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CronoDAS comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread - Less Wrong
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"Mudblood" is supposed to be the equivalent of "nigger".
It doesn't seem at all clear to me that this is realistic. The victims of the insult are, just about by definition, the ones who weren't raised in wizarding culture, and no earlier than age eleven do they hear this particular insult. Even though the components of the word "mudblood" are certainly impolite, I don't think it could cut as deep as a slur that floats around one's childhood environment and that one's parents are familiar with reacting to and so on.
No, it's not a direct equivalent, because the societies are somewhat different, but the racial analogue is clear, and comparing "mudblood" to "nigger" (or maybe "fag") is probably the closest analogy we have.
Also, the term can be used as an insult even to non-Muggleborns, who presumably have grown up with it. In fact, that seems to be how it's usually used to greatest effect. And the Muggleborns are transplanted from everyone and everything they know when they come to Hogwarts, so in some sense they have a new childhood environment with brand-new associations to be learned.
It seems like a class rather than race thing to me. Maybe this is partly because class divisions are more salient to me than race divisions with my British upbringing but given Harry Potter is a British creation I think class is likely to be the the closest analogy. It's the kind of treatment that a scholarship kid from a working class background would get in a public school. The fact that Hogwarts is modeled after public schools lends weight to this theory.
I don't buy the class analogue.
Aside from the racial (magical) view being perfectly consistent with everything in canon (magical/non-magical seems to override even xenophobia, witness the foreign schools' reception in Goblet of Fire), we also have a perfect example of one group of people who suffers from both class and racial discrimination: the Weasleys.
The Weasleys are presented as being mocked (particularly by the Malfoys) both for being poor - lower class, note also that their red hair suggests Irish roots - and for linking themselves with Muggles and eventually intermarrying with Mudbloods. If the 2 were one and the same, we would not see any difference.
I can't really pretend to be much of an expert on Harry Potter - I've seen several of the movies but I've never read any of the books. From what I've seen however the parallels to class in British society are clear while the racist connotations are less apparent to me. Discrimination based on physical features common to an ethnic group seems to me to be an essential component of racism which is largely absent in the movies.
In Britain wealth and class are correlated but distinct. The concepts of the nouveau riche and the distressed gentry are examples of how the concepts of wealth and class are not identical.
I think it may be a bit of both. A large part of the negative sentiment towards muggleborns seems to come from the purebloods viewing them as interlopers into a superior culture that has no place for them, for which the nouveau riche are the perfect analogy. But at the same time, the conflict has a great deal to do with ancestry and heredity; Voldemort and his coterie, evil bigots that they are, want to stop the muggleborn outsiders from diluting their superior bloodlines, a clear echo of various racist ideologies. The tie is made even more explicit by Rowling's depiction of Grindelwald, Voldemort's predecessor as a Dark Lord and pureblood supremacist, who has a biography that carefully echoes Adolf Hitler's. Rowling is sometimes unsubtle.
(Disclaimer: I've read an embarrassing amount of fanfiction, and have sometimes been known to confuse canon and fanon.)
Ancestry and heredity are a big part of class in Britain (and some other cultures with a strong class or caste element) but are not about race.
This is true, and the blood-purity issue is not entirely analogous to race. But Rowling went to quite a bit of effort to line her bad guys up with the Nazis. (Grindelwald ended up imprisoned in a place called Nurmengard, even!)
In America, our classes are called races.
It's more complicated than that.
There are (at least) two aspects to an insult-- likelihood of emotional pain, and amount of implied threat.
Maybe it sounds aesthetically more like a slur in its native land, where reportedly "bloody" is a terrible swear word.
"Bloody" is not a terrible swear word in the UK. It is an old fashioned (1950s*) accentuator of other swear words. Typically bloody hell. It has lost its potency, which is why ron weasely can use it, or so Urban dictionary claims (I forget what happens in HP).
Edit: * 1950s was my guess at the last time it was considered bad, although there appears to have been controversy in the 60's and 70's
Bit older than that.
I meant more when it was last considered (very) bad, rather than when it was created.
The word doesn't have the same meaning now that it had 50 or 75 years ago. Which do you have in mind?
Yes, it's apparent that in-universe folks and fans react that way sometimes, but I didn't get that at all from the first few movies or first book.
I'll suggest that the Wiemar republic may be a better analogy than any period in American history.
The anti-Mudblood campaign is revving up in Lily's time, and it's reasonable to see a serious threat there.
However, it's conceivable that Harry simply doesn't know much about wizarding world history. He's certainly been busy enough with other things.
Yeah, there's a lot of parallels.
Mudblood can only be used to refer to muggle-born witches and wizards, making it a strictly racial and not socioeconomic term; many muggleborns, including Hermione, are actually quite well off. And it is definitely a big deal. Did you miss the gigantic brawl that ensued after Malfoy first called Hermione a Mudblood? I believe Ron was vomiting slugs for a day afterwards.
See, I figured that brawl was all just the Weasleys overreacting because they're stupid.
You should leave the possibility open that they're more familiar with the wizarding world than you are.
I meant that was the interpretation I had when I first read it. If I were to replace "mudblood" with "pig" or "ugly" or something, that scene would have been no more confusing to me, as I thought those Gryffindor folks were the sorts to fly off the handle and get violent in response to a simple insult.
That's how J.K. Rowling has described it in interviews and such.