Identifying with Muggles in Potterverse WAS: Re: DD at the Dursleys:

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 158121

> 
> > Betsy Hp:
> > Hmm, see I have it as exactly opposite.  The wizards are the 
> insular 
> > xenophobes, with little that is beautiful and soul enriching 
> > surrounding them.  They know nothing of art or music or 
> literature.  
>
> phoenixgod2000:
 
> First of all, thats not true. They certainly at least have art and 
> music at the very least. This isn't a treatis on wizarding culture 
> so we don't know much about them because Harry doesn't care all that 
> much but they have the weird sisters and the wizarding wireless, 
> celestia Warbeck and the apparently superior music of the french
> (according to Fleur at least :) Hogwarts seems fairly littered with 
> paintings so they must have some magical artists coming around.
> 

Ken:

I reached the same conclusion as Betsy a couple of weeks ago. You 
can *claim* that the WW has a culture but they sure don't teach it
at Hogwarts. Celestina Warbecks and the Weird Sisters strike me as
the probable equivalent of American Idol -- decent enough pop 
culture but not works for the ages. The photos and paintings we 
see are more like devices than art. They are interesting because of
what they do, no one seems to react to them based on their artistic
merit. No one mentions that they have any.

Even if they didn't have a culture of their own you would think they
would study English culture and history. Hogwarts has no art classes,
no music classes, no literature classes. Hogwarts is like the engineering
student's dream school, no humanities, just the "good stuff". That 
strikes even this electrical engineer as an odd world for a writer to 
create. A lot of hard science fiction novels I read have more cultural
references in them than Harry Potter does. I supose that Muggle Studies
*might* cover some of this but it seems to be a class of one, doesn't
it? And that one is one who needs it least. With all the trouble wizards
and witches have blending into Muggle society, something that is 
critical to their beloved secrecy act, you would think that Muggle Studies
would be a required course.

> phoenixgod2000:

> As for literature, no, they don't seem to have much (that we know 
> of) but I don't blame them.  With magic, their lives are more 
> interesting than book I can think of.  Charlie wrangles Dragons for 
> gods sake.  Bill is freakin' Indian Jones marrying a fairy 
> princess.  Dumbledore is Gandalf the Grey come to life. In world 
> with hundreds of prophecies, ghosts that teach classes, Olypmic 
> events performed against dragons, magic is all the mystery and 
> fantasy anyone could ever want.
> 
> And for them it's real.  
> 
> I wouldn't read much either.
> 

Ken:

The success of Gilderoy Lockheart's books would argue otherwise.
As in the Muggle world the many live mundane lives. The few live
exciting lives and write books for the rest of us.

From Newton to Hawking, from Chaucer to Tolkein, from Handel
to the Stones, these people live in an absoultely fascinating culture
and they seem to ignore all of it except to look down on it. Magic
does not seem to enrich their lives at all. Everything they do is 
deriviative of Muggle culture and technology. They contribute some
minor enhancements but mostly magic makes them lazy and 
that laziness reaches its zenith in the intellectual realm. There is 
little if anything to admire about this world. The magic we see 
has the primary effect of making everything more dangerous. This
is a world where everyone walks around with a cocked and loaded 
pistol in their pocket. The complete opposite of the society they
live in.

Really the only thing charming about the Potterverse is that against
all odds we do meet some very nice people there. And then *we* 
seem to spend all our time trying to make these nice people out to
be horrid, bigoted monsters!

Ken