![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
Dumbledore was a "good man" in that he was kind to children (well, the pretty ones anyway), protective of animals (except for "dangerous" ones like Buckbeak), and of course, against large-scale oppression, murder and tyranny.
Which he decided are best fought by oppression, murder and tyranny on a small scale.
He'd "do what's right for society" according to some checklist (allow Muggleborns in Hogwarts, no killing/imprisoning people without at least a minimal trial, no stealing large sums of money from individuals, and so on), but damned if he was going to worry about who got hurt in the process.
He's one of those "society must be protected" men who fails to noticed that "society" is made up of people. The idea that the individual must always be sacrificed for the group denies the individualities that make a society worth having.
To quote Heinlein, "Men are not potatoes." One is not the same as the next; sometimes, you do sacrifice twenty in the hopes of saving one, because each one matters. (If you're being ethical, those twenty are volunteers for what they know might be a suicide mission.) As we learned from That Other Canon, "sometimes, the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many."
I have to wonder if he decided to "protect Draco" from the soul-twisting damage of A.K., when he basically ignored the damage done to Snape in his teen years, because Draco was pretty and popular, unlike Snape, a surly and much-disliked child. Wonder if he didn't seek a better trial for Sirius, with Veritaserum (either time), because Sirius' fate was irrelevant to him. It neither served nor detracted from The Goal: the defeat of Voldemort (another pretty, popular boy in which Albus apparently failed to catch the warning signs of of a selfish, power-hungry tyrant).
Hmmmm.... maybe someone should do some research about just how many "pretty boys" Dumbledore encouraged and supported, and how many less-than-pretty people he shoves aside for them.
Which he decided are best fought by oppression, murder and tyranny on a small scale.
He'd "do what's right for society" according to some checklist (allow Muggleborns in Hogwarts, no killing/imprisoning people without at least a minimal trial, no stealing large sums of money from individuals, and so on), but damned if he was going to worry about who got hurt in the process.
He's one of those "society must be protected" men who fails to noticed that "society" is made up of people. The idea that the individual must always be sacrificed for the group denies the individualities that make a society worth having.
To quote Heinlein, "Men are not potatoes." One is not the same as the next; sometimes, you do sacrifice twenty in the hopes of saving one, because each one matters. (If you're being ethical, those twenty are volunteers for what they know might be a suicide mission.) As we learned from That Other Canon, "sometimes, the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many."
I have to wonder if he decided to "protect Draco" from the soul-twisting damage of A.K., when he basically ignored the damage done to Snape in his teen years, because Draco was pretty and popular, unlike Snape, a surly and much-disliked child. Wonder if he didn't seek a better trial for Sirius, with Veritaserum (either time), because Sirius' fate was irrelevant to him. It neither served nor detracted from The Goal: the defeat of Voldemort (another pretty, popular boy in which Albus apparently failed to catch the warning signs of of a selfish, power-hungry tyrant).
Hmmmm.... maybe someone should do some research about just how many "pretty boys" Dumbledore encouraged and supported, and how many less-than-pretty people he shoves aside for them.