As I get older, the more I struggle to understand the Wizarding World's relationship to muggles. The Wizarding World seems to have two chief perspectives on how to interact with muggles.
- Go to extreme lengths to hide the existence of wizards from muggles, in hopes to protect wizard and muggle alike.
- Reveal wizarding existence to muggles, and dominate over muggles.
I understand there exists historical reasoning behind both of these perspectives, but what strikes me is their extremely binary nature. From my perspective, there seems to be a clear middle ground that is left out of the discussion...
Reveal wizarding existence to muggles, and attempt peaceful coexistence with one another.
To be clear, I am not arguing that this position would work out (though it may), but the lack of advocacy is bizarre IMO. Particularly because it is easy to imagine that witches and wizards with ties to the muggle world (and many without) would feel a moral imperative to use their talents for the betterment of the world as a whole.
Surely a witch like Hermione would have feelings about the fact that she could fix dental fillings in seconds by uttering the word "repairo", and it took her parents years of schooling to do the same in a two-hour torture session?
Dentistry jokes aside, the use of magic outside the magical world would have profound implications. Human conflict, famine, climate change, crime, medical suffering, economics...
To be fair, I do feel like the separation of wizarding and muggle worlds helps make the story immersive, but I do wish there was more explanation as to why these two positions dominate wizarding culture.
Is there something in canon I am missing?