Recently in reading some of the more post-war dystopian fan fiction, I have gotten to wondering exactly how prevalent bias against first-generation magical people is. In book seven, we see a more or less functioning Ministry where despite the fact that it is clear to us, as the semi-omniscient readers, that things are decidedly odd and wrong, people continue to go to work, to follow orders, including laws that ought to cause protest.
We know that some of this is human nature. That is what made the war trials after World War II difficult. While “I was following orders” was deemed to be insufficient excuse,1 one cannot help but see the parallel to the many people who made the Nazi work possible by following their orders. Most of these people, in both book seven and in actual history, personally did nothing directly reprehensible. Some could claim, with a huge spectrum from full truth to utter falsehood, that they did not know that reprehensible things were happening. Others could claim, with the same spectrum of truth, to be afraid to stand out, to stand against the evil.
How many, in their heart of hearts, wanted to stand against that evil though? How many believed that reported Department of Mysteries study that said that first generation witches and wizards had obtained magic at the expense of pure-blood and half-bloods?2 How many, even if they did not believed that, truly believed the pure-blood rhetoric that magical heritage, or at the very least personal magical ability, made them better? I ask this knowing that it is evident across the books that even the best intentioned of the magical population end up prejudiced against those without.
Arthur Weasley might not think much of magical heritage, but he certainly thinks that magical ability makes him better. The books abound with examples, each of which is minor and inconsequential in isolation, but which create a pattern of behaviour where he assumes that non-magical solutions are, or should be, lesser simply because they are non-magical, are surprising because they are useful, and should be easy for a wizard to adopt, because of course a wizard can do anything a muggle can. Never mind the non-magical person in question might have had to learn that skill, he expects to just know it because they can do it.3 Arthur represents one who thinks highly of non-magical people compared to the average witch and wizard. If he is the pinnacle of acceptance, what is the average?
This is important because it has all sorts of implications on the post war society. If most of society is more or less like the Weasley family, though without their courage to fight the problem, then there is hope that reforms could have gone through, particularly with the example fresh in people’s minds of what blood purity extreme-ism can and will cost. If on the other hand, it has wide-spread acceptance, then attempts at reform might seam to work at first, but there might well be some truth to the dystopian stories where reform attempts bog down against indifference and outright hostility to true change.
On the plus side, Mrs. Rowling lists a single first generation Minister of Magic in her list of Ministers.4 This suggests that there is a level of democracy in the selection of Minister, that the government is not fully a oligarchy dominated by some magical equivalent of a House of Lords. On the other hand, he was elected in 1969, and he is the first such, that means it took an incredibly long time. It probably also radicalised some of the opposition, probably strengthening Riddle’s support base. How many/how much of that support base either died or was irreversibly tainted over the course of the two wars such that their ability to influence politics and hinder reform was ended?
My guess is not none (the essential premise for a work like Exiles), but also not all or nearly all (the essential premise for much of Mrs. Rowling’s extra cannon writing about the post war universe).
I am having trouble documenting where this line of reasoning, known now as the “Nuremberg Defence”, was actually condemned.↩︎
Mrs. J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (2011), pages 85-86.↩︎
Mrs. J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (2000), approx location 1253 as one possible example↩︎
Mrs. J. K. Rowling. “Ministers of Magic” The J.K. Rowling Index Originally Published: 2014-10-31.↩︎