I have a suspicion that trouble with FA is about to flare up again

[fpb]

My older friends will remember the long war I had with a previous generation of FA moderators. Now I have lost my temper again, spectacularly and on their threads, and I suspect that it will make trouble.

I just read a chaptered fic (you will understand that I have no intention to increase the author's hit count, so we'll forget the name and title) which contains the following passage (behind lj-cut):
"Precisely," Caitlin smiled thinly. "And if it sounds horrible to you, think what a mage would think, coming from a community where you had magical privies that made the waste disappear, mud resistant robes, cures for most diseases known to the Muggles, a non-existent infant mortality rate, nice clean stone buildings for everyone, house elves that kept everything sanitary using magic and a standard of living not far off what you're both used to. I'm telling you, the phrase 'filthy Muggles' wasn't abuse back then, it was a fact. Of course the mages of the day felt they were superior - why wouldn't they? The poorest mage lived better than a Muggle king. Salazar was only different in that his attitudes were more extreme and professed more openly. He wasn't interested in saving Muggles from themselves, and he certainly didn't want their children around, with their insistence in only one god, and eternal damnation for those who didn't follow him, and that magic users not sanctioned by their High Priest in Rome were going straight to Hell. Actually can't say I entirely blame him on that score," she said with a grin.

Luella had to admit that being told that your magic was evil on a daily basis would probably annoy even the most patient of mages.

"But that doesn't mean being a Muggle-born makes you inferior!" she responded.

"Well, of course not," Caitlin replied. "Times have changed, and so have Muggles. Most love the idea of magic. That weird Middle Eastern crucifixion cult has lost its hold on their minds. And perhaps most importantly, they've discovered science, and it's given them power equal to ours in a way. No, Luella, in no way do I think Muggles are inferior. But back then, Salazar had some good points, and a lot of mages agreed with him, up until the point where he started secretly advocating the extermination of Muggle-borns, and the banning of mage-Muggle marriages, or at least severely restricting them to suitable candidates. That was when he crossed the line, and that's when war broke out, and Salazar got thrown out of Hogwarts. Battles were fought, alliances were made and broken, and a particularly nasty bloodfeud ensued that endures to this day. Salazar, I might add, lost, although his House stayed. Enough of them repented or stayed loyal to make it worthwhile keeping it. After all, Salazar Slytherin was still a Founder. But from then on, Slytherin House was seen as different, marked out by its past. At best, a house to be wary of, at worst the source of everything evil. Dark mages from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are overlooked or explained away as having had a traumatic past. Dark Slytherins have always been blown up into terrifying figures of absolute evil. Their Dark Mages are seen as one-offs, aberrations. Ours are seen as typical Slytherins. Until the 1970's, we Slytherins have always put up with the prejudice and just got on with our lives. We dealt with it by consoling ourselves that our house may be evil but at least we were the talented ones. That's why we're noted for our ambition: we start out automatically disadvantaged and work twice as hard to catch up. We've all got something to prove. We've been hated but we get by....

I found this not only offensive but a genuine instance of hate speech, including evident racist overtones (apparently being "middle eastern" is bad) and a loathsome misrepresentation of historical fact. I let the author know in the comments thread, and added a warning against this fic in the thread where I had originally found the link. Now it all depends on whether the moderators think this is, a), flaming, and, b), not justified by the evident and contemptible hate speech in the fic. Either way, I really do not think I intend to retract a single word.

Comments

The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[pathology-doc.livejournal.com]

If "Weird Middle Eastern crucifixion cult" is the hate-speech line (and I think that's what you're getting at), I think you're dead wrong. 'Middle Eastern' correctly describes the broad geographic area of origin of Christianity. As for Christianity being a weird crucifixion cult, seen from the viewpoint of an outside, atheist observer (or at least a nonbeliever in the Abrahamic God), it's probably an apt description - show me any other religion whose holy mark is a symbolization of the device used to execute its originator, and whose central rite comprises spiritual (or if you believe in transubstantiation, literal) cannibalism.

If a religion arose today which venerated the silhouette of the gun (for instance) and preached the symbolic consumption of human flesh to achieve (or improve) oneness with God, it would be called a cult; regardless of what its spiritual background was, or the nobility of its underlying message.

I would be interested in a more specific indication of the claimed historical inaccuracies. Are you referring to the treatment of "sorcerers" and "witches" by the early Church? The tendency of extremist Christians (and for much of its life the entire Roman Church) to write off as damned (or at best to act with condescending pity towards) those not toeing the doctrinal line is well known, and historical examples abound. Another point worth bearing in mind is that it is well known that the wizarding world canonically has grave issues regarding its understanding of the way the Muggle world works, and it could be argued that this almost certainly extends to their knowledge and interpretation of Muggle history. If two wizard characters are misrepresenting Muggle history in dialogue, that's called "being faithful to canon" - it would actually be grossly out of character to have any ordinary wizard (maybe any wizard at all, with the possible exception of Charity Burbage, Albus Dumbledore or Hermione Granger) demonstrate a knowledge of Muggle history equal to yours.

The only way to know whether you're right is to be able to read the segment in the context of the whole. When you reference a body of work, you are under obligation to provide unambiguous paths back to the source. Your personal loathing of the text does not IMO release you from this obligation.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I am in no mood to treat this author's work except than as the crap it is. I am not getting him any more readers, so if you want, track it down yourself.

If an author presents a character as admirable, then he approves of her views. Caitlin is consistently presented as admirable - stylish, attractive, brave (she is an Auror), diplomatic and wise. What she says is not challenged.

You got the history wrong. The period the author is speaking about is the high Middle Ages (a period in which, historically, witch hunts did not happen - they were a by-product of that great love of all "humanists" and enemies of Christianity, the Renaissance, began about 1400 and reached their climax about 1600).

Contrary to your curious belief, the centrality of bloody sacrifice and the identification of bloody sacrifice with both the sacrificer and the supreme god are a feature of most religions I know. To the extent that I know for a fact, and have shown in my publication Gods of the West I: Indiges, that at some point in the lost history of Celtic Christianity, some sort of identification between the chief gods of Celtic religion and the Three Persons of the Trinity must have taken place, based largely on the identification of Lleu/Lug with sacrifice and of sacrifice with the Second Person. So much for the strangeness of Christian religious ideas. And no matter how much you twist it, "weird Middle Eastern crucifixion cult" for the religion of Galileo, Beethoven and Shakespeare is an insult, and a racist insult to boot.

I cannot imagine what drives you to search for every possible red herring to bring to the argument. Would you have done the same if, instead of insulting Christians and Christianity, this creep had spoken of, say, smelly N---ers or treacherous slit-eyed Chinks? This is the level we are on.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[curia-regis.livejournal.com]

If I'm remembering my characters correctly, the author is a she. And she's one of the nicest most open-minded people I know. I'm positive she wouldn't have meant to deliberately offend anybody.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

If this passage was not meant to be offensive, that makes it even worse; it places it in the realm of the mindless - like the person who automatically assumes all Chinese are untrustworthy, and sees nothing wrong or surprising about the assumption.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[curia-regis.livejournal.com]

I still think it's a bit different when a character is stating it in a fic. Just because the author isn't specifically stating that they may disagree with the viewpoint of her characters (even if the characters seem like they are beloved by all), the author may still disagree with it. From what I remember of the fic (obviously assuming that we're talking about the same fic!) the character wasn't actually beloved by all and had done some pretty screwed up things. Maybe the author was assuming we'd all draw our own conclusions about the character's nature from what she said, rather than specifically having other characters criticize her statement.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[curia-regis.livejournal.com]

Personally, I know I've written fics where characters have said things that I don't believe in, but they said them because I believed it would be IC for the character. And this has happened even if the character is well-liked in the fic. It happens in RL. People who are well liked by everybody, sometimes have the most horrible views. And sometimes people don't criticize them for these views even if they themselves think differently.

I just don't think a fic should be taken at face value like that. I really don't think you should be assuming that the author believes everything her characters say. After all, not all fics are out there to teach us about ethics.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

How often do I have to repeat this? There was no reason or need in the story for that character to express those views. She expresses it because it is supposed to add to the sympathetic and admirable qualities of that character.

And frankly, teaching me of all people about characters having different views from the creator is really a matter of teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. That is exactly why I can say with confidence that none of the reasons to give your characters unsympathetic or mistaken views apply here.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[ms-katonic.livejournal.com]

She is indeed!

I also happen to know her boyfriend is half Egyptian, half Jewish. Which does sort of make the view that she loathes and detests all things Middle Eastern kind of ironic. :)

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Translation: "Some of my best friends are black/women/Jewish/Chinese/Italian/insert group".

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

I cannot imagine what drives you to search for every possible red herring to bring to the argument. Would you have done the same if, instead of insulting Christians and Christianity, this creep had spoken of, say, smelly N---ers or treacherous slit-eyed Chinks? This is the level we are on.

fbp, you're cracking me up! Do you seriously think that Christians are suffering the same way that blacks and Asians do in Western society? If so, what are you smoking because I want some.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That is another red herring. I did not say that Christians have it as bad as some other groups in Western society (although I suggest you try to imagine yourself as a Christian in a Muslim or Communist country - go on, read what North Korea does to suspected Christians); I said that the terms used and the descriptions made were equally offensive. Rebecca, I always tried to treat you and your views with respect, but this sort of reaction suggests that you have no desire to return that respect. You're not the one who is being offended, I am, and you have no right to tell me that an outrageous misrepresentation of me, my religion, and my people is not in fact offensive.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Of course I want to treat you with respect! But offensiveness is a tricky thing, what offends one may not offend the other. Perhaps if I read the whole story and saw it in context it would be more offensive, but the speaker is already justifying Slytherin and the Pureblood blather and other things that are presented in the HP books as unjustifiable, so that's how I took it.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, I can tell you that in the story Slytherin house is not pureblood at all, and some of its protagonists are Muggleborn.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

The founding of Hogwarts is said to be about 1000 years ago, which would place it after the Great Schism, but only just. Therefore, it is highly inaccurate to refer "magic users not sanctioned by their High Priest in Rome" as if the Pope was the only supreme authority. He was not. There were five partiarchs: the Patriarch in Rome (who we call the "Pope"), and the patriarchs of Constantinopole, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria (Egypt).

In 1054, not long before Hogwarts is supposed to have been founded, the Patriarchs of East and West were too busy fighting with each other to give much though too what they lay membership was doing. In fact, the Roman church was barely able to rouse itself to make sure that parish priests even knew the Mass properly. This is one of the things that would annoy the snot of St. Bernard in the 12th century and St. Francis is the 13th.

It goes further actually; in the that period of history (centuries before the Reformation and counter-Reformation) the Church was not overly concerned with doctrinal purity. They were more concerned with converting the "elite" (King, Princes, and perhaps more importantly the noble women who had influence at court). They pretty much let the masses do as they wanted as long as it didn't upset the political and social order too much. Of course, when a "native" Christian movement got too much out of line, that would attract dangerous attention (like the Albigensian Crusade).

Therefore, if as you say the Wizarding world was as woefully ignorant of their neighbors then as now, then the fact is, that the character would not hold those views at since there was nothing to base them on. That she does spout such nonsense proves that either the author is injecting too much of her prejudice in, or the character has spent time listening to 20th century Muggle intelligensia spouting nonsense and taken it to heart - which I believe is diametrically opposed to what the character is supposed to be line in terms of her Muggle knowledge/relation.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

How is a thousand years ago after the Great Schism? In any case, only one of the Patriarchs of the East was busy fighting the Pope. Even after the mutual excommunications between Constantinople and Rome in 1054, the other eastern churches largely remained in communion with the west until the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople.

Also, I suspect a contemporary layperson in the West wouldn't have thought or cared much about the other four patriarchs in the Pentarchy, much less a modern wizard layperson. The differing views concerning the Pope had their genesis long before the schism, and today the Catholic Church adheres to the view that the Pope has universal jurisdiction over every see, even those of the Eastern Catholic patriarchs. Wouldn't it be fair to say that the Pope is—and would continue to be even after the end of the schism—"the only supreme authority"?

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

MOre correctly, he is the final judge for every issue, and always has been. The heretic Montanus appealed from the bishop of Antioch (a future patriarchal see) to the bishop of Rome, and that was in about 170AD. At the same time, Irenaeus of Lyons, who came originally from the Antiochene area, declared that the Church of Rome had the highest rank. For a less obvious but, to my mind, more convincing proof, look at the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, unmistakeably dated to 100AD, and notice how differently he treats Rome from every other see. With Tralles, Ephesus, Magnesia, he is confident, authoritative and assertive, as the bishop of great Antioch might well be expected to be; with Rome, and Rome alone, he is humble and respectful. Finally, there is the emperor Gallienus' (I think) sentence in the matter of Paul of Samosata and the schism in Antioch. Asked to rule on the legitimacy of two rival claimants to the Antiochene episcopal throne, Gallienus, no friend to the Church, and one who would welcome, if he could provoke it, a violent break-up in the Christian body, nevertheless ruled that there could be only one Bishop, and that the legitimate one was the one who was in communion with the Bishops of Italy (read: Rome and environs; the reason why he said "Italy" may well be that there still were a few bishops of the Novatian schism around, and one of them would certainly be claiming the title of Rome, however ineffectually - but the bishops of Italy had always been in communion with the legitimate Pope). When asked to rule on the quarrels of a particular body, it was standard Late Roman practice to investigate what was the suum ius, the lnternal rule, of that body, and rule accordingly. There is a famous case when the Emperor Constantine demanded to have the laws of an insignificant Anatolian township called Orcristum copied and sent to him so he could rule on an appeal case. So we have to conclude that the universal power of appeal of the Roman see is very ancient indeed. And it was the Council of Sardica, as early as 352, that ruled that Rome alone had the right to try bishops; one century later, St.Patrick appealed to Rome against the condemnation he had suffered from British bishops, and was triumphantly probatus by Leo I the Great, according to his own testimony and to Irish annalistic sources.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

I don't want to get into a debate that's been raging for a millennium, but I should note that the Orthodox don't think of the Pope as "just another bishop," and would agree in the main that were he orthodox, he would have the highest rank among all the Patriarchs and have some sort of primacy of honor (and perhaps of jurisdiction). For a thoughtful and extended treatment of Orthodox views on the Pope, check out The Primacy of Peter: Essays in Ecclesiology and the Early Church, ed. John Meyendorff. (I think the essay by Veselin Kesich is best). Also, this essay by Francis Dvornik, a distillation of his book of the same name, traces the split to the interplay between different theories of primacy taking root in the East and West. Suffice it to say that:

- I read Sardica considerably more narrowly: a local synod that in response to the Arian crisis, granted the Bishop of Rome the right to appoint bishops as appellate judges if the parties weren't satisfied with the judgments of the neighboring bishops. And indeed, Canon 28 of Chalcedon noted that the Fathers "granted privileges to the throne of old Rome, because it was the royal city," and granted equal privileges to Constantinople. It's true that the Pope rejected this canon—but it was received in the East (as Leo himself bitterly noted), reaffirmed at Trullo, and soon put into effect, with the Archbishop of Constantinople presiding over appeals from other sees.

- I've never heard of Montanus's appeal to Rome; I don't remember this mentioned in Eusebius. Where is this described?

- As I recall from Eusebius, it was Aurelian who was emperor during the dispute between Paul and Domnus, and the dispute concerned the patriarchal palace, not the bishopric.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

Also, the Pope's universal jurisdiction is expressly set out in canon law, isn't it? In any case, for a quick summary of Orthodox views on primacy, check out this OrthodoxWiki article.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

To be fair, the first wave of the Great Schism may be felt as early as the reign of Charlemagne - complicated, of course, by the issue of Iconoclasm (in which, however, Charlemagne himself was nearly on the heretical side) and, as so often is the case, with grave misunderstandings in language. Certainly something was seriously wrong by the time of the stormy career of Photius, let alone by the journey to Constantinople of that least diplomatic of all diplomats, Bishop Liutprand of Cremona. And conversely, in spite of the mutual excommunication of 1054, in 1092 the Eastern Emperor called to the West for help in the name of the common Christian faith - and got more of it than he ever asked, or than anyone expected. I would not say that the schism was really complete until the disastrous collapse of the Council of Florence settlement and the Orthodox canonization of Marcus of Ephesus. (Which, incidentally, also affected the Ethiopian Church, which had managed to send two representatives to the Council and accepted its conclusions!)

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

You're right. I was committing the too common of error of thinking of the 1000s as the 10th century, not the 11th and doing the math wrong in my head.

But actually, since the Great Schism was less than 1000 years ago, it strengthens my point. It hadn't happened yet when Hogwarts would have been founded, so the Pope was still busy fighting the Patriarch, thus his attention was elsewhere, not on what some "ordinary" (i.e. not King Ethelred, not Queen Emma) person in England, be they Muggle or Wizard, was doing.

Therefore, since there would have been no persecution going on, there would have been nothing for the Wizarding World to notice in this regard, and nothing to inform the speakers comments. The witchhunts don't ramp up until centuries laters - when Salazar Slytherin would have already been dead.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As much as anything else, the Pope had very little way to find out and react to what was going on. The only people who really could impose religious conformity were the bishops, and in fact the episcopal courts were quite busy. The only sanction the Pope really had was excommunication; but as the need to be in communion with Rome was very keenly felt, that was a serious sanction and often achieved its end; but it was practically never used except for kings, bishops and societal leaders. It would make no sense for the Pope in Rome to directly condemn some ill-instructed peasant or rebellious monk; that was the work of the Bishop. The one power the Pope did always enjoy was that of ultimate court of appeal; people condemned by their local bishops could and did appeal to Rome.

Re: The beliefs and actions of (a) character(s) are not automatically those of the author.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That is not actually the case. I suggest you have a look at what was routinely done to teachers of heresy such as Gottschalk. It is rather true that, until the great reforms of the mid-eleventh century, the Church of Rome had been reduced to the plaything of the Roman nobility. This was a by-product of the general situation of Western Christianity, which was desperate: for a century and a half - from the collapse of Charles the Great's premature empire to the great victory of the Emperor Otto over the Hungarians - there was no part of the Christian West, not even the mountains of modern Switzerland, that was not constantly under the threat of Arabic, Viking or Magyar raids, or pagan Slav encroachment. Between 950 and 150, Hungary, Croatia, Denmark, Norway, the British and Irish Vikings, Iceland, Sweden, Poland, Bohemia, and Russia converted to the Christian faith; all, except Russia, to the Roman rite (and even Kiev, then capital of Russia, received an Irish mission). This pacified and enormously strengthened the West, and was immediately followed by reform at home and advance abroad, including the Crusades - caused by the collapse of an overextended Byzantine Empire at Mantzikert (1071) and after.

But what about Bob

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

But Gottschalk was a theologian and a noisy itinerant preacher. He was upsetting the apple cart.

My point is that the everyday people pretty much could and did believe what they wanted because the Church was engaged in a trickle-down theory of conversion (opposite what it practiced in the early days). Monks went to the warrior-kings like Clovis, not Joe farmer in the field, or Bob carpenter in the workshop. Between 950 and 1050 all those places you list may have become *officially* Christian, but there is a difference between that and truly Christianizing the population.

I would say of those places, the Hiberno-Norse ("Irish Vikings") probably experienced the most complete conversion, since it was coming from the ground-up (from the influence of thier already Christian neighbors*) rather than the top down. Iceland, Denmark and Norway are definately a different story. The concept of "Christ on land; Thor at sea" is well documented (see, for instance, Helgi the Lean in the Landnamabok) and demonstrates both the considerable ambivalance about Christianity in areas where the elite made professions of faith, but nobody bothered to check with the laity, and that nobody was bothering to check with the rank and file in either a positive (teaching) or negative (punishing) sense.


---
* It's interesting that Russia (and Bohemia as well, although you didn't mention that) received an Irish mission. I really think that for a number of centuries, the Faith was stronger in the Isles than a lot of other places in Europe.

Re: But what about Bob

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Good points on the whole, but remember Ranulphus Glaber's description of "the earth covering itself with churches like flowers in springs". The eleventh century, at least in the core western lands, is the period of massive local church building and the rise of the parish system, and this was powered largely from what you call the bottom-up perspective. Remember, too, that the Scandinavians had been in touch with Christianity for centuries. As I reall, the archaeologists discovered evidence of a Christian church in the Danish trading harbour of Hedeby, dating to about 800AD.

Re: But what about Bob

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Two more points. First, the "top-down" and "bottom-up" perspectives you describe in northern Europe were hardly mutually exclusive. You have to remember the dimension of the societies in question. You are not talking about a large state such as the Byzantine empire, not even about a confederacy of vast provincial landholders such as underlay the Frankish states. In England in the seventh century, in Scandinavia in the tenth, a king was the local boss, and he and his comitatus pretty much exhausted every man of importance in the kingdom - and most kingdoms were barely as large as a modern county, and not as populous. Once the royal family has been converted, the comitatus will become converted out of personal loyalty and individual influence; after all, they had been as much responsible for choosing the king as the king for choosing them, and their loyalty and affection was mutual. (Remember the speeches after the Ealdorman's fall in The battle of Maldon, written almost certainly by an eyewitness: the personal emotion, the direct and uncomplicated love for one's lord, can be felt.) And once these men had converted, pretty much all of society had; everyone was bound to them as they were bound to the king, by economic and personal links that strongly encouraged them to agree.

And the fact that the Landnamabok takes the trouble of mentioning Helgi the Lean's peculiar double religion hardly proves that it was common. One of the rules of textual interpretation is that common things are not mentioned, and uncommon things are. Why is that the practice of this one settler, out of dozens, is mentioned? Probably because it was unique, and remembered as such.