the said masters.
The remedy is hypothetical as house elves are fictional beings and the acknowledgement of the fact that they are slaves should satisfy the purpose of this discussion.

 

I'm not to sure if is correct to say most House Elves were slaves. To be sure wizards never gave them a choice but most of the Elves never wanted one. Are you really a slave if your every wish coincides with your masters. Isn't that essentially the same as acting on your own free will. If so then how could we say that all House Elves are slaves when they clearly aren't being forced to do anything that they don't want to do.

The only House Elves that we could say were slaves in canon were Dobby and Kretcher. Both of which were quite clearly forced to do something against their will.

 

Also Winky was sent to the high seats at the Quidditch World Cup in order to arrange for Barty Jr. to watch the match under an Invisibility Cloak, despite obvious acrophobia. She was dismissed without recourse for getting caught doing what she was told- keeping Barty Jr. from being detected. Her life wasn't worth a pair of knuts to any of the adults who saw Barty Sr. dismiss her.

Odd thing- the elves are unpaid, but there's this bit in the second book:

Sure- you need to feed them, but what other expense is there in owning an elf?

 

I think you need a manor to own a house elf

 

Presumably you have to buy them from someone.

 

We have had three examples of house elf exploitation in Dobby, Kreacher and Winky. The only example of well treated house elves were those of Hogwarts and I attribute that to Dumbledore. I doubt things were that good when Phineas was the Headmaster.
It is really not that big a stretch to believe that house elves in general are rather downtrodden.

 

For those who claim house elves are not people, that's exactly what white people used to say of black people a few centuries back. They were wrong then, you are wrong now.

 

Except house elves aren't people, they're house elves.

 

I'll give you Dobby and Kreacher but not Winky. She was mistreated by human standards but not necessarily a house elves. If all a house elf wishes to do is to serve their master to the best of their abilities then it's not outside the realm of possibility that they wouldn't mind the punishment they are given. Another example of that would be Kreacher, surprisingly enough, who quite sincerely punished himself when he failed the last orders of a master who he actually liked (Regulus Black).

Also the treatment of Dobby and Kreacher are probably just as unlikely to be the norm as the Hogwarts elves. Remember they were owned by the Malfoy's and Black's respectively not exactly the paragon of wizard kindness.

 

Are you seriously justifying abuse because the victim doesn't mind? What's wrong with you? The fact that Kreacher felt he had to punish himself for failing to complete a task way beyond his abilities should tell you right there how bad the situation is.

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The negroes weren't considered 'people' either.

 

...looks at title.

Looks at rest of thread.

And here I was thinking this was going to be Pet Peeves version 9.

As for the elves... I'm going to reserve my judgement on it. They were depicted as slaves in the HP universe, but it is rather presumptuous to assume human values and traits instantly translate to what are basically aliens. For all that Canon says about it, there's a vote every year by the elves to keep being owned by humans or not and they always chose to*. And one thing that indirectly lends support to them being willing servants as opposed to slaves is the lack of such things happening to Goblins.

*Please note, this is just meant to be a demonstration that canon doesn't say enough for me to take a firm position, not that I believe that this happens.

 

I'm not saying that the victim doesn't mind I'm saying that they want to be punished for failing their master. Keep in mind that for most elves their entire purpose for living seems to revolve around working and serving their master. In such a situation it isn't that crazy of an idea that someone would want to be punished for their failure. In such a situation it's not abuse in the same way BDSM isn't abuse.

You keep judging the house elves by our cultural standards. However they've got an entirely different world view.

 

Da fuq? They are house elves not people, black people are still people

 

You're comparing BDSM to abuse? BDSM is all about pleasure which is sometimes through pain admittedly.
Have you seen women abused by their husbands? Most of them feel they deserved to get hit because of their mistakes. It was her fault as she spilt the coffee on the floor. So if he hits her for being clumsy who can blame him?
BTW most abuse cases go unreported because the victims feel they were in the wrong.

Huh? What do you know? Maybe house-elves and humans aren't all that different after all!