The secrecy motif/magic & muggles

lizzyben04 lizzyben04 at yahoo.com
Wed Dec 19 22:31:27 UTC 2007


No: HPFGUIDX 179975

> a_svirn:
> I don't think she made it "quite clear". She made it all as muddled 
> as it is humanly possible. Because in her books magic is not 
> something like "talent that's run in families". (Unless you mean a 
> magical talent like metamorphism.) Magic does not run in Muggle 
> families –  that's how we know they are muggle. 

lizzyben:

Uh, yes, magic does run in families. Magical/wizarding parents have 
wizarding kids. Muggles do not have wizarding children because they 
don't have the wonderful magical gene. Magic is totally based on 
family & heredity.


> a_svirn:
> I hope not, since I am the most unmusical member of my family. Yet 
> even I can be taught music and achieve some modest results. Anyone 
> can. All people can be taught maths enough to pass a simple school 
> test. Some people are more gifted linguistically, some less, but 
> anyone can acquire at least one language, and usually learn well 
> enough another. However, Muggles cannot be taught magic. Had 
Petunia 
> spent all her life at Hogwarts she wouldn't have been able to turn 
a 
> match into a pin. She hasn't got magic and that's all there is to 
it.

lizzyben:

Yes, cause Petunia doesn't have the magic gene. So it's even worse 
than my analogy of musical ability, because it's nothing to do 
w/learning or education, but is a purely genetic trait. You've got it 
or you don't - like some people can roll their tongues & some can't - 
not based on learning or training, but a totally random genetic 
thing. It's much more akin to inheriting blue eyes or brown eyes - 
only in this world people w/brown eyes are SUPERIOR and people 
w/brown eyes are inferior subhumans. 


> a_svirn:
> Do musical people share a different and distinctive culture? A 
> culture that is quite foreign to all the non-musical people? Do 
> people with blue eyes get together and found a separate 
civilisation? 
> Not even the Nazis did that – would have been a little difficult 
> considering that Hitler himself wasn't exactly blue-eyed and blond. 
> However, the wizarding world is called *wizarding* for a reason. It 
> is a world separate from the muggle one. And superior to it. 

lizzyben:

Ugh, basically what I'm not understanding is why you consider the 
wizarding world "superior". Pretty much everyone agrees that it's 
backwards, cruel, nasty, etc. The fact that they segregated 
themselves out from the "inferiors" to form their own society just 
proves my point - this is a society founded on eugenics. They have 
one random mutation, one gene that went YX instead of XY & now they 
consider themselves superior beings because of it. To be silly, 
tongue-rolling is a proven genetic recessive trait. It's like if all 
the people who could roll their tongues decided to consider 
themselves superior superhuman beings because of that random genetic 
trait, & decided to segregate themselves from the inferior non-tongue 
rollers. They also believe that this random genetic trait gives them 
the right to taunt, torment, & kill non-tongue rollers. That's 
stupid. This is stupid too.

> a_svirn:
> You know what? You are right. It is. Rowling's world is one huge 
and 
> *successful* experiment in eugenics. 

lizzyben:

Doesn't that bother you a little? After all, I thought the message 
was that bigotry was bad, that the Slytherins are evil because they 
believe in superior bloodlines, etc? And yet the entire fictional 
world is a "successful" experiment in eugenics? Just that very phrase 
creeps me out - eugenics experiment.*shiver* W/o even intending to, 
we're slipping into the same type of language that the Nazis used. 
And by "successful", you mean that she actually managed to create a 
superior race? 

> > lizzyben:
> The scary thing to 
> > me is how easily JKR gets us to play along & even agree w/a 
> worldview 
> > that operates on eugenics & a belief in genetic superiority. How 
> did 
> > JKR ever get us to agree that Muggles are inherently "inferior"? 
> > WE'RE Muggles, people! Are these wizarding idiots superior to 
you? 
> 
> a_svirn:
> I don't know about "we". I am happy to say that *I* am not a 
muggle, 
> any more than I am a witch. I live in a real world, not the awkward 
> universe of the HP books. Though of course, I can't help 
identifying 
> with muggles. 

lizzyben:

In the Harry Potter novels, you are a Muggle. So am I. The conceit of 
the novels is that this hidden world exists parallel to our own, & 
that the "muggles" are unaware of the wizards (or have their memories 
erased to forget). So, since we don't have wizard parents & can't see 
wizards around, we're Muggles. Therefore, the wizards consider us 
inferior beings whom they have the right to kick around. And we, as 
readers, are asked to identify w/the wizards over ourselves! We're 
asked to identify w/the "superior" & even the persecuting society 
over our own. That's really weird to me. 
>

> a_svirn:
> OK for xenophobia, but bigots only can be called thus if they are 
> *wrong* in their beliefs. If their creed is based on a prejudice. 
But 
> it is not a prejudice that muggles have no magic in them. It is the 
> truth, just as the fact that magic makes wizards superior is the 
> truth. 

lizzyben:

So it's your contention that it isn't bigotry for wizards to think 
that they're superior to muggles, because it's actually the truth. 
Just like it's not bigotry to consider elves natural slaves, or 
Slytherins naturally bad, because this is also the truth. What a 
wonderful world this is, where one can feel superior & elite to all 
others - normally we'd call that narcissism. Here it's the truth. I 
dunno, maybe that's part of the appeal of this series. So the reader 
can also feel smugly superior to the mere Muggles, the mean 
Slytherins, the stupid Hufflepuffs, the servile elves, the tricky 
goblins. We can vicariously share the feeling of being at the very 
top of the social hierarchy, the elite, the superior beings. 


> a_svirn:
> Because they have magic. That aforementioned magic gene 
miraculously 
> resurfaced. And with magic in them even having muggle parents does 
> not make them inferior genetically. So the prejudice is really 
> social, though as it is often the case with social prejudices the 
> actual allegations have racial overtones. 

lizzyben: 

No more miraculous than two brown-eyed people having a blue-eyed 
child. JKR doesn't know what she's talking about, but it's clear that 
she intended to base magical ability on genetics - w/certain 
recessive genes running in families, or reappearing in muggle-born 
children w/wizarding ancestors. The prejudice isn't social; it's 
genetic. They consider muggle parents to be genetically inferior 
because they don't display the magic gene. And I guess we don't 
disagree on that, or even in considering that position to be a form 
of eugenics. But I do not consider that superiority complex to be 
a "fact", any more than it is a "fact" that any random genetic trait 
makes some humans "superior" to others. We're all just human beings. 
Magic, tongue-rolling, I don't care. It's the same thing - a random 
recessive trait, not a ticket to god status, or a license to abuse 
others. 

And that type of thinking transfers to other areas, as well. It gets 
even creepier when you consider how many times people are dismissed 
as "bad blood" throughout the novels - so the Malfoys are 
inferior "bad blood", no good can come of them. The Gaunts are "bad 
blood" & thus doomed to be mad & inferior. Since the Slytherins in 
general are a bad lot, & usually entire families end up in that 
House... their badness is in their very blood, their very genes. This 
is reinforced when JKR says stuff like how Slytherin has 
been "diluted" - IOWs improving by getting people of better blood, 
not by changing the ideology. Contrast that w/the superior bloodlines 
of the Gryffindors - handsome, intelligent, noble, good. Harry's 
goodness is in his blood, just as JKR says. Morality, like magic, 
depends entirely on your bloodline.

> a_svirn:
> It's no more hypocritical than having a born slave to serve you a 
> sandwich. In real life it would be hypocrisy to say that there are 
> men and women whom Nature has ordained to serve you a sandwich. In 
> the Potterverse it would be hypocrisy to deny that elves' very 
nature 
> is to serve. 

lizzyben: 

And why, why, why would JKR create such a world? 

> a_svirn:
> It may not be surprising, but it's wrong. Because muggle-borns have 
> the distinctive trait that makes them wizards.

lizzyben: 

OK, so it's bad to look down on Muggleborns, but it's fine to 
consider Muggles/non-magical people to be an inferior race. It's fine 
to consider someone to be superior or subhuman based on a random 
genetic trait - like eye color, or hair color, or skin color. These 
books are just one long plea for tolerance, for sure.





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