[HPforGrownups] Is HP Magic Different across Cultures? (was Re: Diversity...

[ksnidget at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 40765

Naama writes:

>This is an interesting subject. As I see it, magic (within the logic 
>of the Potterverse, of course) is quite different from religion, 
>dress, cultural customs, etc. Magic is a practical thing. It is a 
>that a person can either have or not have, but no matter in what 
>community, it is the same kind of power. For instance, people run in 
>the same way no matter where they were born. So, if you want to coach 
>somebody in athletics, you apply the same methods, no matter what 
>that person's cultural heritage is. 
>A more fitting analogy may be engineering. It isn't really meaningful 
>to talk of European engineering, Chinese engineering or Aztec 
>engineering, is it? Engineering is the same all over the world, since 
>it rests on objective forces and laws of nature. 
>Magic as a cultural construct we have in the real world. In the 
>Potterverse, magic is a real, objective force. Learning the rules and 
>the various ways of using this force shouldn't differ between 
>different cultures, then. 
>At least, there may be local developments. Wizards from one community 
>may find (or make?) spells that are not known in another community. 
>Unlike cultural customs, however, those spells would work just as 
>well in the other community (if practiced there). To return to the 
>engineering analogy, it would be like an American engineer learning 
>the specific methods involved in building a pagoda. 
>Following on this, then, I'd say that parents wouldn't mind where 
>their children learnt magic - so long as it's at a good school (in 
>the same way that you wouldn't mind where your kid learns 
>engineering, or biology, or physics, etc.).

One thought that is crossing my mind (warped as it is)
is that the culture one springs from may very well effect
the directions that the practical applications are used in.

For example Chinese inventors came up with gun powder
and made fireworks.  Others coming across the same
thing made guns.

How much those deep cultural differences effect magical
development through time could have some effect later on.

I study Taijiquan and we do a fair amount of background into
Chinese culture in my school. What is striking me is what
magic seems to be common place in Chinese life.  To be a
civil servant in the Muggle Chinese Gov't for most of history 
you had to know the I Ching by heart.  That was what the
civil servant exam was, etc.  

How much the cultural tradition of the 5 elements, Chinese
cosmology, Herbology, and the I Ching system of divination
may have had on magical development may add up to some
differences at least in what areas/focuses magic ended up
going in.  Some practical things will be similar (although the
theory of why it works may look completely different) as they
would have to be.  After all who doesn't want to be able to
create some light when it is dark.

But I tend to think that there could be some fairly profound
differences between Chinese and European magic.
K.









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