A second thread in last weekend’s Potter Pricks discussion was the idea of freedom. The premise being, that the desire for freedom is a natural consequence of reason. But then what does freedom actually mean? When a house-elf says that he or she wants to work without wages, is that equivalent to not choosing freedom? And whether such choices should be allowed?
The discussion, interestingly started with drawing parallels to the burqa debate. The question posited was, how come when certain women want to wear the burqa, it is equated to loss of freedom, whereas choosing to not wear the burqa is equal to freedom? The argument from one side was that the women who actually want to wear the burqa have been so conditioned by their upbringing and society that they think it is the right thing to do. If they applied their reason, that is, they would find that burqa-clad is not how they want to live. But sadly social conditioning and constant persecution has clouded their ability to reason.
The counter-argument was an equally interesting one. It asked, how can it be asserted that only the women who want to wear the burqa have been socially conditioned that it is the right thing to do? Why can it not be argued that the women not wanting to wear the burqa have been socially conditioned into thinking that it is the right thing to do? It was asserted that reasoning it out would actually show that the donning of a burqa helps to hide their sensual aspects in order to prevent the objectification of women. Thereby, the people who protest against the burqa and call it an affront to freedom do so only because they have been brought up to think like that, and this conditioning clouds their reason.
This counterargument created a fair amount of uncertainty especially when connections were drawn with the house-elf scenario. The critics of the burqa saw parallels with Hermione’s argument where she says that the house-elves have been conditioned to think that they don’t want wages for their work. Though an application of reason would tell them that they should be entitled to wages and holidays, their reason has been clouded by centuries of slavery imposed upon them. I dubbed this argument the Hermione’s Camp, which for some reason kept making people giggle every time I said it. *why* :O
The counterargument to this was parallel to the burqa debate counterargument: that, the idea that one needs wages for work erupts from social conditioning, and not from reason. Though exactly how reason can justify working without wages or holidays as an expression of freedom is a question which demands more discussion.
But an interesting consensus of sorts came up when it was agreed that freedom should mean freedom to choose from a wide set of choices, which got me thinking about Amartya Sen’s and Martha Nussbaum’s capability approach. Essentially people said that freedom means the freedom to both wear a burqa and not wear a burqa. And freedom for house-elves should then mean the freedom to the elves to decide whether they want wages or not, including the freedom to consider wages and holidays as dishonorable. Freedom as a concept, is then reduced to procedural matters rather than substantive: a particular choice is not equivalent to freedom, but the ability to choose from a set of choices is freedom, which I think has roots in the Habermasian critique of reason. And which also meant that Hermione’s Camp (*giggle*) by imposing its idea of wages-for-work=freedom is undermining the house-elves freedom to choose what constitutes freedom.
The problem arises that if one makes a choice to give up all power to make such a choice in the future, can making such a choice still be called freedom? For example if elves make the choice to slave, which means essentially giving up the power to make any kind of choice once they start as slaves, can one still call such a choice an exercise of freedom?
Second, the problem of community representation: what if all elves decide today to make a choice to slave, can this decision be respected and enforced through future generations of elves? Conversely, what if elves decide today that none of them should slave. Would then the decision of a single elf to slave undermine the choice for human rights made by elves as a community?
I think these questions merit some discussion.
Noodles and Prose 