By J.K. Rowling

Originally published on 

 

on Aug 10th 2015

 

技术

J.K.罗琳

原载于

2015年8月10日

 

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.

 

当你可以召唤任何一本书、乐器或动物时，只要挥一挥魔杖，再加上“召唤”两个字！当你可以用猫头鹰、火、守护神、咆哮者、被施了魔法的物体，比如硬币，或者幻影显形来亲自拜访他们；当你的报纸上有动态的图片，日常用品有时会和你交谈，那么互联网似乎不是一个特别令人兴奋的地方。这并不是说你永远不会发现一个巫师或巫师在网上冲浪，只是他们这样做通常是出于轻微的居高临下的好奇心，或者在麻瓜研究领域做研究。

 

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.

 

虽然他们不需要洗碗机或吸尘器等普通的家用物品，但魔法社区的一些成员却被麻瓜电视逗乐了，一些狂热的巫师甚至走得更远，在八十年代早期，他们建立了一个英国巫师广播公司，希望他们能够拥有自己的电视频道。这个项目在早期就失败了，因为魔法部拒绝支持在麻瓜的设备上播放魔法材料，这几乎肯定会严重违反《国际保密法》。

 

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.

 

一些人认为，而且有理由认为，这一决定是不一致和不公平的，因为许多无线电已经被巫师界合法地修改为自己使用，这些无线电广播常规的巫师节目。魔法部承认，麻瓜们经常会听到一些小建议，比如如何修剪有毒的触手，或者如何最好地将侏儒从卷心菜床上移除，但他认为，听无线电的麻瓜群体似乎比麻瓜电视观众更宽容、更容易受骗，或者更不相信自己的理智。莫迪克斯·艾格教授的《世俗的哲学：为什么麻瓜们宁愿不知道》详细探讨了这种反常现象的原因。艾格教授很有说服力地指出，麻瓜更有可能相信他们听错了，而不是他们产生了幻觉。

 

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.

 

大多数巫师避免使用麻瓜设备还有一个原因，那就是文化。魔法界引以为傲的是，它不需要麻瓜们创造的许多（公认是巧妙的）设备，就能让他们完成那些用魔法可以轻易完成的事情。用滚筒干衣机和电话填满一个人的房子会被视为承认魔法的不足。

 

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.

 

对麻瓜科技普遍的魔法厌恶有一个主要的例外，那就是汽车（在较小程度上，还有摩托车和火车）。在《国际保密法》出台之前，巫师和麻瓜使用的是同一种日常交通工具：其中有马车和帆船。当马车变得明显过时时，魔法社区被迫放弃马车。毫无疑问，巫师们羡慕地看着快速舒适的汽车，这些汽车在二十世纪开始在路上行驶，最后，就连魔法部也买了一队汽车，改装成各种各样有用的符咒，非常喜欢。许多巫师都怀着孩子般的热情喜爱汽车，也曾有纯血统的巫师声称绝不碰麻瓜的人工制品，却被发现车库里有一辆会飞的劳斯莱斯然而，最极端的反麻瓜避开所有的机动交通工具；小天狼星布莱克对摩托车的热爱激怒了他强硬的父母。