《HP官方资料翻译集（物品篇）》霁随心

81、科技

　　【Pottermore上有关于科技（Technology）的内容】
　　（翻译参考了《【翻译】密室第二章《家养小精灵》第三章《科技》》）

　　当你可以挥动魔杖用飞来咒召唤任何书本、工具或者动物的时候，当你可以利用猫头鹰、火焰、守护神、吼叫信，或者任何带有魔法的方式例如硬币、幻影移行来和朋友私下交流的时候，当你的报纸上有可以动的照片，每天所有的物体都可以跟你说话的时候，网络似乎就不再是那么一个让人兴奋的地方了。但这并不意味着你永远不会找到一个正在上网的巫师。他们这么做，要么是处于一点点居高临下的好奇心，要么是在做关于麻瓜领域的研究。
　　然而他们并不需要那些寻常的电器例如洗碗机或者吸尘器，一些巫师仍然被麻瓜的电视机迷住了。在上世纪八十年代初，一些巫师为了拥有自己的电视频道而煽动大家组建英国巫师广播公司。但是这个计划被终止在了萌芽状态。魔法部拒绝在麻瓜设备上播放巫师界的广播内容，因为有人认为这样会有人认为严重违反国际保密条例。
　　有一些人站出来辩护说，这个决定不公平并且是矛盾的，因为巫师界许多收音机已被依法改造为自己所用，并且在播出普通巫师节目。魔法部承认麻瓜经常会听到一些小片段，例如如何剪掉有毒触手，怎么从卷心菜地里揪出地精，但魔法部同时表示，和看电视的观众相比，听广播的麻瓜群体似乎更宽容，容易受骗，并且不那么轻易相信自己的判断力。莫迪克斯·埃格教授最终在他的著作《世俗的哲学：麻瓜为何宁愿无知》中研究了这一反常现象。埃格教授在书中提到，跟产生幻觉相比，麻瓜更愿意相信是自己听错了。
　　还有另一个巫师总是回避麻瓜设备的原因，那就是文化。有一个魔法社会总引以为傲的事实，那就是他们并不需要麻瓜们的那些精密的设备就可以用魔法轻易做到很多事情。谁家如果有滚筒干衣机和电话，就等于是承认自己不怎么会用魔法。
　　但是在这些对麻瓜技术的厌恶中，有一个例外，那就是汽车（也包括摩托车和火车）。国际保密法出台前，巫师和麻瓜每天都在用同一种交通工具：马拉车和帆船。后来巫师社会被迫放弃马车，因为它们实在太过时了。否认巫师们对那些渐渐开始填满道路的高速且舒适的汽车强烈妒忌是毫无意义的，最后甚至魔法部都购买了很多汽车，用各种有用的魔法改装它们，并且的确相当享受。许多巫师对汽车有着孩子般的热情，还有一些声称坚决不碰任何麻瓜产品的纯血统人士，结果被发现他们的车库里停着一辆会飞的劳斯莱斯。然而，最极端的反麻瓜人士避免使用所有麻瓜的机动交通工具。小天狼星·布莱克对摩托车的热爱就激怒了他强硬的父母。

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作者有话要说：　　Technology
By J.K. Rowling

When you can summon any book, instrument or animal with a wave of the wand and the word Accio!; when you can communicate with friends and acquaintances by means of owl, fire, Patronus, Howler, enchanted objects such as coins, or Apparate to visit them in person; when your newspaper has moving pictures and everyday objects sometimes talk to you, then the internet does not seem a particularly exciting place. This is not to say that you will never find a witch or wizard surfing the net; merely that they will generally be doing so out of slightly condescending curiosity, or else doing research in the field of Muggle Studies.
While they have no need of mundane domestic objects such as dishwashers or vacuum cleaners, some members of the magical community are amused by Muggle television, and a few firebrand wizards even went so far, in the early eighties, as to start a British Wizarding Broadcasting Corporation, in the hope that they would be able to have their own television channel. The project foundered at an early stage, as the Ministry of Magic refused to countenance the broadcasting of wizarding material on a Muggle device, which would (it was felt) almost guarantee serious breaches of the International Statute of Secrecy.
Some felt, and with justification, that this decision was inconsistent and unfair, as many radios have been legally modified by the wizarding community for their own use, which broadcast regular wizarding programmes. The Ministry conceded that Muggles frequently catch snippets of advice on, for instance, how to prune a Venomous Tentacula, or how best to remove gnomes from a cabbage bed, but argued that the radio-listening Muggle population seems altogether more tolerant, gullible, or less convinced of their own good sense, than Muggle TV viewers. Reasons for this anomaly are examined at length in Professor Mordicus Egg's The Philosophy of the Mundane: Why the Muggles Prefer Not to Know. Professor Egg argues cogently that Muggles are much more likely to believe they have misheard something than that they are hallucinating.
There is another reason for most wizards' avoidance of Muggle devices, and that is cultural. The magical community prides itself on the fact that it does not need the many (admittedly ingenious) devices that Muggles have created to enable them to do what can be so easily done by magic. To fill one's house with tumble dryers and telephones would be seen as an admission of magical inadequacy.
There is one major exception to the general magical aversion to Muggle technology, and that is the car (and, to a lesser extent, motorbikes and trains). Prior to the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy, wizards and Muggles used the same kind of everyday transport: horse-drawn carts and sailing ships among them. The magical community was forced to abandon horse-drawn vehicles when they became glaringly outmoded. It is pointless to deny that wizardkind looked with great envy upon the speedy and comfortable automobiles that began filling the roads in the twentieth century, and eventually even the Ministry of Magic bought a fleet of cars, modifying them with various useful charms and enjoying them very much indeed. Many wizards love cars with a child-like passion, and there have been cases of pure-bloods who claim never to touch a Muggle artefact, and yet are discovered to have a flying Rolls Royce in their garage. However, the most extreme anti-Muggles eschew all motorised transport; Sirius Black's love of motorbikes incensed his hard-line parents.