Some Arguments Against School Compulsion

Whether TopTenz saw it like that or not.

10 Mind-Bogglingly Terrible Decisions Made by Schools
TopTenz | 12.I.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH2LQn8S4rk

I

10 - so the Jewish children were ok with it, why are you not?

How many Jews are for instance ok with The Dictator by Chaplin or with Mel Brooks?

How do you judge there was no such context?

II

Before even watching:

"9. School tries to ban Harry Potter for being about magic, allows students to read Chronicles of Narnia series"

It so happens, in Narnia series, any human or mortal humanoid practising magic is in fact doing sth wrong.

Starting the series with The Magician's Nephew very much highlights this.

A few quibbles on this point.

• a) using yellow and green rings to get from world to world is in fact wrong, and Uncle Andrew is guilty for inventing this, and this is exactly why Aslan tells Digory and Polly to bury the rings, in The Magician's Nephew, and why in The Last Battle, they are never used.
• b) being brought between worlds by a wardrobe (Lion, Witch, Wardobe) or by an irresistible pull (Prince Caspian) or by a painting (Voyage of the Dawn Treader) or by a door one was simply trying to get away from school and hide from bullies (The Silver Chair) or through a train crash the split seconds before you die in a train crash (The Last Battle) is, unlike the use of rings, not practising magic.
• c) Cornelius' practise of "sleep magic" seems to be either hypnosis or a sleep drug (in other words, in normal terms he is not practising magic).
• d) Voyage of the Dawn Treader is in parts a bit flaky on this point, but at least gives some hints on morality of magic use, as in what not to use it for, while the actual use not wrong is in obedience and basically under a death threat - at the same time, Coriakin is also not a mortal human, but a star.

Harry Potter makes the "a bit flaky" side the rule for those who are going to Hogwarts. And who are mortals at least in the sense they can be killed. PLUS can be born of Muggles. That is perfectly normal human mortals.

It seems, Narnia reflects a Christian morality on this point, while Harry Potter looks more like some versions of Jewish morality.

(So much for "Judeo-Christian").

For instance, Kaytek the Wizard (the author of which is better known for King Matt) has hero learn to "deal responsibly" with having magic powers. That school should logically endorse Narnia and The Satanic Mill (where magic is, correctly, presented as a deal with the devil the hero needs to be delivered from), and ban Harry Potter and Kaytek.

Nothing like any kind of illogic in what the written summary has shown.

The idea is a bit like saying one must either allow or forbid both Narnia and Dark Materials - because both involve getting to another world through a wardrobe. But one has reasonably argued Dark Materials is morally an "anti-Narnia".

1:40 "promotes witchcraft and the occult"

Key word : promotes.

While, precisely, Narnia definitely warns against it.

2:16 In LWW an evil precisely witch is overcome by powers of good like Son of God incarnate in that world as a lion having created it.

In Harry Potter, an evil warlock is overcome, but not by any God, but by other warlocks and witches who are just not evil (though they occasionally enjoy a magic prank or two, of the kind specifically warned against in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Lucy fiddles around with that kind of thing, when she shouldn't).

Narnia says "witchcraft is evil". Harry Potter says "witchcraft can be used for good or evil, and small pranks with it aren't really evil".

III

8 - I agree. Eavesdropping by computers is as evil as eavesdropping by other means.

3:14 None on the school saw that as a big deal?

Well, perhaps they were avidly reading Harry Potter before they became school staff?

You know, the moral world in which magical (and by extension technological) minor pranks is ok ...

3:57 (#7) Also agreed. Schools should not push commercial preferences on their students (ok, some, like what Latin books to buy ... because that's the one the Latin teacher uses).

"disruptive" seems to be a code word for lots of "undesirable" behaviour, these days.

#6 - agree again. Btw, both 7 and 6 argue for my and against your point on #10.

IV

#4 - Banning that book may have been a move of sarcasm or irony on part of people who had erroneously been considered as racialist for ... using the N-word.

How many have come from Germany or Sweden where "neger" simply is the normal word for a man with skin of darker shades of brown?

And how often is this even done these days, if not in Germany at least in Sweden by hawks of the PC movement?

One librarian (himself immigrant) removed Tintin in Congo "for being racist".