[HPforGrownups] Not many U.S. Wizards

Sat Oct 6 15:59:40 UTC 2001

No: HPFGUIDX 27238

--- fourfuries at aol.com wrote:

> In fact it is probable that U.S. Wizards comprise a
> smaller 
> percentage of the U.S. population than wizards
> comprise of the 
> European nations.  If wizarding is passed down both
> as a science/art 
> and as a genetic disposition, it is easy to predict
> that the U.S., as 
> a realtively new nation lacking a wizarding
> tradition and being 
> notoriously hostile to the emergence of witchcraft,
> would have seen a 
> precipitious decrease in the wizarding passed on
> from generation to 
> generation.

   "Lacking a wizardly tradition!!" Leaving aside the
Native Americans I would point out immigrants bring
their traditions with them. There are 'little people'
in the Apalachians, Grims have been reported in lonely
sections of the US and we've got ghosts galore. Don't
tell me we don't have a 'Wizarding tradition'!.

> Consider that American Indian shaman were generally
> only one per 
> tribe atmost, and they were mostly killed off along
> with the rest of 
> aboriginal culture.

   There are today two million full blooded American
Indians in the United States, twice the estimated
number before the first Europeans landed. The
Shamanistic tradition is very much alive among them,
and may I add they are pissed as hell over 'New Age'
hijackings of their spritituality.

  Or how about the Salem withch
> trials, which 
> certainly drove magicking further underground,
> regardless of whether 
> the burnings at the stake tickled, or whether
> gillyweed and bubble 
> head charms were readily available to witches
> subjected to ritual 
> drowning.

twenty four people died during the Salem witchcraft
hysteria, a severely localized phenomena btw, nineteen
were hung, one pressed to death, the rest died in
prison. And this was the largest witch persecution in
American history. Falls pretty far short of the
thousands burned to death in Europe doesn't it?

> Further, and despite what the supremacists delude
> themselves into 
> believing, the American racial stew is so
> thouroughly mixed, the 
> bloodlines for a trait like wizard-ability must be
> awfully muddied.  
> Black, White, Indian, Irish, Mexican, etc., etc.
> etc. 

   Ever hear of 'hybrid vigor'? Since wizarding
ability occurs in all ethnic groups mixtures of same
would certainly not weaken the strain. The only thing
that might would be wholesale mixing with Muggles -
and even that seems to be necessary to preserve the
Wizarding strain according to Ron.

 How is any 
> gene supposed to pass from generation to generation
> in such an 
> intermingled environment?

   This is entirely meaningless. Whether genes get
passed down or not is entirely due to the shuffling of
chromosones and has nothing to do with racial mixing.

> This goes part and parcel with my final point. 
> Wizarding is conrary  to the American ideal.

>  In wizarding, all men are not created equal.  
> There are greater and lesser talents, and some have
> no talent at all.

   You think all Muggles are equal in ability? 'All
men are created equal' means equality before the law
not sameness of talent or intelligence or magic.

  There is not even the illusion of equality, as
> old line 
> families denigrate the lineage of mudbloods who
> struggle with their 
> muggle relatives over the meaning of this
> blessing/curse.

    At least that's the state of things in England. No
telling what the American Wizarding community's stand
is on 'blood' or Muggle relations.

  Americans, 
> having little sense of or use for tradition, prefer
> technology, 
> science, motor cars and such. They have no use for
> things that can 
> not be taken apart.  It is exactly why we continue
> to parse thiese 
> books.

   This is pure stereotyping. If true there would be
no American readers of these books.

> The British, on the other hand, have magic as a part
> of their 
> national history.  Arthur would not have been king
> but for a wizard 
> named Merlin and an enchanted sword and stone.  The
> Druids were up to 
> something at Stonehenge,

   The Druids had nothing to do with Stonehenge, it
predates them by some two thousand years. Modern
Druidical claims not withstanding.

 the evidence of which still
> stands.  The 
> very oldness of the land, the mysterious topography,
> its cold climate 
> and ageless traditions all support the propagation
> of the magical 
> arts in ways that the shiny new America can never
> hope to compete.

    All lands are equally old. The Rockies, the
Painted Desert, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, don't
qualify as 'mysterious topography'? Not to mention the
Anasazi ruins and the monuments of the Mound Builders.
If you want cold climate what about the Northeast? or
Alaska? 

> Sorry U.S. citizens, but I doubt there is more than
> one Diagon Alley 
> on the entire continent of North America.

    You're entitled to your opinion of course. Mine is
quite different. Considering the immigration from all
continents and cultures, the spaciousness of the
country and the dynamicism produced by a mixture of
races and ideas I would guess the American Wizarding
population rivals that of all Europe and is probably
considerably less frowsty and medieval.

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