Ugh, Moftiss, I am 3000% DONE with you guys and your stunted, adolescent understanding of the interplay between intelligence and emotion. *flings up hands*
In reality, the absence of emotion is far more likely to impede Sherlock's intellectual and psychological functioning than its presence. It's called emotional intelligence for a reason: it's actually really important. And you could say that the text (apparently unwittingly) backs up that argument too. Why does Sherlock suffer so intensely from spells of boredom? Why does he require constant stimulation to stave off his impulsive, neurotic, and seemingly depressive moods? Why does he resort to hard drugs and other destructive behaviors in order to stave off these moods? Could it be because he suffers from a self-identity made precarious by its lack of emotional grounding? Hmm...
Sherlock suffers from boredom with the severity that a young child suffers from boredom, possibly because he's never progressed emotionally beyond the age of a young child. He hasn't developed the capacity to be secure in his self-identity without needing to elicit constant feedback from the world around him. He needs constant stimulation from the outside world ("I NEED a case!") because he can't turn inward for self-comfort and emotional self-sustainment*. Why can't he? Because there's very little in there. Little that he sees fit (or knows how) to acknowledge, foster, or make any use of, anyway. Not only has he spent his whole life rejecting emotion, he hasn't even accepted the idea that the value of a thing may, in some cases, be predicated simply by one's own emotional enjoyment of said thing. So he deletes what isn't useful, abstains from what isn't rational, rejects whatever is sentimental, and basically does everything he can to insure that his inner landscape is as BARREN AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. And it's sad, IMO, because he absolutely believes this is what he needs to do, because The Work is all that matters...because Sherlock himself has unwittingly made it so that he doesn't have anything else to point to and say "That's important. I care about that. That matters."
Obviously this is just my reading of the character. And obviously it's all much more complicated than what can be summed up in a two-paragraph rant. But I stand by my rant.
I love Sherlock, and I love him in part because he is a deeply confused and stunted adult human being. But that the writers suggest he's not confused or stunted - that in fact his simplistic, backwards beliefs about human emotion are right - is something I find endlessly aggravating. Mainly because by understanding him in such simplistic terms, it means they then write him in simplistic terms, which makes it all so much less enjoyable.
Granted, I do think it's highly realistic that Sherlock would struggle with emotion. He's in his mid(?)-thirties, but has the emotional development of a child. If/when he does begin to experience some emotion (beyond whatever limited amount he already experiences) he's probably not going to know how to deal with it. Plus, his deeply ingrained automatic response is to see emotion as a repellent and hostile thing, which is likely to make dealing with his emotions all the more difficult for him, at least at first. But there's a big difference between saying "His inability to integrate his emotional intelligence with his intellectual intelligence is detrimental to his deductive abilities," which is true, and saying "His emotions blind him," as Moffat and Gatiss are saying.
**He needs constant stimulation from the outside world ("I NEED a case!") because he can't turn inward for self-comfort and emotional self-sustainment // Of course Sherlock is not completely unable to provide his own self-comfort and emotional sustainment. He is not a completely...hmm, shall we say "empty house," on the inside. He simply has a very limited range of ways at which he is practiced in doing so. He has his experiments, for example, which he is capable of producing for himself and by which he is capable of entertaining (and perhaps also comforting) himself. However, his experiments don't seem to be adequately sustaining for more than short periods of time between cases.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-03-17 01:17 am (UTC)In reality, the absence of emotion is far more likely to impede Sherlock's intellectual and psychological functioning than its presence. It's called emotional intelligence for a reason: it's actually really important. And you could say that the text (apparently unwittingly) backs up that argument too. Why does Sherlock suffer so intensely from spells of boredom? Why does he require constant stimulation to stave off his impulsive, neurotic, and seemingly depressive moods? Why does he resort to hard drugs and other destructive behaviors in order to stave off these moods? Could it be because he suffers from a self-identity made precarious by its lack of emotional grounding? Hmm...
Sherlock suffers from boredom with the severity that a young child suffers from boredom, possibly because he's never progressed emotionally beyond the age of a young child. He hasn't developed the capacity to be secure in his self-identity without needing to elicit constant feedback from the world around him. He needs constant stimulation from the outside world ("I NEED a case!") because he can't turn inward for self-comfort and emotional self-sustainment*. Why can't he? Because there's very little in there. Little that he sees fit (or knows how) to acknowledge, foster, or make any use of, anyway. Not only has he spent his whole life rejecting emotion, he hasn't even accepted the idea that the value of a thing may, in some cases, be predicated simply by one's own emotional enjoyment of said thing. So he deletes what isn't useful, abstains from what isn't rational, rejects whatever is sentimental, and basically does everything he can to insure that his inner landscape is as BARREN AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. And it's sad, IMO, because he absolutely believes this is what he needs to do, because The Work is all that matters...because Sherlock himself has unwittingly made it so that he doesn't have anything else to point to and say "That's important. I care about that. That matters."
Obviously this is just my reading of the character. And obviously it's all much more complicated than what can be summed up in a two-paragraph rant. But I stand by my rant.
I love Sherlock, and I love him in part because he is a deeply confused and stunted adult human being. But that the writers suggest he's not confused or stunted - that in fact his simplistic, backwards beliefs about human emotion are right - is something I find endlessly aggravating. Mainly because by understanding him in such simplistic terms, it means they then write him in simplistic terms, which makes it all so much less enjoyable.
Granted, I do think it's highly realistic that Sherlock would struggle with emotion. He's in his mid(?)-thirties, but has the emotional development of a child. If/when he does begin to experience some emotion (beyond whatever limited amount he already experiences) he's probably not going to know how to deal with it. Plus, his deeply ingrained automatic response is to see emotion as a repellent and hostile thing, which is likely to make dealing with his emotions all the more difficult for him, at least at first. But there's a big difference between saying "His inability to integrate his emotional intelligence with his intellectual intelligence is detrimental to his deductive abilities," which is true, and saying "His emotions blind him," as Moffat and Gatiss are saying.
**He needs constant stimulation from the outside world ("I NEED a case!") because he can't turn inward for self-comfort and emotional self-sustainment // Of course Sherlock is not completely unable to provide his own self-comfort and emotional sustainment. He is not a completely...hmm, shall we say "empty house," on the inside. He simply has a very limited range of ways at which he is practiced in doing so. He has his experiments, for example, which he is capable of producing for himself and by which he is capable of entertaining (and perhaps also comforting) himself. However, his experiments don't seem to be adequately sustaining for more than short periods of time between cases.