Magic in the wizarding world of Harry Potter and technology in our ordinary Muggle world are two sides of the same coin. Both magic and technology enhance our natural powers. Their uses also shape our natural and social worlds. We will examine and seek to understand the socio-political effects of magic in Harry Potter - in particular, the wizarding world's profound and systemic injustices.

1. Magic, Technology, and
Power

2. Magic, Technology, and
Power

3. Magic, Technology, and
Power
The Wizarding World's Problem
With Justice
Dr. Joel Hunter
Truckee Meadows CC July 2016

4. Does the Wizarding World have a
problem with justice?

5. Technology = Magic?
Historical Magic

6. Technology = Magic?
Historical Magic
Clarke’s Third Law
Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.

7. Technology = Magic?
Historical Magic
Clarke’s Third Law
Niven’s Law

8. Niven’s Law
“Any sufficiently rigorously defined magic
is indistinguishable from technology.”

9. J. K. Rowling
I have to know in detail what magic can and
cannot do in order to set the parameters and
establish the stories’ internal logic.
(1998)

10. J. K. Rowling
I spent a lot of time inventing the rules for the
magical world so that I knew the limits of
magic. Then I had to invent the different ways
wizards could accomplish certain things.The
five years I spent on HP and the Philosopher’s
Stone were spent constructing The Rules.
(2000)

11. Jacques Ellul
“Technology is the totality (the systematic
unity) of all rationalized methods of action.”
“Rationalized methods of action”
maximize efficiency and effectiveness

12. Technology as a Social Force
The “one best means”—absolute
Applied to all fields of knowledge and all
areas of society—universal
Limited only by society’s level of technical
development

13. The Logic of Technology
If a technical possibility can be developed…
It must be developed…
And applied…
…everywhere.

16. Promises, Promises

17. Technology  Tools
Value-neutral assumption
The technological principle does imply
values:
Effective
Efficient
Successful

18. Tools for Conviviality
Ivan Illich
Conviviality: life together in
peaceable, joyful concord;
shalom
1926-2002

19. Means and Ends
”Paradise to be Regained” (1843)
Review of The Paradise Within Reach of
All Men, Without Labor, by Powers of
Nature and Machinery: An Address to All
Intelligent Men (1842)

20. Means and Ends
Henry David Thoreau
All our inventions are but
improved means to unimproved ends.

21. Technological Imperio !

23. Education vs. Schooling
Hogwarts delivers technological instruction:
schooling
Tendency : to become a rational monopoly
Social Effect : the only authorized path to
knowledge, employment and social status
within the system

24. The Spirit of Technology

25. I, who have gone further than anybody
along the path that leads to immortality.
You know my goal − to conquer death.
And now, I was tested, and it appeared
that one or more of my experiments had
worked ... for I had not been killed, though
the curse should have done it.
—Goblet of Fire

26. Power
Technology  Invincibility

28. Voldemort’s expression remained impassive as he
said, “Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders
spite, spite spawns lies. You must know this,
Dumbledore.”
“You call it ‘greatness,’ what you have been doing,
do you?” asked Dumbledore delicately.
“Certainly,” said Voldemort, and his eyes seemed to
burn red. “I have experimented; I have pushed the
boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they
have ever been pushed—”
“Of some kinds of magic,” Dumbledore corrected
him quietly. “Of some. Of others, you remain…
forgive me…woefully ignorant.”

29. Greatness
Who will attain anything great if he
does not find in himself the strength
and the will to inflict great suffering?
Being able to suffer is the least thing
(…). But not to perish of internal
distress and uncertainty when one
inflicts great suffering and hears the
cry of the suffering—that is great, that
belongs to greatness.

30. Greatness
He has done great things…
terrible, yes, but great.
 Laurence
Peguy

31. “But I’m Not Voldemort!”

32. Oh, I had a few scruples. I assuaged my
conscience with empty words. It would all be for the
greater good, and any harm done would be repaid
a hundredfold in benefits for wizards.
And at the heart of our schemes, the Deathly
Hallows! (…) The unbeatable wand, the weapon
that would lead us to power! (…) the legend said
that the man who united all three objects would
then be truly master of death, which we took to
mean ‘invincible’.

33. Oh, I had a few scruples. I assuaged my
conscience with empty words. It would all be for the
greater good, and any harm done would be repaid
a hundredfold in benefits for wizards.
And at the heart of our schemes, the Deathly
Hallows! (…) The unbeatable wand, the weapon
that would lead us to power! (…) the legend said
that the man who united all three objects would
then be truly master of death, which we took to
mean ‘invincible’.

34. “But I’m Not Voldemort!”

36. Which Technological Future is
the Real Danger?
The arch-villain: architect of a social
system that grinds the humanity out of us
by brute force and terror?
The well-meaning, noble-intentioned
improver of humanity whose “solutions”
are applied to us for our own good?

37. Science Discovers,
Industry Applies,
Man…. Conform
s

38. Magic/Technology and Justice?
Does the technology diminish or
increase conviviality?
What are the social consequences if we
am committed to this technology?

39. Further Reading
Wendell Berry
Ivan Illich
Jacques Ellul

40. Thank You!
Dr. Joel Hunter
Truckee Meadows CC
www.joelhunterphd.com
hogwartsprep.com
FB: joelbhunterphd
@JoelHunterPhD