Harry Potter - Education, Population, and Socioeconomics

As quaint as they find Muggle society, Witches and Wizards in Harry Potter seem to have a very peculiar culture of their own. After watching the films and some exhaustive online research, I find myself asking a few fundamental questions. Generally, my roommate has silenced these queries with "Oh my god shut up its just a movie you're ruining it for me," but she's not here right now, so ha!

Religion:

Christmas is still celebrated, granted in its most secular aspects but still the modern form, yet what are miracles in a world of magic? Excepting resurrection, which is achieved only through the legendary resurrection stone or the blackest magic of horcruxes, every miracle traditionally attributed to Christ is taught to the average third-year. Water to wine, levitation, aparating food. These are straight-forward. (Apparently food cannot be created, only moved. This is one of magic's few fundamental restrictions, so maybe Jesus was simply an epic chef?)

There is an afterlife. Whether you've personally seen it and talked to your dead relatives and headmaster aside, ghosts are a common sight during lunch period. This … has got to put a damper on the bible and organized religion in general. If nothing else, it should codify it somehow. In the wizarding world, has the public knowledge of existence after this mortal realm simply anesthetized the more fanciful aspects of religious fervor from our hearts? Are there no Jews, no Muslims, Buddhists, or Sumerian worshipers? Since Hogwarts was founded half a millennium before the breakaway of the Anglican church, I'm going to assume they were originally Catholic at best, if not outright Pagan and animists. Perhaps they simply adopted the trappings of Christmas out of English cultural camouflage.



Culture:

Which brings us to Wizard-Muggle interaction.

Apparently, the upper echelons of the Muggle world are aware of and work with the wizarding community, but it should be universally recognized that with their own history, technologies, cultures, government, and penal systems, the magical world remains completely autonomous from its mundane counterpart.

According to my roommate, a subplot from the books which never made it to screen involved Mr. Weasely's hobbyist fascination with Mundy technology, outfitting a car with levitating ability and accruing a collection of batteries. According to her, magic and muggle devices do not play well together. Sure. Fine. Don't cross the streams. I got you.

However at what point did wizard give up on technology and become complacent? Steam engines and rail cars certainly caught on for long-distance mass transport, but fireplaces, toilets, brooms, and just general aparating seem the de facto methods of transport for small groups. Streetlights are usable, but not common to the magical realms. It would not be unreasonable to say a eternally burning candle is more efficient, but this raises so many conservation of energy questions I'd like to set it aside for a moment.

At what point did wizards stop developing better equipment for daily life? The only innovations seem to be in the scope of brooms, candies and jokes, and odd personal tinkering. Culture itself seems to have stalled out some time in the early 20th century, fashion-wise, and earlier still in regards to non-magical items of utility. Perhaps we're only missing a larger picture, missing the long and varied history of magical computational tools and dictating devices. The movies do take place from 1990-1997, mind you. It's unreasonable to assume Hermione would have brought a MacBook along with her cat.

Perhaps the complete lack of awareness to modern Muggle technology and society is indicative of how we ourselves remain predominantly unaware of customs and standards in even nearby foreign nations. Is it better, then, to consider Wizarding Britain a country unto itself, occupying overlapping though quietly ceded territory with the U.K. proper?



Money, Economics, and Government:

All these items come together in a disastrous head: How the hell do Hogwarts and the wizarding community even function?

Hogwarts as a school was founded in the year 990, by the four most prominent and talented magicians of their era, somewhere in Scotland. This predates England as a unified kingdom in any semblance, and thus establishes it as a separate, non-governmental entity.

Jumping to modern usage, Hogwarts prepares all students for their O.W.L. examinations, a government-approved standardized test for budding wizards roughly akin to a combination of the SATs and a drivers test. The Ministry of Magic maintains a close relationship with the school, but it is officially a private institution.

Since only the philosopher's stone–at very, very great cost mind you–can actually create gold, actual work must go into creating the wealth by which Hogwarts is kept functioning. Wizarding families have varying economic classes, and Harry Potter himself is of no small fortune, a capitalist economy, albeit mitigated by the ability to essentially create most objects given the right materials, talent, and time–so, life–is evident. Three types of currency are also noted, exemplifying this system: 29 bronze Knuts to a silver Sickle, 17 Sickles to a gold galleon. (It's like the Imperial system on crack.) So who pays students' tuition?

It should be recognized that Hogwarts admits students very oddly. They are granted placement, and though expected to procure their own supplies, tuition, room and board, even transportation costs seem to be gifted by scholarship. It is a huge honor to be accepted to Hogwarts.

And yet every Weasley for three generations, ass-poor, has been admitted, up to four at a time. That's not fiscal prudence, that's legacy. A possible theory is that, due to its prolific nature, Hogwarts has, over a full millennium of scholarship, amassed an insane fortune from endowments, invested it wisely, and uses the proceeds to pay the way for every student who walks through its doors, likely with a not small government subsidy for adhering to O.W.L. guidelines (which they likely developed, mind you).

While other countries' schools are mentioned (never in the New World, mind you; it's quite curious American wizards never had anything to say or intervene about with the whole 'dark lord starting an ethnic cleansing' thing), Hogwarts appears to be the only Magical school in the whole of the UK. Unless they're homeschooled, every British child of hocus-pocus blood goes through those doors. These numbers cannot possibly add up, at least at face value. We know there are at least several thousand adult magic users in London's magical shopping districts alone. We've seen international Quidditch matches attended by the tens of thousands, with thirteen professional teams in England and seven different newspapers reporting on their seasons.

Or, just maybe, there is simply a wizarding version of public school, and once again we have simply viewed the lives of incredibly lucky or incredibly wealthy, predominantly white kids in high school, with a dash of alluding to racism and a whole lot of elitist class bullshit just like every other British story of the last 60 years.



But perhaps not.


Population:

How many students are there, really? J.K. Rowling initially claimed there to be about a thousand students at Hogwarts, though later revised this to about 600 as she had only written around 40 characters in Harry's year. The internet seems to have settled on three-hundred. My roommate, though I can find no mention of this number, insists there are 50 students admitted to each house, each year. That's 200 students per grade, with 7 years of schooling between them. Rounding up for error–assuming fifty is an approximate average, that's at most only 1500 undergrads at any given moment. Roughly a small community college. So somewhere between 300 and 1500 is our answer.

According to Ask.com, in 2012 there were 10,466,700 schoolchildren in the whole of the UK, roughly 18.7% its total population. The population in 1998 was roughly 50 million in total, so assuming relatively stable matriculating rates over the last 16 years, that would provide Harry Potter's United Kingdom just about 9.35 million children on the high end. Comparing these two figures, we arrive at a Wizarding student, and therefore total population that is approximately 1.6% of the total British commonwealth (about 800,000 in 1998 and just about 900,000 today). On the low end, that leaves us only 1600 wizards in 1998. Spread out over the whole of the United Kingdom, this number is, at face value, insubstantial to maintain the communities seen, so the larger of the two is more likely.

That said, Hogsmeade, the closest town to Hogwarts for many miles, is the only all-wizard village in all of Scotland. What we see in London is Diagon Alley, a single street crammed full of every magical shop imaginable, and the only openly magical thoroughfare in London. While there may only be upwards of 40 or 50 shops, since we know magicians can play with spatial relations, both of people and objects, it is entirely possible that this community is displaced from the natural world to some degree, squished into less volume than it appears, or that the entryway to the Alley is in fact merely a gateway through which one is 'adjusted' to a new, more fitting, width.



The short of it is, there is a sizeable Wizard community in England–albeit a sliver minority in the total human population–and the vast majority of these magic users must go without formal education. They must take vocational training, go into family businesses, or otherwise become menial laborers. There seem to be no repercussions for dropping out after passing the O.W.L.s, as two of the Weasley clan did, though doing so before passing the follow-up N.E.W.T.s would prevent a student from landing government  and private sector jobs in certain fields.

Of Irony

This past Friday I got into some heated debates about socialism and health care and laissez faire economics and Ayn Rand and other good stuff. The only trouble, really, was that this went on for the majority of a few solid hours. I love arguing, but, well, there were cute girls at this party.

About 4 a.m. Jay walks down the stairs after making himself a bowl of Kraft EasyMac to find me sitting down, my head in my hands, looking haggard, and a furrowed brown gently massaged by the temple. He chuckled as he neared me, soaking in the irony of the great Dave laid low by the drudgery of entrenched opinions held by young geniuses to mired in small lives to see the complexity of grander designs.

"The use of words for something other than their literal intention.
Now that is irony." Here it was the situation, but whatever.

On the up-side, he totally thought I was humbled enough by what all my friends must put up with around me to give me some EasyMac, and that was just glorious. I'm totally down for the Revolution if we all get EasyMac.

On Political Mailers

I got some mail the other day. Who is trying to get me to vote for/against who/what now?

 

Yup. Republicans. Maybe they're thinking I'm somewhat disheartened after being a registered democrat for all of 6 years. Maybe it's time for a change I can believe in.

Not so much. I laughed out loud, alone in my car when I saw the return address on this was "The Republican National Committee." No, guys, I'm sorry. It's nothing against you personally, though I have severe personal issues with some of you. The problem's just that I actually understand how economics work, how logical debates work, and that I just don't have nearly enough money to buy into any of your domestic policies. Sorry!

But let's at least look at your bullet points. It'd be unfair to dismiss you otherwise.

"Republicans have a plan to get us back on track

Republicans will stop Democrats' runaway spending and return Washington's focus to where it belongs:

• Stopping the tax hikes that would paralyze our recovery
  No, raising taxes helps the economy. How is there anyone left who doesn't know this after 11th grade History class?
  
• Ending the climate of uncertainty that has small businesses afraid to hire
  Not an actual plan in any way.
  
• Changing the culture of waste in Washington
  But Republicans are the culture in Washington. Considering how splintered Democrats are, Republicans are the largest functioning group.
  
• Ending reckless spending and bailouts, and paying down the debt
  And spending the money instead on things republicans like, resulting in more lax economic policies and eventually necessitate bailouts. Brilliant.
  
• Repealing the government takeover of healthcare, and replacing it with common sense reforms that reduce costs
  … for the percentage of the population that can actually afford to buy sufficient coverage.

No, no thank you. I'll continue to be a leftist, since that's still alright to do. I'm only registered anything so that I can vote the least useful characters out of one primary.

I had a history teacher my senior year of high school who described himself as a "Stealth Democrat." He'd been a registered Republican for probably 40 years but hadn't voted anything but Democrat in at least 25. Way to be, Mr. V.

On Capitalism

I thought this was only fair, as I covered Socialism on Friday.

Capitalistic Names For My Genitals:

• "Enron" - Because I lie about how big it's actually been growing.
  
  
• "Goldman Sachs" - Because it collapses at the worst possible time.
  
  
• "The Free Market" - Because no one should put any restrictions on where it can go or what it can do.
  
  
• "eBay.com" - Because I've certainly gotten a lot of use out of it myself, but someone else might want to play with it for a change.
  
  
• "The Bear Market" - Because my family is quite furry.
  
  
• "The Sock Exchange" - Because I'm packing?
  
  
• "The Nikkei" - Because my numbers seem much larger in Japanese.
  
  
• "E pluribus unum" - Because "out of many, one" certainly applies to sperm cells.
  
  
• "John Maynard Keynes" - Because of "trickle down" economics.
  

On Hot Pockets

Hot Pockets, Jim Gaffigan's favorite food-like product of lyrical self-reference, have a new product for which they are jamming the airwaves: hamburger Hot Pockets.

Yes, they've gone the extra mile to break apart the mystery meat in their oddity-filled pasty crusts. Ostensibly this is so we don't have to chew as much.

What bothers me is that they're not really marketing this as a product to be desired. Instead they're taking the more modern approach, that is selling us on an emotion that makes us feel better than everyone else. They're selling us not-racism.


There's not even a veil over it. Hot Pockets is comparing it's the method by which you eat their product, hands-only, with other qualities that have experienced unwarranted social injustice, i.e. race, gender and sexuality.

They can't even include a black guy in the commercial, because then we'd be wondering if all the "foodist" fuddy-duddies were just bigots. Of course they obviously couldn't include any gays, as no self respecting homosexual is going to set foot anywhere near a Hot Pocket unless it's greaseless, vegetarian and stuffed with a spinach and artichoke cream sauce. Or hummus.

Now, I'll admit one of my favorite internet images of all time is the picture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a delicious frozen orange treat simply captions, "I HAVE A DREAMSICLE."


But this is just a step too far. I'm supposed to like Hot Pockets filled with granulated, pre-processed beef(?) sauteed in its own grease and non-dairy cheese substitute because other white people fucking feel bad?

No, I'm sorry. Yeah, that whole slavery thing sucked. Yeah, Christians fucked a lot of people over. Constantly. Still do. But you know what? That wasn't me. In fact I'm Jewish. We did the whole slavery thing ourselves so that second trip around can't even be considered our fault. The rest of my family's non-practicing Protestants.

And frankly even they were poor as fuck. Not like they could have afforded a slave.

Although I've always wondered why our Southern Italian family caries an African-only genetic blood disorder. Great Uncle Othello always keeps mum about it.

On Thriftiness

My mother told me the other day that we need to start spending less so we can eventually move to a cheaper place and allow her to quit her horrible job she hates but which pays for a very nice apartment.

Her main talking point was the need to buy generic and plan more meals in advance, things like entire roasted chickens which could yield multiple meals. Additionally, we should eat less fast food. I suggested we cut back on the fruit, because she has been going fruit crazy lately, paying upwards of $4 for a 1/2 pint of raspberries. Outrageous. She proceeded to tell me that this was to encourage me to eat healthier.

Tired of the conversation, I casually informed my mother that I only but berries when they are ripe and under $3 a package, that I eat far better than she does, that I restrict my fast food diet to $10 every two-to-three days, that my daily meals are based in non-perishables and bulk perishables that are always in the house (rather than costly one-time items), that most of my ingredients are off-brand already and that over the last 6 weeks the only time I've allowed my mother's money to pay for my meals out was on the day when she was being incredibly condescending to me.

Oh, also I told her she still owes me $305.67 for going grocery shopping for her all the time.

Granted she was a tad miffed, but most of that was her not getting to go through with her frugality speech as planned. Nothing like getting a lecture on responsible finance planning along with a bill. From your son.

On Probable Cause

Ever since my grandfather went into the nursing home we've been helping my grandmother get all the finances and insurances and assorted paperwork in her name.

Most recently, it was decided that she needed somebody new to have joint access to her checking account, in case there is an emergency and she is out of town or in a coma or otherwise incapable of reaching her money.

Her daughter, my aunt, can't legally do it as she has power of attorney over that account and that would represent a conflict of interests. My mom can't do it because she works at minimum ten hours a day, six days a week. Also, she divorced my dad twenty years ago.

So guess who got signed up for the job, due to his complete unemployment and total availability (assuming you count nocturnalism as availability)?

That's right, boys and girls. If my grandmother drops dead from any mysterious accident, I have to hope no major transactions were made recently, because I can expect a call from Lenny Briscoe et al wondering what the neerdowell grandson was up to, worming his way into grandma's pocketbook.

This is in fact what the little Hispanic lady working our transaction thought. I was cool with handing over my ID, and the phone number was fine and I even recognize that doling out my social is perfectly acceptable now, there are just vague dystopian sci-fi elements to it. Once she asked me what my annual income was I was livid. I hate that question. Apparently it's the most important question any advertiser can ask you because it breaks down who buys what, but you know what? Fuck you. What fucking right do you have to ask me about how much I earn? That's none of your goddam business, assholes.

Eeeexcept if its a bank asking. That's, uh, kind of all their business is, in fact.

I swallowed my outrage and moved forward, butfor me moving forward entailed me saying, "Well, I just graduated, so I'm unemployed." Technically I'm six months unemployed, but she didn't ask that. What she did ask makes her a bitch-and-a-half. Maybe five-eighths.

"But you must do something…," she said.

Fuck you, whore, I'm a mutherfuggin writer. I write books an shit you ain't heard of. Sooo I told her I'm in the process of writing a book so I make nothing right now, but I thought a really angry face at her. Hopefully somewhere in her head she saw me being really angry and the words "Que malo, puta."

But I showed her.

Soon after she looked at her screen, puzzled. "Is this right?" she asked. "You have zero credit?" Now I had actually been wondering about this. I have a check card and a copy of my mom's credit card for emergencies. I also have no student loans, which is unheard of. Not 'I paid them all off already,' I literally have never had a student loan.

"Oh, yes, I wanted to check that but, yes, that's right. No credit at all."

"You don't have, like, a credit card?"

"Nope."

"No student loans?"

"Nope. That's how I can afford to be unemployed." Face!

Bitch just let out "Lu-ckyyy…," and shut the hell up. So yeah, she thinks I'm a spoiled little Jew heir, but that's probably an apt comparison since I'm pretty sure she grew up in some Venezuelan fishing village and everyone in this country seems rich.


Down side: New York shot down legalization of gay marriage 38-24 today.

Up side: Today I made the best Christmas gift ever. After having to wake up when it was still light out made me insanely productive. Got some Hanukkah shopping done and made something cool I will post some time soon. (It's a surprise.)