For
a character obsessed with details, Sherlock Holmes would be pleased with the
ones that were preserved in the BBC modern adaptation whose second series
concluded airing in America this past Sunday. My favorite is John
Watson’s puzzled amusement at the gaps in his friend’s prodigious
knowledge.
In
the first novel, A Study in Scarlet,
before he learns that Holmes is the world’s only consulting detective, Watson
tries to make a list to determine his roommate’s occupation based on his
apparent areas of expertise. He finds that Holmes has only a feeble grasp
on politics and no understanding of astronomy, the latter made evident by his
ignorance of the fact that the earth revolves around the sun. Both the
literary and televised versions of Holmes give the excuse that it only makes
sense to retain knowledge that is applicable to one’s own pursuits in
life. For him, the earth’s position in the universe has no bearing on the
observation of the idiosyncrasies of men in order to outwit them.
Despite his unbalanced education, Holmes does eventually show that he takes an interest in subjects besides the history of crime or the differentiation of cigar ash and, in the second novel The Sign of Four, he highly recommends that Watson read the real 1872 book The Martyrdom of Man by explorer-philosopher Winwood Reade. Like his admirer, Reade put faith in the primacy of science. In hot pursuit of a suspect, Holmes takes a moment to paraphrase Reade’s idea to Watson, explaining that “while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but the percentages remain constant.” Because groups of people are predictable, and therefore boring, Holmes is fascinated by the singularity of his cases, what makes the peculiar and riddling details stand out amongst the commonplace occurrences of surrounding society. In other words, he is obsessed with the individual.
Watson may have found in making his list
that Holmes would be what today’s pollsters condescendingly call a “low
information voter,” yet the detective’s view of mankind is sorely needed in
politics. In contemporary America, leaders put their emphasis on the
seeming predictability of the aggregate and have decided that whenever a group
of people professes to want something, by nature of it being a consensus, it
has to be taken seriously, no matter the effect on individuals outside the
group arguing for it.
In
the same way, if a problem arises among a large enough group of people, broad
solutions to it are innately acceptable, even if they trespass on the lives of
those outside the group or violate what should be the highest law in the
land. A perfect example of this is the suggestion that the remedy to two-thirds
of our population being overweight or obese is a manipulation of the price of
food for everyone, including those who can moderate their intake of soda
without a tax penalty.
In every story, Sherlock
Holmes can deduce a person’s occupation and habits at a glance. He knows
where in the superficial and obvious aspects of an identity lies the secret of
an individual’s life story. Such an appreciation of individuality is so
rare as to be almost entirely in the realm of fiction, but even a small dose of
it would go a long way in changing the perspective of current American policy
from one that focuses on mutable definitions of “general” welfare to one that
restores an individual’s freedom to make the most appropriate choices to thrive
and succeed.
It was recently released that
a majority of babies being born in the United States are now minorities.
This nonsensical statement indicates that we have to change our mentality
before we start embracing paradoxes. There is no supreme group of
citizens in 21st Century America. Those who love
promoting diversity so much should be pleased to see that, according to the
numbers, we are all minorities now. The time for universal federal
mandates of questionable benefit, if they were ever even necessary in the first
place, is most certainly over. When 43 Catholic institutions, including
the archdiocese of the capital, sue the executive branch, we can reasonably
wonder if the federal government has any clue what’s best for everyone.
In a democracy or republic,
the idea that “majority rules” is often mistaken as “majority always rules in
everything.” Within a free society, however, very little should even come
under scrutiny to the point where a majority would decide anything about
it. Just because an issue seems to apply to the lives of more than one
person does not mean that it requires government intervention. Sherlock
Holmes would scoff at our attempt to draw such drastic conclusions from dubious
generalizations and insufficient or contradictory data as to legislate some of
the behavior and choices we do. No doubt he would take one look at our
list of controlled substances and laugh (and then cringe at the realization
that his private use of stimulants classifies him as much of a criminal as
those he catches). Of course, being the aloof bachelor, he’d have little
sympathy for the self-inflicted national turmoil of feeling obligated to
legally define romantic relationships. Holmes isn’t real, but there are
people like him who very much exist in our society. They are just
consistently negated by a political preference of groups over individuals.
Literature professor Jim
Barloon noted in a paper on identity that Sherlock Holmes is an example of
“radical individualism,” and in Victorian England, amidst the crushing anonymity
of a vast empire, he would have indeed been a radical. Yet, in America we
have always used a different adjective. We possess “rugged
individualism.” There is nothing wild or outlandish about being our own
specific selves. In fact, it has always been celebrated to be just
that. So why do so many of us now support a system that undermines our
individual freedom at every opportunity? We want a fence to keep people
out and an “Ex-PATRIOT Act” to keep people in and those within the borders are
told by the president that a financially infeasible college degree is
economically imperative. With every irrational regulatory imposition by a
vocal, if unsubstantial, sub-group, we come to resemble a dystopian perversion
of a once great nation. It doesn’t take an extraordinary fictional
detective to observe the signs.
Watson, like the average
reader, always tends to be bewildered by what Holmes finds simple, but once he
hears the explanation, the mystery dissolves and it becomes thrillingly
clear. Unfortunately, Americans are listening to the explanations given
by politicians and unelected civil servants as oblivious as the boastful
Scotland Yard officials muddling up crime scenes and misinterpreting
motives. Their well-intentioned assistance is inevitably oppressive.
The trick is to stop turning to them to solve every little problem. The
state has no interest in the individual nature of our concerns, only in their
broad resemblance to those of enough other people to make a rule. In the
face of that disinterest, it’s not a surprise that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
produced a constant stream of callers at the private residence of 221B Baker
Street, inspiring hundreds of adaptations. People want personal attention
and a federal government simply cannot give that, no matter the
expectation. That should be an elementary fact.
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