Science. The thing that's given us an understanding of the very processes that fuel the sun and that have developed the known universe has only gone and smashed another absolute home-run out of the park. That's right, science has proven beyond doubt that children who read Harry Potter develop a more empathetic and compassionate world-view than the shower of evil ne'er-do-wells who don't.
"What do you mean by 'science'? You're throwing that phrase around with reckless and seemingly ill-informed abandon." Well, I suppose, to be specific, social psychology would be the branch of science we're talking about here. "Isn't that a notoriously difficult facet of science, being as it is an interpretation of subjective experiences which are thus used to broadly account for trends across a large sample of people but which struggles to account for specifics with regard to characterising an individual?" Well... yes, I suppose that is true, though to be honest these interruptions dear reader have rather taken the wind out of the sails of what is mostly supposed to be a light-hearted piece about some pop psychology, now. if I may:
In an article published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, entitled 'The Greatest Magic of Harry Potter: Reducing Prejudice' it was shown that extended contact with the Harry Potter books made people more receptive toward, and reduced stigmas around, marginalised groups such as immigrants, homosexuals and refugees. The article showed that readers who identified with Harry Potter and his band of wand-waving cohorts tended to view such marginalised groups more positively and develop a more compassionate worldview. Whereas if you more strongly associated with Voldemort and his shower of so-and-so's then you are, and these are very much my words here, a category 5 bell-end.
Given that the whole sub-text of the book, surrounding distinctions of racial purity around the idea of wizarding and non-wizarding blood, is the same template for most pseudo-intellectualised arguments for racial discrimination, it's easy to see how and why the books so easily cut through such nonsense.
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So hold your liberal heads high people and now, open yourselves up to an entirely new and morally vindicated form of discrimination, the slow ostracisation and eventual eradication from society of those who do not enjoy Harry Potter. They are the enemy within and must be mercilessly vanquished, or, maybe I've missed the point here...
H/T: Indy100
