Harry Potter: Affecting Your Child's Morality? I am not going to footnote characters and events to their particular book and page numbers num-bers as I've had all I can take of Ms. Rowling's very poor handle on the English language and don't wish to go back through the tiresome pages. You will just have to take my word for it or go to the tedious task of reading them yourself. And this is the first point I wish to make, in that Harry Potter is a literary disaster. Someone needs to buy this poor woman a Thesaurus (for those of you who think Harry Potter is quality literature let me explain this word. A 'Thesaurus' is NOT a dinosaur. It is a collection of words and alternatives kind of like a dictionary). dic-tionary). I found the word 'kill' upwards of 10 times on two connecting con-necting pages in the first book! I should love to have seen the original manuscript before the editor had a chance to clean it up. Be that as it may, these books are published full of grammatical and linguistical errors. I am not going to trouble you with the poorly masked Witchcraft and Sorcery. Instead, I would call your attention to the Humanism, Moral Relativism and Situational Ethics contained within these volumes. Humanistically, the characters charac-ters react to events in a strict 'ends justifies the means' method. Throughout all the books we see, as a reoccurring theme, decisions based on what one 'feels' to be right for the situation sit-uation regardless of rules or law. And since Humanism by very definition denies divine law, one can hardly wonder that human laws become arbitrary at best. Some few examples: 1. Hagrid uses magic against a prohibition pro-hibition to breed an "illegal" dragon. 2. Harry and his friends are allowed to consume alcoholic beverages in the presence pres-ence of 'cool' adults (and this is a fine example of moral relativism rela-tivism or 'values clarification' which is a phrase coined by the National Education Association for the promoting of humanism in the classroom). 3. The Headmaster, presumably in charge of the school, breaks rules for Harry to be on a team. 4. One of Harry's friend's father, who is a law-enforcer, upholds certain prohibitions for other wizards but excuses himself him-self from it, for instance, in frequently fre-quently bewitching a car... Harry and his friends steal the aforementioned bewitched car (See LETTERS on page 3-A) Letters To The Editor From Page 2-A several times but do they get punished for it? Well, of course not. Why? Because stealing the car was justified by their Situational Ethic, in fact, the adults in the story applauded the effort. And why shouldn't they? It was their example being followed fol-lowed to the letter. Do you suppose this sort of literature will not affect your child's morality? Incidentally, this end justifies the means mentality men-tality is completely consistent with the Wiccan Creed: "If it harm none, do what you will" and the Thelemic Law used by persons of Luciferic Faith which is, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." I, frankly, was horrified at the partial-birth abortion analogy perfectly constructed using "Mandrake Babies," Chamber of Secrets pgs. 92-94 (here is the one exception wherein I have provided a reference, as I could hardly believe what I was reading). read-ing). When these "babies" are large enough they are cut into pieces, while alive mind you, and boiled. Of course the babies scream but this is remedied simply sim-ply by wearing earplugs. The mandrake infants are also depicted with such adjectives as 'fat', 'greasy', 'disgusting' and 'ugly'. This is nothing more nor less than pro-abortion propaganda propagan-da wearing the costume of a fairytale. How do you suppose your child will come to view the humanity of real babies after reading such graphic passages? Clearly these books are not 'good vs. evil'. Instead they promote pro-mote a conflicting morality. For instance, one may lie, cheat or steal to gain a certain result so long as one is convinced of the definitive moral superiority of said result. In other words, lesser less-er evils are justified in the name of the greater good. Such experiments in moral-relativism moral-relativism are alive and well in various world governments. It's called Communism or, to a lesser less-er degree, Socialism. Both of which systems are being taught in American schools through the curriculum of Social Studies and History and to an extent in Literature and Philosophy class es. Communism proposes that the reworking of personal freedoms free-doms is a necessary evil for promoting pro-moting the common good in a state collectivism. It presupposes presuppos-es a caste system which is directly opposite the American tradition wherein "all men are created equal". In communism, humans have usefulness only according to their ability, the bottom of the totem-pole being the common bourgeoisie and wage slaves or "Muggles" in Harry Potter lingo. Rules are only for those masses of people with inferior intellect, the subhuman sub-human or the "Muggles". The privileged elite hold these ordinaries ordi-naries in contempt and derision. This idea abounds in every single sin-gle Harry Potter novel. Is this simply a creative flaw in an otherwise oth-erwise brilliant story?, or is this intentional propaganda? Please allow me further erudition. The Author, Joanne K. Rowling is a member of the Fabian political party, by her own admission. In case your public school history class did not cover Fabianism you may be interested to research this particular partic-ular European movement. You will come very quickly to see that 'Fabian' is just a smoother way to say 'communist advocate'. advo-cate'. Ms. Rowling's books are full of dangerous political agendas agen-das in the context of a children's , story which render them all the more insidious since young minds are quite easily manipulated manipu-lated once you get them to identify iden-tify with, idolize and role-model a hero, fictional or otherwise. Beacham's Sourcebooks, well known for teaching Young Adult Fiction, has a text written by Elizabeth D. Schafer which promotes pro-motes the public school classroom class-room application of Harry Potter morality. She warns teachers that parents who are against Communism will be against Harry Potter and compares such persons to Adolf Hitler and then further implicates the late American Statesman and Patriot Senator Joseph McCarthy! Here is the text verbatim found on pages 200-201, "Persecution resembling witch hunts has occurred sporadically... (context: (con-text: persons against Harry Potter are witch-hunters, c.h.) examples are Adolf Hitler's systematic sys-tematic extermination of European Jews... and Senator Joseph McCarthys political assault on American communists." commu-nists." In other words, folks who don't like Harry Potter are evil and communists are good. I personally per-sonally can't imagine taking advice from any person who cannot tell the difference between a mass murderer and a Republican Senator, outspoken though he may be. (Shall we just ignore reasons steady glare from this page?, that Hitler was perhaps per-haps the biggest Communist of them all? Hmmm.). Page 164, of Beacham's Sourcebook for teaching Harry Potter, reveals the atheistic agenda of the books, "Christmas holidays at Hogwarts are secular, secu-lar, and Easter is referred to mostly as a way to;... (advance) the school calendar. Students do not pray... Despite the omission of religious ceremonies... the magical world expect(s) students stu-dents and wizards to... live dutifully, duti-fully, and purposefully to aid offers and rid the world of evil... Children are encouraged to respect... somewhat like the ancestor worship practiced in Asian and Affican religions." This philosophy captures in essence the Marxist vision. I have often heard the argument, argu-ment, "but at least my kids are reading!" or "My kids are responsible enough to choose for themselves" to which I reply, if 'reading' and 'choosing' is the only thing you are concerned about, may I suggest you subscribe sub-scribe for your children Playboy or Penthouse magazines. I'm sure they would be happy to read them and then decide for themselves if they have value . I do say, if reading and choosing are the only points we should not be drawing any distinctions! This is, by the way, the very position taken by the National Library Association who think your child should have the right to access Pornographic and Anarchistic InteMet sites and literature, indeed, to judge for themselves. After going through these two Harry Potter novels my final conclusions are: I found a few relatively good messages, i.e. remain loyal to friends, do not murder (unless your victim (See LETTERS on page 4-A) Letters To The Editor From Page 3-A happens to be a baby), and share your candy. Here are some other messages mes-sages most abundant in the text; 1. Lying, cheating and stealing are both entertaining and necessary. neces-sary. 2. Disobedience and defiance defi-ance to authority is all part of being a kid. 3. The Harry Potter definition of "special" means you can get away with stuff that others would be hung for, so to speak. 4. Adults get in the way in general and Mothers and Fathers are quite dispensable. 5. Rules are only for people with inferior intellect and gifts. 6. Revenge is an acceptable course. And, 7. Taking the name of God in vain is all right so long as you spell it with an A and a W. . In conclusion, with so much tried and truly great literature from which we may feast and develop mind and spirit - why must we always descend to the lowest common denominator? I have learned through much reading that when some thing, some book, or some one becomes a ragingly popular success, suc-cess, that it pays to be suspicious. suspi-cious. I have found, in fact, that worldly adulation is hardly a reliable gauge of quality. It saddens me, or more accurately, accu-rately, amazes me to come across many adults who have read all of Harry Potter but have not read more than a verse or two out of the Bible. Adults who praise the Rowling books but who have never read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence or Gettysburg Address. Adults who revel in Harry's daring escapades but who have never picked up Homer's 'Iliad and Odessey', Dante's 'Inferno', Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress', Walton's 'John Donne',' Plato's 'Republic', who have read none of Dickens or Hugo or DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe and I could continue my list ad infinitum. My question of course being, how can a person propose to judge any book for merit if they are in dire lack of the most basic information from which to create cre-ate a quality standard and thereby there-by to form a conclusion? Upon contemplation, I am always drawn back to Professor Hugh Nibley's "Gas Law of Learning" and that is, "Any amount of knowledge, no matter how small, can fill any intellectual intellec-tual void - no matter how large." Carol Hubiak Cedar City