More People Need(ed) to Read Harry Potter

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

I know, a provocative title in this community, but we have concrete evidence that reading Harry Potter leads to a small, but significant, increase in antipathy toward Donald Trump and his policies.

https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/new-study-shows-reading-harry-potter-lowers-americans%E2%80%99-opinions-donald-trump ; (Link through to the actual study in article.)

A while back I posted about a study that found that identifying with Harry Potter led to decreased bias toward stigmatized minorities.  At the time, I wondered how reading the series led people to feel about how to deal with their enemies given the vindictiveness the series shows in a close reading.  As it turns out, the more Harry Potter books someone has read, even controlling for "party identification, gender, education level, age, evangelical self-identification, and social dominance orientation," the more opposed they were to violence and punitive policies (like torturing their enemies as advocated by Trump) and authoritarianism.  This is in addition to confirmation of the decreased bias against outgroups.

You don't have to like Harry Potter, and I completely agree that the books have a lot of problems.  But let's not loose sight of the fact that the world is entering a dangerous, if not outright fascistic period.  There's too much hatred and divisiveness driving our politics; hate crimes have risen by several hundred percent since Trump's election.  If reading Harry Potter does help lead people to greater tolerance and mercy, we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Comments

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

Hey, welcome. I'm a bit of a lurker myself, despite lazy modding once in a while; but yeah, that's pretty much how I feel.

If people get something good out of it, great; but I think if anything, JKR's pronouncements on the topic (as well as generally on social media) now it's over, as well as the spinoffs (Cursed Child, Fantastic Beasts) pretty much prove the longrunning argument that the series doesn't have a coherent set of beliefs or morals.
This is an author who can't even commit to an opinion on torture or slavery.
Her fandom seemed happy enough when she gave them enough space to fanwank that she just forgot or ran out of space to include diversity, but her inability to leave the text alone means by engaging, she reveals that her liberalism has very set limits (magicians of colour exist! I just don't want to write about them when I could have another straight white male lead like every book I've ever written! Gay people - or men, at least - exist! It's just that their homosexuality is a corrupting influence on their entire lives! I'm a feminist, but I save my public criticism for Paris Hilton, etc. Johnny Depp can totes get cast in my movie after domestic abuse, after all, 'people go up and go down' in the public eye.)

[chicory-fics.livejournal.com]

Hi, thank you. I hope three days isn't long enough for the topic to become old; I'm a little unsure on internet customs. I don't... really post much.

I actually think HP has a coherent set of beliefs, if not morals. (I think morals are rather culture and era specific, and dependent on who is guiding the cultural discussions, so I'm not too hang-up on those anyway. At least when it comes to fiction.)

I think HP, er, represents the post-modern identity politics well; "when others do it it's evil but when I (or we) do it it's justified because you don't know the whole story/I'm (or we're) in the right..."

I was reading a lot about post-modern narcissism and identity politics some time ago and I think HP represents it very well.

To be honest, I don't really care if Rowling included or didn't include diversity. I'd rather promote minority writers than, basically, force another rich, white lady include minorities as an afterthought just so they--and subsequently their readers--can feel tolerant.

But, I don't know, I've always read/watched fiction from all around the world so I don't really care much about it?

Of course, these are just my opinions and kind of moot in regards to Rowling, anyway, because she really seems to love talking about herself and her opinions anywhere and anytime she can.

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

I think this Livejournal group at least doesn't frown on commenting on older posts (after all, there's no obligation to only read and comment on the newest stuff, plus different people discover this place at different stages), but the content one writes has to be relevant. :)