One of the reasons people like to imagine themselves in a fantasy setting is because they imagine that their understanding of the setting would give them an advantage. They would be fantasizing about being more in control than they would be in the real world.

What they often miss is that the rules of the fantasy world would usually be in addition to the rules of the real world, in any sense that the rules of the fantasy world don’t negate the rules of the real world.

For example, in Harry Potter, the Wizarding world exists in secret, with most normal humans being entirely unaware of the secret society that would exist in their midst. Thus, it’s reasonable to assume that the basic laws of physics and sociology remain intact. And the fact that these rules would remain intact is very relevant, as it would mean that the introduction of a parallel Wizarding society would actually make the world far more complex!

To get right to my point, those who would wish that the wizard world was real might like to imagine that they’d be more successful in such a world, but they generally wouldn’t be. After all, if they would struggle in a world that’s already as complex as it is, why would they do any better if more complexity was added?

Consider the Free Palestine movement, which might seem like an anomaly. How did that happen? Why were so many young people tricked into siding with a known terrorist organization with genocidal aspirations, convinced that they’re fighting against genocide in so doing? On the surface, it doesn’t seem to make any sense.

Considering the changing nature of information media, one might imagine that it would be the responsibility of the public school system to teach students about how to recognize propaganda, deceptive rhetoric, and information warfare on social media. In other words, Defense Against the Dark Arts.

But that’s not happening. But why?

For one thing, the left has long succeeded in co-opting the public education system, which they use to propagandize young people. That on it’s own would render it self-defeating for them to teach children how to recognize propaganda and deceptive rhetoric.

But what’s more, the left also propagandizes young people through social media, which they had sweeping control of until Elon Musk purchased Twitter just recently. Even now, the left still controls much of social media, and heavily trusted information sites such as Wikipedia.

Do you really think that the left is going to teach young people how to defend themselves against propaganda, deceptive rhetoric, and information warfare when they themselves do these very same things to young people? If these people were to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, they’d just occupy the student’s time with gender theory.

Like in The Deathly Hallows, the Death Eaters are still running many of the major institutions. Would they teach anyone how to defeat them?

As a result, you see many young people today with no defense against information warfare. Thus, when Hamas realized that they can take to social media to convince American children to take up the fight on their behalf, they encountered little to no resistance as they did just that.

And now, the left is divided against itself by reason of their pro-Hamas faction. And the mainstream left doesn’t seem to have a clue what they can do about it. Except maybe employ antisemitic dog whistles in an effort to avoid alienating a substantial portion of their electorate, ignoring the irony that they once accused the right of the same.

Such is the damaging effect of the imperius curse.

There is a problem. But thankfully, there is a solution, and it’s relatively simple: begin to teach people to recognize propaganda, deceptive rhetoric, and information warfare.

The real-life Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Researching propaganda is fun by itself. A fascinating topic would be how Edward Bernays tricked many people into buying products like cigarettes by convincing them that professionals thought it was a good idea.

Learning about deceptive rhetoric would involve learning about the various fallacies that dishonest people hope you’ll ignore. A huge one is equivocation, which the left has wielded to unfortunately great success.

Information warfare would be a broader subject, and would involve learning how people on news media and social media might be trying to manipulate them. It’s important to understand how framing can be used to omit context, changing the potential interpretation of a given piece of media, such as short-form video. Also, knowing that not everyone who speaks your language is from your country helps immensely in avoiding foreign manipulation.

And you’re better off learning about these things, because the people who would put you under mind control do know all about them, and benefit from ignorance to them.

But if the Wizarding world of Harry Potter was real, there would be many young wizards out there who wouldn’t be handling things as well as they might like to imagine.