I.

I recently stumbled upon and re-read a portion of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. First off, if you’ve never read this brilliant fanfic, you definitely should. While it’s got the flaws of a work produced by an amateur writer, it’s a strange but impressive combination of sharp wit, dry humor, an edge-of-your-seat plot, and some of the best philosophical conversations I’ve ever read.

In this particular scene, Harry is trying to deal with having gone into Azkaban and seeing the horrors of the dementors, seeing how the prisoners there are basically tortured. He doesn’t understand how society can tolerate the existence of such a place, a place where there are surely at least a few innocents suffering unbearably. He forcefully asks Dumbledore how he can accept this monstrosity of a place. Fawkes, Dumbledore’s phoenix, appears to side with Harry, sending out a piercing cry whenever Dumbledore talks.

“You went to Azkaban,” Harry whispered, “you took Fawkes with you, he saw – you saw – you were there, you saw – WHY DIDN’T YOU DO ANYTHING? WHY DIDN’T YOU LET THEM OUT? ” … “I can’t! ” cried Albus Dumbledore. “Harry, Fawkes, I can’t, there’s nothing I can do!” Another piercing scream. “WHY NOT? JUST GO IN AND TAKE THEM OUT!” The old wizard wrenched his gaze from the phoenix, his eyes meeting Harry’s instead. “Harry, tell Fawkes for me! Tell him it’s not that simple! Phoenixes aren’t mere animals but they are animals, Harry, they can’t understand -” “I don’t understand either,” Harry said, his voice trembling. “I don’t understand why you’re feeding people to Dementors! Azkaban isn’t a prison, it’s a torture chamber and you’re torturing those people to DEATH! ” “Percival,” said the old wizard hoarsely, “Percival Dumbledore, my own father, Harry, my own father died in Azkaban! I know, I know it is a horror! But what would you have of me? To break Azkaban by force? Would you have me declare open rebellion against the Ministry?” CAW! There was a pause, and Harry’s trembling voice said, “Fawkes doesn’t know anything about governments, he just wants you – to take the prisoners out – of their cells – and he’ll help you fight, if anyone stands in your way – and – and so will I, Headmaster! I’ll go with you and destroy any Dementor that comes near! We’ll worry about the political fallout afterward, I bet that you and I together could get away with it -” “Harry,” whispered the old wizard, “phoenixes do not understand how winning a battle can lose a war.” Tears were streaming down the old wizard’s cheeks, dripping into his silver beard. “The battle is all they know. They are good, but not wise. That is why they choose wizards to be their masters.” “Can you bring out the Dementors to where I can get at them?” Harry’s voice was begging, now. “Bring them out in groups of fifteen – I think I could destroy that many at a time without hurting myself -” The old wizard shook his head. “It was hard enough to pass off the loss of one – they might give me one more, but never two – they are considered national possessions, Harry, weapons in case of war -” Fury blazed in Harry then, blazed up like fire, it might have come from where a phoenix now rested on his own shoulder, and it might have come from his own dark side, and the two angers mixed within him, the cold and the hot, and it was a strange voice that said from his throat, “Tell me something. What does a government have to do, what do the voters have to do with their democracy, what do the people of a country have to do, before I ought to decide that I’m not on their side any more?” The old wizard’s eyes widened where he stared at the boy with a phoenix upon his shoulder. “Harry… are those your words, or the Defense Professor’s -” “Because there has to be some point, doesn’t there? And if it’s not Azkaban, where is it, then?” “Harry, listen, please, hear me! Wizards could not live together if they each declared rebellion against the whole, every time they differed! Always there will be something -” “Azkaban is not just something! It’s evil! ” “Yes, even evil! Even some evils, Harry, for wizards are not perfectly good! And yet it is better that we live in peace, than in chaos; and for you and I to break Azkaban by force would be the beginning of chaos, can you not see it?” The old wizard’s voice was pleading. “And it is possible to oppose the will of your fellows openly or in secret, without hating them, without declaring them evil and enemy! I do not think the people of this country deserve that of you, Harry! And even if some of them did – what of the children, what of the students in Hogwarts, what of the many good people mixed in with the bad?”

I’ve read the whole book twice before but it’s only on this latest read that the absolute brilliance of this scene dawned on me.

II.

It is said that liberalism comes from the heart, and conservativism comes from the head. Harry and Fawkes cry out the liberal view here: there is great suffering and it needs to be stopped now. The status quo is horrifyingly evil and it cannot be tolerated.

Dumbledore attempts to make the conservative argument. I don’t think he makes it very well, but the conservative argument is always much harder to make, as it requires more abstractness and more levels of indirection. He argues that this is the prison the political system and its elected governments have built. To go against it, even when it seems deserved, is to declare war, not just on those in power but on the everyday voters in the democracy. This is an untenable response to dealing with a disagreement with society. If everyone did that, we could never have peace – and as bad as things can be during peace, war is far worse.

I’ll admit that the previous times I read the scene, I mostly sided with Harry. While the rest of the world seemed to desire, or at least accept, Azkaban, he saw it for what it really was and wanted it destroyed. But upon reflection, I think Dumbledore is the one who sees the big picture here. Azkaban might be hellish, but destroying it would produce (or at least greatly risk producing) a larger and even worse hell.

Let’s ignore the fact that many in Azkaban are terrible people who should not be let out at any cost. Let’s suppose that Harry and Dumbledore could just go in and destroy the dementors, at which point the Ministry just hires more Aurors and the prisoners are still locked up. This way, the populace is still safe from criminals, but no one is unnecessarily tortured. Does this mean everything is fine and good?

No, because this is a criminal act that would result in a public backlash and the Ministry going after Harry and Dumbledore. Even government officials sympathetic to their view would have to seek them out to bring them to justice. How would that play out? Harry and Dumbledore would have basically three choices: disappear and go into exile, surrender themselves to the Ministry and peacefully negotiate terms, or fight back.

While all-out war would be the most disastrous option here, much is lost even in the first two options. Dumbledore is the highly respected Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, who holds great sway and influence over the politics of Magical Britain; Harry is the genius Boy Who Lived, who will one day have greater or equal influence. By bringing down Azkaban, they would lose all of that. Even if they’re not removed from power entirely, their influence will be severely diminished. As Dumbledore puts it, by winning a battle, they would lose the war.

The populace and system that built Azkaban would still be in place. Azkaban is just one of the many horrific decisions the system created. Harry never even evaluated all the products of the system to determine that Azkaban was the worst – it was simply the one he happened to encounter. There are other issues where Dumbledore and Harry’s wisdom and kindness could help, if they work within the system. It isn’t even clear that anything would be truly gained from destroying Azkaban: it could well just lead to an even worse Azkaban 2.0.

III.

Harry asks a powerful question in response to this: “What does a government have to do, what do the voters have to do with their democracy, what do the people of a country have to do, before I ought to decide that I’m not on their side any more? Because there has to be some point, doesn’t there? And if it’s not Azkaban, where is it, then?”

I said two things in the previous section that seem somewhat contradictory: 1) The system is horrific and creates many terrible things; and 2) Harry and Dumbledore should work within the system to make it better. If the system is so horrific, why even work within it? Why not just bring it all down and replace it with something better?

To answer this, we need to make sure we are seeing the whole elephant, rather than its parts. A system can produce both great and terrible things. Democratic systems are, by in large, peaceful. There is an agreement that the elected officials rule, even if many don’t like the rule. It means there is an established system of deciding who is in power, and those in power voluntarily stepping down when their term is up.

What’s the cost of war? Well, where do we even start with that? There’s all the deaths, injuries, tortures, and trauma – those are bad enough, but they aren’t even the whole story. War takes a toll on everyone, not just those actively fighting. Innocent people get hurt. The friends and families of those affected deal with loss. Everyone lives in fear as the strong prey on the weak. With societal breakdown, progress is disrupted, as resources get diverted from increasing human flourishing to ensuring basic survival. And at the end of all this, what do we have?

Harry seems to think he can rule in a way that would be much better for all the citizens. Perhaps he can – he is a boy genius after all. Yet, at this point, he seems to be reacting emotionally without yet grasping what he would need to deal with: paternalistically ruling over Magical Britain, making decisions for the populace on what is and isn’t good for them, and attempting to do what’s right while dealing with their understandable resentment and hatred towards their authoritarian ruler.

So what does the government and the people have to do before Harry decides he’s not on their side? The answer is: something so bad that it’s worth sacrificing the peace for war and authoritarian rule. That is the point at which working within the system is no longer tenable.

IV.

Now that we have an answer to this fictional testcase, what lessons can we take and apply to real life?

There is an excerpt from Nathan Robinson’s The Difference Between Liberalism And Leftism that I often think about:

The leftist sees capitalism as a horror, and believes that so long as money and profit rule the earth, human beings will be made miserable and will destroy themselves. The liberal does not actually believe this. Rather, the liberal believes that while there are problems with capitalism, it can be salvaged if given a few tweaks here and there.

Socialists like Nathan believe that the current system is unsalvageable. It’s an idea that’s all over the place, from Reddit (see r/LateStageCapitalism) to punk rock videos (see Rise Against’ Rise Against’ Re-Education (Through Labor)) to popular TV shows (see the “Kingdom of Bullshit” scene from Mr. Robot).

Is it justified? Emotionally, yes – they’re as compelling as Harry’s call to destroy Azkaban and overthrow democracy, no questions asked. But they’re meant to be appealing to the heart rather than the mind. To see and talk only about the negatives, horrifying as they are, and to be blind or indifferent to the positives, is to not see the world clearly.

There is certainly a point at which things can be so bad, so awful, that it’s beyond saving and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. But that’s the point at which the costs of war and the high chance of authoritarianism are now the lesser evil. There will always be injustices in the world so awful that our hearts will want to tear everything down, but it is our reason that must prevail, lest we make things even worse.