In the books he's often weirded out by the celebrity he has, and the horrible expectations to live up to his myth.
He's surrounded by people who buy into glory and fame. Sometimes in an extreme manner, but also in little ways. For example, teachers are happy to cheat in contests in order to gain an edge for their schools. And the students are divided into houses, where they're played off each other by arbitrarily assigned "points" which they feel peer pressure to win for their house.
> > What offends the sensibility of equality (of outcome) is the idea
> >or possibility that some people are better than a whole lot of
> >others at things that matter greatly (in a particular scheme) and
> >that a whole lot are good at nothing much (of value by that same
> >scheme) at all.
Well, Harry Potter and his friends are portrayed as heroic. I think Potter in particular is depicted as a one-in-a-million kinda guy, with an unusual sense of fairness.
Then again, he's also portrayed in a fairly featureless and logical way, with typical faults and whatnot, and maybe the intention is to make the readers feel like they're being praised by proxy, since they likely empathize with his reasoning. Dunno.
That said, I happen to agree with your sentiments about breathlessly celebrating "greatness." It's not out of some deep leftie reason or anything. Just... people need to get a life. ;)
I mean, there are people who've strongly influenced me and I consciously try not to gush about. It's a human thing. But I also could talk your head off about zombies, and make dumb puns all day -- other things I should be more discreet about.
Tayssir