AndyHolland wrote:Ebor wrote:Have you actually read any of the Harry Potter books to find out how "bigotry" is looked down on? "Muggle" just means a person with out magical ability, the real bigots are the people in both camps who hate the others: the Dursleys and the Malfoys for instance. One of the messages in the books is to not look down on or mistreat others because they are different.
I read enough of it, about 16 pages or so, to get the sense the muggle was indeed bigoted and akin to racism. Read the passages and insert "white" and the "N" word.
So do you not read "Huckberry Finn"? (A book that has a strong message of treating others as Human Beings, but set in the context of it's time for some language and attitudes of the characters.) Or maybe some of Shakespeare's plays such as "The Merchant of Venice" aren't to be read since they depict "bigotry" against the Jewish characters? (But then there's Shylock's speech:
"Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs
dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means
warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer
as a Christian is? ...."
Powerful language and message there.
Perhaps in those 16 pages (and which book in the series was it, do you recall?) you read some of the bigotry directed by the Dursley's (a "normal" set of people) against those who did have the ability to use magic? If that's all you read then you do not know the book and you do not know how the main characters fight against cruelty and 'bigotry". Ah well. Read a few words and miss the whole story, I guess.
As for book burning I was thinking of "Farenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury as well as some of the depredations in Germany before WWII. The Bradbury is an excellent and thought provoking book. Here is an overview:
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/451/summary.html
Cervantes Don Quixote hits the mark - though it misses the windmill.
You think the burning of Don's library a good thing. How sad. Have you read "Farenheit 451" by any chance? From the site I linked to:
"When Montag fails to show up for work, his fire chief, Beatty, pays a visit to his house. Beatty explains that it’s normal for a fireman to go through a phase of wondering what books have to offer, and he delivers a dizzying monologue explaining how books came to be banned in the first place. According to Beatty, special-interest groups and other “minorities” objected to books that offended them. Soon, books all began to look the same, as writers tried to avoid offending anybody. This was not enough, however, and society as a whole decided to simply burn books rather than permit conflicting opinions. "
I'm sorry, I will never come to any agreement with the idea that burning books is a good thing.
Ebor