Real magic

In Harry Potter, people can fly through the air and shoot bolts of energy, but it's all part of an unshaken third person perspective—strange physics in a spotlessly objective metaphysics. In The Magicians, magic does the work of physics, like bending light. In His Dark Materials, there are different realities, but the doorways are clean portals, out there in the world.

In real magic, it's the mind that's bent, and the doorways between worlds are in our perspectives. Two people side by side can be in different worlds and not know it. Battles between worlds are not gunmen coming through portals, but people getting each other to look differently.

From Ran Prieur’s 068.
I don't have much to say about real magic because I can't say I ever felt like my mind has been bent—though it's certainly been broadened quite a lot—but the observation that most magic in storytelling is essentially just another of technology is very astute. Unsurprisingly, living in the technological system your entire life makes you see reality through a technological lens, which means that even enchanted worldviews get seen through that lens: controlling the external world without paying attention to subtle phenomenons like how you perceive reality.
People often say that technology is neutral—something which I completely disagree with ⁷—and that it is only a matter of how it is used, but then spend no time whatsoever thinking about how to actually become better users. You can add however much technology you want to solve older problems, but that too will reintroduce new, completely unforeseen problems that people can only be worse at dealing with, if they haven't consciously learned to use them better.
For instance, there is such a thing as being a poor reader of a book—which for the vast majority of human history is actually an incredible piece of technology, especially when you have an entire culture that teaches and uses reading—but this is nothing compared to being a poor user of social media, who spreads bullshit ideas, is engaged in narrative warfare and is constantly scrolling their feed like a zombie.
But the problems I see with inner change, compared to external control, are that

1. It isn't easily verifiable, which means for instance that institutions cannot easily create credentials out of them
2. It isn't easily scalable, it requires a personal instructor who cares and knows what they're doing
3. It isn't predictable, as opposed to institutions which can push you down a linear sequence of subjects with predictable results
4. It varies wildly from person to person, such that once again you need a personal instructor who can adapt to each person
5. It doesn't give obvious returns in terms of power. It can help people have a saner relationship with the world, but how does that help an empire grow?
As a result, coercion strikes me as a significantly easier way to create coordination at a scale, because of the short term incentive of power. But it only works in the short term, because the long term effects of coercion is of course rebellion, or a motivational collapse, or debasing the environment upon which we depend, etc. In other words, societal decline.

Footnotes

³ Without diving head first into hedonism that is. It is remarkable the extent to which addictions are fueled by simple boredom.

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2024-08-25