Oz enjoyed being called astute by Minister Ross; he did not know if he was persuading the Minister of anything in this conversation but if nothing else it had been an enjoyable one, and Oz considered that a win given their total lack of social history. "If you agreed with them on everything they wouldn't be appointments, they'd be cronies," Oz pointed out with a good-natured chuckle. He had always valued debate — as was probably obvious to anyone who had even superficial knowledge of his marriage.
The conversation turned into an area Oz was a little less comfortable with. He didn't tend to involve himself much with conversations about education; he had no children and never planned to have any, and his siblings were all well clear of Hogwarts politics by this stage. He also did not tend, generally, to be in favor of handing out money for programs intended to promote social mobility, though he did not talk about this suite of opinions as frequently. Making things better for the poor was one thing, and he was in favor of those sorts of programs — and he dutifully made donations at any charity social event he was invited to — but he had no interest in pretending that class differences didn't exist, or in actually being asked to interact with the working class as peers. So a scholarship fund would not have been his idea, if asked to strengthen education, but he could recognize that he was ill-informed enough that he couldn't argue against it, either.
"No one ever thinks of themselves as part of the problem," he said, about the nepotism piece — there at least he could confidently agree with Ross' stance. "Education is a difficult issue," he admitted. "I suspect part of the reason we have such differing opinions on how to achieve a stronger education system may be that we don't all agree on the underlying premise — that is, the purpose of educating in the first place."
The conversation turned into an area Oz was a little less comfortable with. He didn't tend to involve himself much with conversations about education; he had no children and never planned to have any, and his siblings were all well clear of Hogwarts politics by this stage. He also did not tend, generally, to be in favor of handing out money for programs intended to promote social mobility, though he did not talk about this suite of opinions as frequently. Making things better for the poor was one thing, and he was in favor of those sorts of programs — and he dutifully made donations at any charity social event he was invited to — but he had no interest in pretending that class differences didn't exist, or in actually being asked to interact with the working class as peers. So a scholarship fund would not have been his idea, if asked to strengthen education, but he could recognize that he was ill-informed enough that he couldn't argue against it, either.
"No one ever thinks of themselves as part of the problem," he said, about the nepotism piece — there at least he could confidently agree with Ross' stance. "Education is a difficult issue," he admitted. "I suspect part of the reason we have such differing opinions on how to achieve a stronger education system may be that we don't all agree on the underlying premise — that is, the purpose of educating in the first place."
MJ is the light of my life <3