The secrecy motif/magic & muggles

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 179998

> > a_svirn:
> . For one thing, they aren't completely 
> > autonomous (as a social or cultural entity, I mean), for another, 
> > while they might reproduce their culture, they do not dabble in 
> > selective breeding in order to pass deafness on to the next 
> > generation, as far as I am aware of.
> >
> 
> Pippin:
> 
> It's happened....
> 
> http://jme.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/28/5/283
> 
> This was  obviously extreme, and highly controversial.

a_svirn:
Obviously. 

> Pippin:
> But the  Deaf do seek to actively transmit their culture across 
> the generations by more conventional means, and do see themselves 
> as apart from those who acquire deafness but are not part of their 
> culture.
> 
> http://www.nad.org/site/pp.asp?c=foINKQMBF&b=180410
> 
> Obviously the Deaf aren't trying to keep their existence a
> secret. But Google returned 28,300 hits for "deaf separatism"
> JKR's wizards aren't unique in their desire to isolate themselves,
> only in their success. 
> 
> But it has little to do with eugenics, since having a non-magic 
> partner apparently does not increase your
> chances of producing a squib or a weak wizard. 

a_svirn:
And yet the magic civilisation reproduces itself genetically, not 
just "transmit their culture across the generations". You can't be 
inculturated into the WW if you lack the magic gene. If any 
group's "separatism" is based on genetics it has very much to do with 
eugenics: they include those with the required hereditary trait and 
cull all those who lack it. (In other words all those who comprise 
what you call for some reason "the dominant culture".)