The question we asked over and over again in class Friday ("Is this fair?"), is quite possibly the most frustrating to debate. It brings me back to senior year philosophy, where we spoke in circles about random abstracts that were impossible to determine for sure, and, even if we were able to determine it, had little practical value. The question of fairness always reminds me of talk with no action - you don't come up with a plan, you just think that something is unfair and should be changed. But what's even to determine what is fair? What someone has a right to? Is it fair for everyone to have something, even if they don't work for it? (Personally, I would say no to that question, you need to put forth effort to actually deserve anything in life. But I digress).
Not to be super pessimistic, but it's impossible to give every person in this world equal opportunities. Is it fair? I'd say it depends on the person and their situation, if they’re working towards bettering their lives, but are struggling or if they're sitting around living on other people without trying at all.
Maybe with these kind of questions I've always thought that we should just accept, in this situation, that life isn’t fair. We should stop debating what is and what wouldn't be. Just accept it, move on, and try to spend more time coming up with a plan for giving people what you think that they need, regardless of if it is fair or not.
On a completely different vein, a few days ago, after Erin gave Scott and I the idea, Scott, Tom, and I sorted all of the presidents into Hogwarts Houses. Maybe it was because we didn’t want to finish stat, or maybe it was in honor of the movie coming out this Thursday, but…
1. Washington - G
2. Adams R
3. Jefferson R
4. Madison H
5. Monroe G
6. Q Adams R
7. Jackson S
8. Van Buren H
9. Henry Harrison H
10. Tyler H
11. Polk Dumbledore
12. Taylor G (because of war badassness)
13. Fillmore H
14. Pierce S
15. Buchannan S
16. Lincoln G
17. Johnson S
18. Grant S
19. Hayes S
20. Garfield H
21. Arthur H
22. Cleveland H
23. Harrison H
24. McKinley G-H
25. Roosevelt G
26. Taft R
27. Wilson R
28. Harding H
29. Coolidge H
30. Hoover R
31. FDR G
32. Truman G
33. Eisenhower G
34. JFK R
35. LBJ G
36. Nixon S
37. Ford H
38. Carter R
39. Reagan G
40. HW Bush G
41. Clinton R
42. Bush G - H (but time will tell more so. Although it should be noted that Row came in around this point and was pretty adamant about Gryffindor)
43. Obama
So basically, while going through, there was honestly little debate. What's slightly shocking, however, is how many presidents are in Hufflepuff. You can argue, for many of these men, they could fit into multiple houses, or are slightly in between. However, with so many of them, there was no debate - we just said Hufflepuff and moved on. Going off of what we did, that Hufflepuff was basically the incompetent House, that's very scary that so many presidents in our history can just be overlooked. For others, we used their accomplishments before and after the presidency to place them accordingly. It's a great history lesson, going back to remember the major reforms of each presidency, but 33 percent of your presidents being in that category? Not a good sign. Of course, much of this is up to interpretation, but with three relatively different ends of the political spectrums agreeing on this list, it can be thought of as pretty unbiased. Additionally, it’s interesting to note how few Hufflepuffs we determined that there were in the 20th century. Take these for what they're worth (probably very little), but I think it raises a lot of interesting debates (I can see Reagan and Bush being hotly contested ones, as well as some of the Slytherins right before and after Lincoln)
P.S. Polk is Dumbledore because he set three goals for office and accomplished them all. Completely underrated president.
And finally, I need to thank Sam for introducing me to possibly the greatest commercial of all time, which apparently came out a long time ago...
I think this is basing the categories of the houses largely off of individuals within them. According to the sorting hat, they are known for collections of traits, the most prominent of which are bravery (G), cunning (S), loyalty (H) and wisdom (R). There is nothing inherently bad about cunning, nor anything inherently negligible about loyalty. I think the stereotypes created by the characters that the Harry Potter books focus on are very disillusioning and have been taken out badly on some of these presidents. If you think they're worthless, don't toss them into Hufflepuff like it's a garbage can- make them Squibs!
ReplyDeleteWhoa. We had way more Slytherin presidents when my friends and I did this and very, very few Hufflepuffs. I may have the list somewhere ... I'll have to look for it.
ReplyDeleteOn a more class-related note, you write:
"Maybe with these kind of questions I've always thought that we should just accept, in this situation, that life isn’t fair."
I think most people would agree that life isn't fair in any absolute sense, but we certainly take steps to make it more (and less) fair in terms of policies and actions, hence the whole idea of leveling the playing field and providing equality of opportunity, in terms of public education and access to basic social services. Do you think there is value in this sort of attempt to make the world more fair? Are these efforts worth pursuing domestically? What about internationally?