7Sagers,

I have an op-ed in the New York Times about Harry Potter today! Notice the call-out of an assumption in an argument I'm trying to take down. Everything you're learning for the test applies in the real world too!

Just for fun, I'll share a few paragraphs which they cut, and which rely on the idea of necessary conditions:

Opponents of YA-reading adults aren’t Puritans; they don’t believe that literature ought to instruct and improve us. On the contrary, Beha and Graham rely on the concept of pleasure. The core sentiment is approximately this: “It’s weird that adults find YA so enjoyable. Those books are so basic.” In Graham’s words,

These books consistently indulge in the kind of endings that teenagers want to see, but which adult readers ought to reject as far too simple…These endings are emblematic of the fact that the emotional and moral ambiguity of adult fiction—of the real world—is nowhere in evidence in YA fiction. These endings are for readers who prefer things to be wrapped up neatly, our heroes married or dead or happily grasping hands, looking to the future.

Never mind that Shakespeare and Dickens and the Brontë sisters, all of whom get name-checked in Graham’s piece, wrap up many of their works with perfect bows. I just don’t believe that ambiguity or complexity are necessary conditions of pleasure. Books can be good in many different ways. Are the Harry Potter books morally simplistic? Sure, but it doesn’t matter. Rowling mastered the ancient magic of storytelling, which is why Harry is the boy who lived, and still lives, in our collective imagination.

Here's the article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/opinion/harry-potter-20th-anniversary.html?ref=opinion