The effects of magic on society

[Mirannan]

This is a rather large subject, I know. Variables are the general tech level of the society in question, the general power level of the magic in the setting, how common it is and what magic can affect. And also whether the magic is actually magic at all - Clarke's Third comes to mind.

In the fiction I've seen containing magic, the tech level varies from Stone Age (rare) to interstellar civilisation (Star Wars and 40K) with just about everything in between. Most writers seem to pick something between Iron Age and modern day as a tech base, with a strong preference for mediaeval - Tolkein influence there, perhaps.

Magic power level varies from minor love spells and the like to cosmic - the latter being represented by the D&D setting, Wheel of Time and Young Wizards.

So, let's set up some examples. I mentioned this in another thread, but IMHO the politics and military history of the Roman era would have been drastically affected by some types of magic. A unit of heavy infantry in close order would be rather powerfully affected by large-area blasting spells, even if the damage is minor; think about what an insect plague would do to the unit cohesion of a Roman century, for example.

So if magic is common and reasonably powerful, the Roman army would have to be drastically different. IMHO, of course.

For another example, what would easily available truth-revealing magic do to any society?

 

[chrispenycate]

If you go back to Greek or Roman empires, you have to accept there was magic. Not, perhaps that we could have experienced (though I can tell you that, during a concert that is going well, you can feel it nowadays), but to them magic was just another technology that worked a bit less reliably than some, more so than others - and you countered your enemies' magic with your own, and with conventional weaponry, and the quality of your troops. And someone won, and someone lost. During the Byzantine period it might have been Christian priests against pagan, against Zoroastrian, but gods had featuted strongly in magic from the start.

It's not really until the renaissance, and Greek philosophy, purified of many of its superstitions, came back to edify the educated that magic was analysed, and the bits that worked codified, the others relegated to the racial subconscious. And even then, fertility rites, long outlawed, were rife in rural regions.

Indeed, for a large portion of our educated, literate population, there is no real understanding of where technology banishes the illogical. Trolls and monsters lurk very close - who can say why a mobile phone works, and what can have cursed it to fall silent in a built-up area. How many protective amulets, generally with a religious theme, do you see on the street, and what are they protecting us against? Working magic wouldn't have disturbed ancient civilisations, and I'm none too sure it would upset ours, much.

 

[EJ Heijnis]

Whether you're talking giant fireballs or mass confusion spells, the only way to confront magic on a battlefield is magic of your own. I suppose you could compare the effects to technologies like explosive shells, night vision, radar, radio, and so forth. A force thus equipped could defeat a much larger one armed only with basic firearms. Steven Erikson uses magic in a military setting and he does it very well, especially in Reaper's Gale, where it's the more subtle spells that make the difference.

As far as non-military applications, it really depends on the power and availability of magic. If everyone can afford it, it becomes a part of everyday life. If it's also powerful, then you get our modern society.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

If you go back to Greek or Roman empires, you have to accept there was magic.

No, there wasn't. There was belief in it, as there is today.

During the Byzantine period it might have been Christian priests against pagan, against Zoroastrian,

Hardly ever. Not in warfare (other than "auguries or prophecies") but more often in supposed individual cases of demonic possession etc. Even with the Greeks, stories of Troy and Gods etc was a long after the account. It was entertainment, not actual practice or a factual account. Every age has a had magical tales of an Arthur etc. I'm familiar with Church history and the differences between practice /belief / legendary accounts and actual accounts of wars etc. (Greece, Rome, Celts etc).

There is IMO as much lack of rationality today as 1000s of years ago amongst ordinary people. Often Scientists are bonkers outside their own field of expertise. As for various Governments ... they may not espouse traditional "magic", but rational?

I have been musing on the original post. I have some thoughts about what the effect would be of working "real" magic. We can see all around us today what effect it has on society very many people believing in magics that are imaginary.

 

[Brian G Turner]

There was belief in it, as there is today.

No, the belief was profound. It wasn't mere superstition - magic was considered as real then as we regard science now. It just wasn't the sort of RPG "fireball" magic we get too often in fantasy novels these days.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

No, the belief was profound. It wasn't mere superstition

Yes, I was saying that, but it wasn't real magic. There are people today ALSO with a totally profound belief in magic, though most of them don't call it magic.

Real profound belief is not the same as the ting being real. It's not an on/off or black/white issue either. There is a spectrum of "faith" / "belief" between rational view and total nonsense in all ages. The Romans at say 100 AD didn't all even believe the same things. Once you get any size of Civilisation there may be official religions, or officially sanctioned kinds of Magic. Not everyone will internally endorse the official ones and many people supported other things. Also most people didn't think about such things at all. There also needs to be a distinction between state ceremonial, magic and religion. Many religions might have non-rational systems or beliefs but that isn't magic per-se. Some religions at various times and places may have had followers that used or believed in Magic.

There are three aspects to belief:
1) A belief in Magic, that is that somehow change / influence: (few significant religions generally regard these as commonplace)
a) the minds of other people
b) their health (or their crops or animals)
c) Influence physic things
d) Weather
2) A belief that somehow the future or a best decision can be known: Auguries, Prophecy, Astrology. Some religions may have elements.
3) Malevolent, Beneficent or changeable "gods", "daemons", "spirits" of various kinds need to be guarded against, propitiated etc. This may overlap with religion.

Religion may have prophecies, miracles, deities and demons, but these are usually subsidiary to the actual religious system.

There is though no scientific evidence that any of it ever worked then or today. Elsewhere here there is a good analysis of different systems of magic that have and do exist.

Later I'll post my thoughts on how any society would be affected by real magic that actually works.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But people acted on that belief. They did things just as if magic really were real. So I think there is an argument to be made that things wouldn't have been significantly different if they had been right. Probably, it would only have made a significant difference if you are thinking of the kind of magic in D & D (and then you might as well be asking what would have been the difference if they had grenades and automatic weapons), and then you would have to also stipulate that one side would have better access to that kind of magic than the other would. At that point, wouldn't the question simply become, "what would have happened if one side had much more efficient weapons than the other?" And that's not really about magic at all.

 

[Mirannan]

But people acted on that belief. They did things just as if magic really were real. So I think there is an argument to be made that things wouldn't have been significantly different if they had been right. Probably, it would only have made a significant difference if you are thinking of the kind of magic in D & D (and then you might as well be asking what would have been the difference if they had grenades and automatic weapons), and then you would have to also stipulate that one side would have better access to that kind of magic than the other would. At that point, wouldn't the question simply become, "what would have happened if one side had much more efficient weapons than the other?" And that's not really about magic at all.

I disagree. Consider the difference between the two situations; mediaeval technology with and without area-affecting combat magic. IMHO it doesn't matter whether or not both sides in a conflict have such magic; in either variant, combat tactics would have to be different from the no-magic situation.

Also, it isn't just blasting magic that makes a big difference. Clairvoyance/clairaudience and invisibility would also affect the situation greatly, as would mind-reading magic. Being able to target the other side's leader with incapacitating spells would also make a major difference. Again, whether or not both sides have it.

 

[Overread]

How different things would be depends greatly on the nature of the magic itself. And since magic is a fictional concept by the author of a world setting its down to the author how much magic would change the world by the nature of the magic itself.

It stands to reason that yes if you have mages able to throw huge fireballs across a battlefield it might well change how the Romans used formations and battle strategy - however we also have to remember that we could do that anyway. Catapults and other weapons could be used to hurl objects at formations - heck even up into the age of gunpowder we have cannonballs and artillery making huge impacts. However if basic ground troops are still using the same mechanical technologies then it stands to reason that many Roman battle strategies might still be very effective; yes they'd be useless against magic but they'd still be very effective against the basic regular troops of the enemy army.

That, of course, is ignoring the ability of the Romans to have counter magic of their own; also ignoring the potential of different spells of other natures. Indeed any setting would have to change depending upon the power and impact magic has. Same as if you suddenly put dragons into the Napoleonic era we see huge changes, but still those non-dragon impacted areas remain very similar or adapted (see Temeraire by Naomi Norvik).

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I disagree. Consider the difference between the two situations; mediaeval technology with and without area-affecting combat magic. IMHO it doesn't matter whether or not both sides in a conflict have such magic; in either variant, combat tactics would have to be different from the no-magic situation.

Also, it isn't just blasting magic that makes a big difference. Clairvoyance/clairaudience and invisibility would also affect the situation greatly, as would mind-reading magic. Being able to target the other side's leader with incapacitating spells would also make a major difference. Again, whether or not both sides have it.

You don't seem to be putting a limit on which forms of magic would be real. If magicians can do anything that anybody ever imagined that magicians could do (including in games, as well as the kind of magic that people really have believed in) then what is there to discuss? The subject becomes too large and vague. What if the whole world worked differently than the way it does, differently from the way people have, historically, believed it worked? Well then, everything would be different. There would be no Roman Empire to discuss, or any of the rest of it. It would be a different world and everything would have happened differently from the moment men first started practicing magic. Everything.

But if you are just talking about the effect certain kinds of magic would have on battle tactics, that's a whole different question than what sort of effect magic would have had on society, because its altogether possible that everything would cancel out, and the outcome of the battles would have been the same. We certainly can't begin to predict which side would have won, unless the question itself includes exactly what forms of magic and which side has them.

I think that would be a whole different topic than the one suggested by the title of this thread, and it might lead to a more focussed discussion if there were a thread on that topic instead.

 

[Mirannan]

Teresa - I intended the discussion to get general precisely for the reason you state. There are so many variants of magic in fiction (and in mythical tradition) that the effects of magic vary drastically. One goes all the way from the sort of setup described in the Lord Darcy novels (Victorian tech with minor magical changes) to settings in which a single individual could and sometimes does alter the world.

I suppose the question is: How much and what varieties of working magic could be accommodated in a society much like our own (in whatever epoch) without major changes, and what happens at the boundary so to speak?

Imagine, for example, a world without any magic - except easily available, easy to use and reliable truth spells.

You may be right. The effects on society as a whole and the effects on military tactics and strategy are somewhat distinct.

 

[Overread]

Mirannan if you ask the question of how much magic you can introduce before it has significant impacts then you're looking at magic which:

1) Simply performs a function that we already can perform, but through magic rather than through the use of material resources. Magic might also be faster, more reliable, more accurate, etc... ergo offering a superior, but not drastically different alternative. Of course on the flipside magic could, in this context, be weaker or worse than alternative methods (nothing says magic must be superior).

2) Might be subtle in nature, providing improvements but at a level which is not so drastically seen like fireballs from the sky. This could be boosting moral, crippling moral, a bit more endurance etc....

3) Could be significantly restricted; yes you can call a fireball from the skies, but its going to cost you a huge investment which most kingdoms cannot afford to perform very often. Here magic makes a huge difference, but because its so rare and so restricted it makes little difference to the day to day running of things; its there as that one-shot effect which isn't prepared for.
Another way to restrict is to have it in the hands of the extreme few; again not enough that it changes the course of military tactics at large, but present so that its there for that "surprise" which would break or cripple armies if it appears on the battlefield.


Remember that ancient armies did have magics of their own. Things such as berserker warriors were considered magically empowered on the battlefield, even when many were simply drugged up to their eyeballs and whipped into a battle frenzy. They were still capable of feats regular people were unable to perform and thus were "magical" in nature. Medicine was similarly a magic to many people; herbs that could cure sickness and injury where otherwise you'd die. Indeed build in enough lack of education into the general population of a fantasy world and a lot of things we take as mundane or common knowledge can take on a very magical edge without being what we'd consider in the modern world to be "magic".

 

[J5V]

Good OP. magic =
1. psychological, from false beliefs. Can affect people and authority structures.
2. technological, from (a lack of) understanding of how things work.
3. fictional, which supposes a consistent background mechanism.

It's (3) that most fantasy writers use, and some sci-fi writers go for (2) also. Crime and Thriller writers use a form of (2), as 'privileged information'. It could be argued that religion is a form of (1), so we might be living in a world where this happens already: power structures and struggles have endured around religion, whether parallel or merged with the recognised sovereign powers.

With fictional magic, there should be some ground rules, that all players can engage with. It's not necessary that they all use magic to defeat magic, but it's fun to contrive a meeting of oppositely-aligned users of the same magic, especially when this imbues character.

I suggest that any magic, if recognised by the majority of people in your world, will have a huge effect on the way societies are structured, and the way that authority is commanded by those who (pretend to) control the magic. The key driver seems to be that some factions/characters have it, and others do not (or different parties have different aspects of the magic). This creates an asymmetry of advantage, or potential situations where different parties have advantages in different scenarios. If there's an objective that must be achieved in this environment, you might have a good story and plot, particularly if you're rooting for the underdog.

 

[hopewrites]

The way I see it, it's a question of perspective.

In my perspective, cooking is magical. Now, I know that many people around me do not share this perspective because it's common, or understood, or they never thought to think about it that way. I'm ok with that (tough luck on me if I wasn't, am I right) because everyone has to have their own world view. I love to sing, some people have said what I can do with my voice is magical. I don't know about that, it's just a thing I do, like chefs with cooking.

So in you scenario with magic, the affect it has will be tempered by the perspective people have about it.

If everyone can tell when something is true or not, how does deception develop to conceal, or distort truth? Do those subject to the magic perceive it as magic or science? That is, are there known laws that the magic conforms to, and if so, why are those laws not science?

To my perspective, science is the de-mystifcation of what is in all other sense magic. Protection charms work because magic; gravity works because science; the onion carmelizes in the pan because chemistry...

It all comes back to perspective. I chose to take a magical perspective on my reality because it gives me a sense of wonder, awe, and reverence for my surroundings and my existence in them. Some people chose a non-magical perspective for the same reasoning. So perspective and the reasoning of the individual or society for that perspective.