A Geek History of Time - Episode 139 - Sherlock Holmes and British Empire Part II

Episode Date: December 25, 2021

You know, Stalin and the Nazis were these welfare state types. One of us is a stand-up comic. Can you tell what it is? Ladies and gentlemen, everyone, brick. Um. But the problem. Oh my god. That's like, I could use that to teach the whole world. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha This is a geek history of time.

Where we connect, and relate to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. Who, as I mentioned in our last episode, is I'm in the process of preparing to enter into the adventure that is home ownership. And very excited about that. We're spending a lot of time talking about what we're going to do with the property that we've purchased. The house is an antique which befits a history teacher The house is an antique which befits a history teacher such as myself was built in 1950. And it has not been updated since. So there are some things that have to be updated, like the wiring, mostly because we don't want to spend the amount of money

we've just spent and haven't literally all go up and smoke. And then there are other things that we really don't want to change just yet. The kitchen is the most notable example. It is original to the house and all of the cabinetry is metal. It has a stainless steel sink from 1950. It is the original sink in the house. And the cabinets are stamped steel kitchen cabinets. stamped steel kitchen cabinets. Painted, of course, but yeah, so it's very, very retro. And so that's been a point of conversation

with both sets of our parents. Just how retro is that? And oh my god, you're keeping that? Well, yeah, it's cool. But so that's what I have going on. Who are you and what are you up to? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a Latin and drama teacher up here in Northern California.

And I really admire your commitment to, since we've been podcasting about the bourgeoisie to including a bourgeois story at the beginning of each episode of this. So I very much appreciating that. Do you do you remember which one of us is not the leftist? Well, I'm just saying like, you know, I mean, although I got to say I do remember I had a moment like, you know, I mean, although I gotta say I do remember I had a moment, a hundred years ago, this is actually before you and I met, but in the very place where you and I met,

my brother had moved into his apartment, up a little ways for me. And I remember I went with him, I think it was his first apartment on his own. So I went with him and I was helping him with the inspection, like, oh, make sure you take note of this, make sure you take note of that. And then I, I even asked, you know, so I was looking around, I opened the cabinets. I'm like, these are the worst cabinets I've ever seen. And then immediately after I was like, and since when do I care about

cabinets? And I felt like a traitor to my people. So. Okay, so the question is in this moment, who are you or people? Oh, it was within the context of that thought. Poor folk, like, why am I critiquing cabinets? They worked, you know, so it was that kind of a thing. It was just kind of like that snobbish like I'd gotten used to.

This would have been 2007, 2008. Okay. I'd gotten used to having cabinets that were solid and not made of balsa, you know, like I you remember the first department cabinets that you ever had. Okay, okay. No, look, okay, right now we're recording remotely. I'm in my apartment. Motherfucker, I can point you to the cabinets in my kitchen right fucking now. Right. That one of the cabinet doors under our sink has literally failed so many times that we

just within the last two weeks, we took it off. Yeah. And so we're missing one. Yeah. And so yeah, no, I know exactly what you're talking about. And what I would counter is, this is something I'm gonna say. I think you are to an extent being perhaps a little overly harsh on yourself because here's the deal. You were you were affronted by the quality of those cabinets in your brother's interest as somebody who was renting from a landlord. Yeah, no, you're not wrong there. I just, I remember thinking like,

I never would have given a shit about the quality of cabinets. When producer George and I lived together, we first moved in. That was my first apartment. I didn't notice fuck all about cabinets. Well, no. I only noticed that his then-girlfriends eventual wife nearly burnt them down with a grease fire. That's all I'd ever noticed about them.

And even that was short-lived. Okay, yeah, much love to producer George and his wife, who has actually been featured on this show when we started out producer George. So, this is true. Yes. Anyway, so speaking of bourgeois middle class stuff, you were going to get into the British Empire? Is that what? Is that where we're headed? Yes. Yes. Specifically within the context of talking about Sherlock Holmes. And so I spent last episode talking about the growth of the British Empire, the intersection of Empire, the intersection of the industrial revolution and the supercharging of the expansion and power of the British Empire. And so I'm going to, I want to talk now about the state of the Empire in the time period during which Conan Doyle was, was starting out writing Sherlock Holmes.

Yeah, because we're talking, I mean, he's writing it not at its nasancy. We're talking it's like, it's damn near zenith. Oh, and it's at its apex. I would argue this is its apex. In the 1880s, into 1890s, we haven't had World War One yet. Right. Obvi. And at this point, the British Navy literally rules the oceans.

You couldn't fire a slingshot across a canal anywhere in the world without the British Navy knowing about it and having an opinion. Now, yeah, now that I think about it, this was back when the entire globe was pink. Like, yeah, the sun never set. Yes. Yeah.

Oh, God, I'm trying to remember. Now I can't remember the title of the movie. There's a great film about, it's a child's recollection of the blitz. And there's a little boy and somebody in the audience please tell us on Twitter what movie it is I'm thinking of. Little boy is in his classroom at school and he's probably I don't know nine or ten. And his school mistress is up at the front of the room and she's And his school mistress is up at the front of the room and she's

Trunch bowl figure, you know, Screening, bellowing red face, the herodin of a woman, and the front of the room, shouting and all the good pointing to a map and shouting and all the kids about how, you know, soldiers are out there right now defending all the pink you see on this map for the sake of your sorry butts, you know, and she's just, you know, they've misbehaved or done something and she's just furious at them. And you know, and she makes mention of the pink on the map.

And then moments later, the boys all have to evacuate because there's a bomb. Oh, wow. And they evacuate moments later. You're watching from the boys point of view in an air raid ditch, you know, on the edge of the property. And one air and bomb falls from a German bomber lands squarely on his classroom and detonates. And all of the schoolboys cheer. And all of the schoolboys cheer. I don't think the character looks to the heavens, says, thank you at all. But you mentioned, you know, the world was pink.

Yes. No, everybody loved using the phrase, the sun never sets on the British Empire, because it literally fucking didn't. There was always some patch of British territory during this time period that had daylight. You know, it didn't matter what half of the globe you were on. If you were in the Western hemisphere, the Caribbean, if you were in the Eastern hemisphere, it was literally like every fucking place. Yeah, you know, and it's an interesting thing with the exception of India. Well, I'll just confine it to Africa.

Most British holdings in Africa, because I used to teach kids imperialism when I taught world history. And we would color in the maps, easy day, but also give you a visual representation, right? And what the kids always noticed are like, wow, it really looks like France won this one. And I said, yeah, but if you actually take a look and I would put like a transparency over their map of the rivers.

Yup. And I'm like, yes, France had all that land in Western Africa as one giant block. There's no rivers there. There's hardly any people in this area over here. But notice the tiny little part that the Britain has, that's the Gambia. That is literally that river. So you could have all that stuff, but good luck getting your shit to market. Cause we got the rivers, you know, that was Britain's, now that's in the West. And in the East, Britain had a lot more territory. Now I'm trying to remember that the French control the Niger. And Niger was Portuguese.

No, I believe that was French. Okay. Chad Molly. Yeah, yeah, all that with the exception of Libya. But yeah, Nigeria, because Nigeria was English. Yeah, okay. Because they had the river. Yeah, right.

So. Okay, yes, so I remember Nigeria was, but I'd forgotten about the others. Okay, so yeah, no, you're right. And then of course, the Belgians had the Congo, which is its own horror story. But so during this time period, during the 1880s, from the time that Conan Doyle starts writing Sherlock Holmes up until World War II. Well, really World War I. Britain is at the height of its power.

Oh, okay. And to just give you an idea of where the places are that we're talking about, they're controlling now. Singapore was ruled as a substate of the Indian Protectorate. They colonized that in 1867. Colonized Malaysia. 1867. South Africa was under their control thanks to the Second Board of War. Well, I'm sorry, the Second Board of War is later than I'm talking about, but they had taken over the Dutch colony South African

1802. The board, the second board were ended in 1902, which is during the time period. Yes. What is referred to as the canon of home-zian fiction. Cecil Rhodes during this time period, as we mentioned briefly in the last episode, Cecil Rhodes was busy buying up property using some combination of private and government funds. Yeah. Buying up territory property makes it sound so small scale. He was working to build a right of way,

essentially to build a rail line that would run from the Cape in South Africa all the way to Cairo, which I have to mention Cairo here, because the really funny thing about it is technically Egypt was independent, but it was effectively controlled by the British. Right. Because it's the other end of the Mediterranean since they already had Gibraltar. They already had Gibraltar, so they had to close off the other end of the Mediterranean, which is the Suez Canal. Right.

Because then they could then leverage Russia and the Ottoman Empire as they saw fit. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Stranglehold on all of it. Yeah. I mean, this is where you get the charge of the Liper game type shit.

Yeah. Yeah. And so Australia and New Zealand had been settled back in the 1780s, first colony in Australia, first British colony, the penal colony in New South Wales in 1788, Bhattibay, and then New Zealand had officially become a British colony with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, which was an agreement between a coalition of Maori tribes and the British government because there was, the Maori were concerned about some other power. And so they signed on with the British, essentially. So New Zealand became a British colony.

Canada had been British territory since the end of the 70 years. All of the European powers, the 1880s, 1890s, all the European powers controlled empires. The Germans had overseas colonies. The French were still holding on to some. The Spanish still had interests. And all of them, by this this time all of them were scrambling over China but Britain's empire was the largest and arguably the wealthiest. Yeah yeah yeah and the most yeah you said largest I was gonna say most vast which I think there can be a case made that vastness outweighs largeness just because not only did they

have the most territory but then the influence that spreads beyond that territory speaks to the vastness of it Yeah, I know that makes sense. Yeah, so like yeah, there they not only had, you know, it's kind of like, um, Texas is not only one of the largest states, but also because of that, it influences textbooks. Yes. It's, yeah, it's, it's reach, or what is it? It's reach extends its grasp or something. Exceeds, exceeds its grasp.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. No, the the the the physical size is less important than the leverage and the symbolic or political size. That is very real physical size. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There is a relationship between the two of them. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and one is, they kind of fuel each other. Mm-hmm. Because as you gain more territory, you have more leverage, which allows you to gain more territory, which allows you to gain more leverage. So it's this self-enlarging cycle.

Yeah, it's what you used to refer to a gun as a force multiplier. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. And so at any given time during this time period now, this also means that there were British soldiers stationed literally all over the world. At any given time, British soldiers were shooting at somebody somewhere, either to defend colonial subjects or to keep them in line. I took a quick look on Wikipedia in researching this. And I found that from the time of Conan Doyle's birth, just we're talking about, you know,

pattern on the wallpaper, right? Right, right. From Conan Doyle's birth to the publication of a study in Scarlet, there were no fewer than 17 official wars. Oh my God. Fought by the British Empire to defend imperial interests. Now back then, having an official war was a, it was a good thing.

Like it was not something to be avoided as the Americans had pretended to. Yeah. Like you don't have that, the pretensive conscience, of conscience there. It's, oh no, we're, we need to have this war too. But 17. We are, we are vigorous and we are going to defend our interests and we are going to do it the way men do things. Right. Um, and so that's that's full that's that's that's full size wars. That's big enough to qualify for their own Wikipedia articles. Okay. Yeah. That doesn't even count skirmishes, punitive and police actions,

the East India Company marching and going, all right, so you're all working for us now. None of that shit counts. That's just full-size wars. Mm, okay. And so the United Kingdom, so that means, and remember, from our last episode, that there had been British troops stationed in West Africa since the 1670s.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. And the soldiers who are going out to do this fighting, are going out and they're being exposed to the cultures that they are planted within. Okay, when you get sent to a garrison someplace in Bombay. Oh, I see what you mean, yeah.

You're now, you're being exposed to that culture, you're hearing those sounds, seeing those sights, you get exposed to that culture. And there is this whole class of striving, middle class, ambitious striving, middle class young men, leaving the United Kingdom to become military administrators within the Empire. In a later time period, we have George Orwell, who served as an imperial administrator in someplace in Southeast

age. I don't think it was India. I thought it was because there was I could be remembering wrong. I know he talked about, you know, the the wonderfully eloquent anti imperialist story shooting the elephant right. Which yeah, no, it might have been India, it might have been Bengal might have been might have been might have been Bangladesh. Yeah. But because I remember anyway, I could be Mr. Rembranding, shout at us on Twitter, if I'm very wrong,

because now I'm genuinely curious, but I don't wanna interrupt the flow to look it up. But so there's this whole class of middle class bourgeois young men going out to make a name for themselves out on the frontier of the empire. and going out to make a name for themselves out on the frontier of the empire. And so the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the to oversee these projects, these are Englishmen, these are also lots and lots and lots of Scotsmen. Yes. It takes us

back to the importance of the Acts of Union in 1707 and 1706. And, you know, and Welshmen and, you know, and Irishmen who are now the interesting thing is, you know, the during this time period, the God's. Now this time period being when? 1819 century. Okay, just making it because there's a bit of bouncing going on there. But yeah, there is some bouncing going on. But during the height of the British Empire, what's interesting is if a character in a story is a Scott, it gets noted that he's a Scott. Oh, okay. He's not, he's not an Englishman, but he's a Scott. Sure, frequently, you know, the dimension of the accent or whatever gets mentioned, but that's kind of the extent of it.

Now, if somebody is an Irishman in most of the British publications from the time, the stereotypes that you see associated with Irishman are he's either a ranker in the army with a certain kind of character attached to that set of assumptions. There's kind of stock Irish personalities that are attached, or he's a villain. And he might be he might be a kind of anglicized villain, middle class, upper class, of kind of villain or he might just be a thug right but but the Irish Had this weird position and to a lesser extent the scots. Mm-hmm. The Empire was British, but it was it was self-consciously very English

If that makes sense. Yeah, well, it's it's yes, we're all British, but each person still carries their distinct culture with them. Yeah, as we invade this place with brown people, where they're all the same, but where all different. And the English are very clearly the senior partners. Yeah, yeah, that's a good way. And then I was thinking because I was also thinking in terms of like Yeah, yeah, that's a good way because and then I was thinking because I was also thinking in terms of like having a Londoner versus you know having somebody who's from Sussex You know having someone who's an East Ender versus somebody who's from Whitehall like Yeah, you talk about like creating striations and separations within a an in group

You know, that's a very I would say that's a very British thing to do, but I do think that that, I think that might be painting with two broader brush. I think there's a lot of people that do that. It just happened to be that they were the ones in power and wrote a lot about it, and we're self-indulgent in that. I think you're very much on a meeting nail on the head with it that way. I think that's something we all tend to do.

Like, you know, everybody within my culture is an individual. Right. But like, I don't know that culture. And so they're all, you know, they're, you know, they're all a group. Well, you just look at Forest Gump talking about Vietnam, you know, in Vietnam, all these things happen blah, blah, blah. But then when he's talking about the different people, you know, Cleveland was from Washington, Washington was from Texas.

I don't remember where Texas was from. Like he's legit like telling you where each person in his group was from, they're all the Americans. And you know, he didn't speak hardly at all about the Vietnamese people in his narrative of that. Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty common thing.

Yeah. That's how, as as troop animals, that's, that's kind of how we psychologize. Yes. So, and so as part of talking about the mentality of empire, I want to take a moment to segue from talking about Conan Doyle and Holmes to talking about a contemporary of Conan Doyles who was, as I found out in doing my research, the youngest individual ever to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Oh wow. And that is Rudyard Kipling. Oh wow, okay. So Kipling writes with remarkable empathy and sensitivity right with remarkable empathy and sensitivity for this this class of people who are who have this this kind of divided identity. They thought of themself and blow Indian and that was that was, that was he himself, kippling is a product of the British Empire, in that he was born in 1865, six years after Doyle. He was born in Bombay to English parents. Do you say 60 years or 16 years?

Six. Six years, okay. Yeah. He was born in 65, six years after Conan Doy okay. Yeah. It was born in 65 six years after Conan Doyle, right? And so he he wrote about his experiences growing up that he had a Portuguese nanny, okay, and an Indian kind of man-serven who was partially responsible for looking after him. And in the afternoon, he would hear, you know, fairy tales and stories from his nanny and from this, from this man's servant. And then they would send him in to him and his, his sister into his parents.

And they would tell them, now remember, speak English when you talk to mommy and daddy. Oh, to mommy and daddy. Oh, so he and all of these officers of empire had this very remarkable sense of identity of being English or being British, more to the point being British, but also inevitably there is some level of going native for them. I would say given that he wrote White Man's burden and the jungle book.

Yes, I could definitely see that, but also your inherent whiteness will still... will allow you to take the best parts of going native and leave behind the savage parts. Oh, yeah, I know. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not about to whitewash his, his imperialism because I'm getting around to, I'm getting around to the white man's burden. Yeah. Okay. And I didn't mean to imply that you, you were trying to whitewash that, but like the idea of going native, I want to, I want to make sure that we, carefully there because for him it was always a dip in dip out kind of thing.

You take the best parts. I mean, it was colonizer mentality of going. Yeah. Yeah. So, there's this whole class of people who have this same kind of thing like you're saying. They have this mobility, this cultural flexibility, privilege, combination, something trying to think of a good word to use. Privilege is definitely part of it, but it's a little bit narrower band than I'm looking for. You know, Kipling, for example, spent his formative years, his first few years in India,

and then got sent back to England for his school education. And in his case, he wound up boarding with a family who were horribly abusive, and it was a nightmare for him as a terrible experience. For the several years, he was living with these folks. So a typical British boy experience. Yeah, it seems to be. Yeah, seems to be. And what was it that Chris Hitchin said, who, by the way,

what's the opposite of rehabbing someone? He needs that. But because he was just a very eloquent hawk. But he said that boarding school could be summed up with the three Bs. It was beatings, maybe it was beatings bullying and buggery. That sounds about right. You know what's funny is he was building building on or the rum side of the life.

Yeah, rum side of the clash about the British Navy, which is also an arm of empire. But so what's interesting is the whole reason that Kipling got sent back to England, specifically England, but back to the whole island was to make sure that he got a sufficiently English character in his education. Yeah, we can't have him growing up, bangleese. Yeah, you know, or in his case, I don't know what the term would be, but you know, Bombay and... Yeah, well bangleese is definitely not the term. I was lampooning the British there. Yeah. But yeah.

Bangladeshy. So, and so, as... so there's this backing and fore thing within four individuals within the Empire, and for those individuals within the empire, then that turns into this experience where the whole character of the United Kingdom itself becomes affected because it becomes an imperial island. There are raw materials of all kinds pouring into its ports from literally all over the world right You know spices and silks and and raw materials, you know diamonds gold silver You know comic book copper cotton cotton from Egypt

You know one and India. That's gonna say yeah You know that's that's why they were like nah, fuck you south. We're good. Yeah, yeah. It's also worth noting. Sorry, I didn't get into this in the last episode, but the abolition of slavery by the United Kingdom in 187 was largely achievable because in most of the most important sectors of the imperial economy, they no longer dependent on slave labor. Right. Because they had factories to do the work.

And it was the next phase of, I mean, that's, oh, okay, I just need to stop and highlight. Say that again without me talking over it. Why did they not have slavery anymore? Because they'd moved to factory production which didn't require slave labor for Economic growth. There you go. I just I just want to make sure that that point is made in Total abject silence so everybody can be horrified from that also total abject silence so everybody can be horrified from that. Also, it turns out your former slaves and their children. If you restrict where they can buy shit, you now have a captive market. So you don't need to go through the rig and roll of extracting their labor and the

value of it. You can just charge them. Like you just take their money. Yeah. You cut out the middle man entirely when you do that like Okay, so so here's the deal for everybody who you know didn't fall asleep during eighth grade us history by the way congratulations I Had a hard time staying awake during eighth grade us history and History is my favorite subject in the fucking world. I want to tell you a story about my experience in that But I don't want to do Rayless too much so maybe at the end of this you can ask me about it. Yeah, so because now

Schmuckbait I want to know But for those of you who paid attention in his great US history You'll remember the term mercantilism. Mm-hmm. It's just the selling of pubic web web wigs in New Turkish bathrooms. Merkin tiles. Merkin's, oh, Merkin, I was like, wait a minute, how does, okay, right? Yeah. Good day, sir. Fuck you.

Now I have that stuck in my head. Which tiles are square. And a merkin is usually triangular. So, oh, is this the throw rug? No, no, it's this fall fashion. That's nice. Nice. God damn it.

So. You could play goatye. Is it goatye? G-g-g-g-g-g-ya? G-g-g-ya? Now you're just somebody that I used to know. Somebody that used to know. Yeah you can just have that playing the background. You didn't have to cut me off. So he's leaning back. He's pinching his head. Oh.

Oh that's awful. That's awful. And it feels so rough. Yeah, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, if you have me as an eighth grade teacher, you would not have fallen asleep because you have been like, what's this asshole going to say next? What's what the fuck? Yeah. So, so, but the mercantilism, the idea that, no, no, you're our colony, you're going to buy shit from us. Like, and that's it, man.

That was the UK's economic policy for basically forever. And you know, is spoken of in, you know, the curriculum for A3DS history is being this terrible oppressiveressive awful thing. Right. You know, and then if the curriculum was honest, when you get to high school, you'd learn about the Philippines. Yeah. As a protector, it's, it's that you know, et cetera.

Yeah. And, and, and Puerto Rico, maybe. Mm-hmm. Also, let's talk about the history of Hawaii, shall we? Yeah. Only, only let's be sure to do it, you know, late in the day, so you don't go through the rest of the school day fucking depressed. Yeah. Well, and then, and then the British got to do this really fun thing where they did the head tax. So in addition to you have to buy from us, they taxed you for having a head.

And so you had to pay that as well. I mean, that's easy. Well, I mean, that would lead to unrest because like, I mean, if nobody's getting a blowjob, ah, good call. That's gonna cause all kinds of frustration. Yeah. But, but, we'll just leave the jokes on my side of the aisle here.

Oh fuck you. But. So to the couple of parents and audience who have their kids listening to the show, I apologize for that one because I felt like I had to make that joke and then I regretted it immediately. I did too. I regretted you making it. I'm sorry. Fuck again.

Fuck you. See, I have standards that I uphold. I don't know what you're doing. Yeah, I can't. I'm just talking. I'm talking. The market tile. That was over people's heads.

We've all learned. Anyway. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway. Anyway. learned. Anyway, but no, they did the head tax when you were a, when not only did you have to buy from the company store, but also we're gonna tax you for the, they used to do a hut tax, and then they found that like,

oh, this is in Poverse so many people that they don't even have huts. Let's do a head tax. And so they did that. And that was like, you know, in addition to, you have to buy from the company store. Now also you owe us taxes, which put you into debt pionage.

And essentially you effectively got slave labor out of these people, but now you got them coming and going as far as their money goes. It's true. You just codified them. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Well yeah. Anyway. So, we have this whole new stratum of middle class being created that has this attachment to the empire. Yes. And whether you are a company clerk working for a manufacturer in Portsmouth, or you are a dock worker in Liverpool, right? Or you are a mill worker anywhere in Britain, or a pork worker anywhere anywhere in the United Kingdom. Yeah, no matter your job, you're servicing

the empire and it's servicing, it's providing your job. Yeah. And so within the UK itself, the standard of living of average workers had improved dramatically over the course of the 1800s. I believe it now. Now here's an important caveat. When you start at rock bottom, it's really easy to proof. Conditions had changed so dramatically from 1844 until 1892 that Friedrich Engels had to preface the 191892 edition of the condition of the working class in England with a statement that most of the horrors he had described in 1844 had gone away. When he first wrote the book in 1844, mill workers, people who had left the countryside to go to work in the cities, in these factory jobs, were living in shantytowns and shacks. As you mentioned, London hadn't figured out how to build a sewer yet. Right.

And then by the end of the century, by 1892, these things had been rectified. And so within living memory, the standard living for basically everybody in the United Kingdom basically everybody in the United Kingdom had dramatically improved. And so by 1892 or by the 1880s, because that's when we're now talking about Sherlock Holmes having his genesis, by the 1880s, even for the lowest of the middle class or the highest of the lower classes, their lot was demonstrably better thanks to progress than it had been for their parents. And they saw their own position in the world. If you were a mill worker in England or Scotland, you saw your own position in the world as far, far better than the position of any of the non-white subjects of the empire out on

on the frontier of the empire in India, anywhere in Africa, elsewhere in the world, Southeast Asia, Native Americans in Canada. And I'll go you one better from there. Not only did you see it as better, you saw it as demonstrably more mobile, upwardly, because all of the other people who lived in those places were kind of part of the scenery Okay, you know they were a part of your experience there

They were not having their own lives in your mind as a British subject Oh, no, yeah, so you were a subject of the crown. They were Objects of the crown. They were Objects of the crown. They were yeah, they were part. I mean there was the Ottoman Empire but they were But they were they were a part of the scenery where you went and grew up to be a man They were part of your story you were not a background to their story. And I think that that mobility that you would see for yourself, you wouldn't see for them. Specifically because you as a British subject would, yeah, you were the protagonist of your story ultimately. So yeah, well, and the thing is the the the the Empire for the British during this time

period provided the same psychological, I don't know if comfort is the right word or release that the frontier had provided yes for Americans. Yeah, safety valve for a growing urban population and growing civil unrest. Here's a place where we can ship you off to, and by the way, now you're satisfying our needs economically. This is not literally Australia. Yeah, I was gonna say this is Rome.

We're gonna, you know, Rome is like, oh shit, all these soldiers are back in Rome, and we can't control these gangs. Hey, you get more land if you go out to the frontier, and all you gotta do is defend it. And it's like, oh shit, yeah, I'm there. Yeah. Yeah, well, and kind of what I'm talking about

more than that is even if you never left Port Smith, as a British citizen there was always the understanding that there was this frontier out there. Yeah, it was an emotional and mental escape valve as well. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm getting at, is the mentality of it was that. And the other thing is that this is a time period of dramatic and rapid technological advancement and change. And so a huge portion of that

improved quality of life that we're talking about for people in the UK is connected to rail lines, is connected to science and modernity, and we're going to build a sewer, and we're going to make, you know, bleeding heart liberals, you know, creating regulations for housing construction and sanitation and public health. And all of that, there was this urge toward modernity. Yeah, and that it was progress. Yes, yes, that it was that totally was progress Yeah, and the Empire two Britons Was a civilizing and modernizing force Mm-hmm. It brought the lights of Western democracy, modern science and medicine,

and modern economic prosperity to benign it to primitive peoples who otherwise would have been living in superstition, squalor, and barbarity without the intervention of the strapping young men who bore the white man's burden. I was going to say you really cribbed, kippling there. Well, I did. Yeah. But actually, I kind of went up, so I have a link here to the poem and just to drive the nail home about what the British view of their empire was. With your indulgence, I'm gonna read it because as an artifact of this,

I think it's very important. The whole thing or selections. Selection. Okay, cool, yeah, because the first couple of stands is really hit it hard and then there's one toward the end that you're just like, holy shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Now I'd point out the white man's burden was published in Well, actually, I don't want to steal your thunder. Did you want to talk about the history of the poem? Oh, yeah. Well, it's it was written in 1899.

Mm-hmm. So it's so the poem itself post dates homes. Mm-hmm. But it gets to the heart of what I'm going to try to argue about homes. And it's about the Philippine American war. Yes. And it was literally an exhortation to Americans to engage in empire. Yes. I mean, it's literally in the title. Yes. Or it's in the first line, actually. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

So here we go. So yeah. First stanza, take up the white man's burden, send forth the best you breed. Go bind your sons to exile, to serve your captives need, to wait in heavy harness on fluttered folk and wild, your new caught, selling peoples, half devil and half child. Take up the white man's burden in patience to abide, to veil the threat of terror and

check the show of pride by open speech and simple and a hundred times made plain to seek another's profit and work another's gain. And now we're gonna go down, just skip a few things. So take up the white man's burden, have done with childish days, a lightly-profered laurel that easy, ungrudged praise comes now to search your manhood through all the thankless years, cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom, the judgment of your peers. Yeah. So the level, the level of, of blatant racism in this is staggering to the modern year. Yeah, it's one of those like, when you're teaching world history,

you can't help but have the kids read this. As like, just in case y'all didn't get it yet. It, yeah, it's about white supremacists. Yeah, it's like to do the Civil War and making sure you use the cornerstone to press. Yeah, it's about white supremacists. Yeah, it's like to shoot the Civil War and making sure he is the cornerstone of grass. Yeah, it's like, okay, you missed the point entirely. Yeah, it really is. Or, you know, like, you know, like talking about John Brown at all, you know, it's just like,

hmm, this is what it's about. This is the thing. Yeah, I thought you were going to do the one about the, the Egyptian night because to me, that shows the, what a favor you're doing to these browns. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No, that's, yeah. But, but I think just the first day in the release is like, holy shit, half devil and half child. Yeah. Holy shit, man. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. It's, uh, wow. It's yeah, it's it's Well, yeah, yeah, it's good thing you got the the Nobel Prize. I mean

At least you know Nobel those people learned from their mistakes and didn't give the peace prize You know to somebody who you know use more drone strikes than anybody else or to someone else who would be leading a civil war Presently like at least they learned from their mistakes When yeah, oh prizes for things about that oh Dad's door. It's not it's not true. We're talking about right now but so so the thing is that is the sharp, besamer steel hardened edge of the patriarchalism involved in Britons' attitude toward their

empire. But the thing is, now I got to get back to talking about Holmes and Watson. Yes. And the thing that really separates Holmes from the earlier characters that I talked about from August to Japan and LeCocque, the earlier prototypes of the detective, is Holmes very explicitly uses science and modern chemistry, modern scientific understandings in order to solve many of the things, many of his mysteries. He looks at things like powder burns, blood toxicology. He analyzes typewriter faces like he has note cards comparing different models of typewriter in order to identify forgeries. He uses fingerprints and ballistic marks on bullets. And so all of these things were cutting edge science at the time.

Yes. Almost almost, but not quite science fiction. And like, like, Doyle took ideas that were being discussed in scientific circles and in a few places like he extrapolated. Okay, well, if they know this, then somebody could potentially figure this out. Right. And so Holmes, Holmes winds up doing some kind of CSI shit in the sense that, well, you know, okay, that's based on a theory of something that's right, but the technology isn't quite there yet. Home's is to forensics what like TV procedures are to the internet.

Yes. You know how they like, they'll start hacking together and they're both typing on one half of the keyboard at the same time. Yeah. And they're just gibbushing the shit out of it. They're like, no, you need an ASCII animation. Oh, you're absolutely right.

But we should use the World War IV protocol. You're completely right. Yes, and their BBSs won't work because they're on phytonet Yes, and it's like this is 2017. What the fuck you talking about 1990s Tech four like and why are you why are you pounding on the you know JKL Semicolon and he's pounding on aDF side of it like nobody's that well coordinated like I didn't I didn't realize that you watched NCIS Los Angeles I didn't but I've I've had I've had occasion to be at people's houses when they

have have because yeah I can I can hear that in those characters voices. Yeah, it's like yeah, you know, it is it's that girl from Jurassic Park Oh, yeah a unique system. I know this and it's like well, then why is it all visual? But and I understand that we have recently found that she's not that far off the mark, but But still it's I'm a hacker, you know, it's that kind of, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, in that same way, for us nowadays, those kind of tropes are a clue to us, the audience,

that we're dealing with somebody who is, you know, cutting edge knows their way around all these technological things, homes similarly. Right. Was this figure of modernity. And a big part of the identity of the British Empire was we are the most advanced civilization currently in on earth.

Like we are at the forefront of Industry we are at the forefront of scientific understanding of the world. Yes. This is this is this is the tail end of the time period of the gentleman paleontologist You know, you know British gentleman with nothing better to do with their time British gentleman with nothing better to do with their time. We're some of the earliest systematic scientists. Because they had the time and the money to spend on doing that stuff. That was a very upper-crust thing, then that that gradually got somewhat democratized. Mm-hmm.

You know, and so, but there was there was this again, the Empire is a modernizing force. We as the United Kingdom are on the cutting edge of all of these things. Now, I would also say that it's not just a modernizing force, but it's a dominating force. It is a tool by which the British Empire dominates. I'm going to go back to the Battle of Omderman, which was 1898. And I mean, to hear Winston Churchill speak of it, it's clear it's the machine gun, which I think back then was a gatling gun basically. You would know better than I. But essentially the ability is pro. Yeah, 1898.

The ability to throw a shit ton of bullets down range as the mockedist armies are coming against you enabled you to kill in such incredible numbers and have very few of your men touched. That's science, baby. That's there's a modernity to that that enables you to dominate. And therefore, there's this belief in the superiority of Western science over quaint, political and religious ideologies of the natives. And so it's this secularization and this blessed love of modernity as a dominating force. Because you had Omdermon, which I mean, if you look at the body counts of Ophdermann, it's, I want to say it's in the five

figures for the mockedist army and it's under 400 for, or maybe under 600 for the British. Yeah, well, what I'm going to point out is by the time of Ophdermann, it was not a Gatling gun. Okay. It would have been some variation on the Maxim gun, which was a weak oil operated machine gun. The Maxim was invented in 1884. I also want to point out that in 1887, Henry Morton Stanley, that's right. Yeah. Was an American when he wasn't Congo River. Oh, no, he was, but he pretended to be British. That's what it was. Well, his background is really weird. He's referred to as an American journalist, but I believe he did have a significant portion of his childhood was in the United Kingdom. So is a weird kind of situation. And he was operating in the interests of the British public. You're right. He was looking for Livingston.

He was born in Wales. You're right. Yes. But he lived most of his life was like in Jersey or somewhere. But yeah. Yeah. So, but there was the the couplet. Mm-hmm. Whatever happens, we have got the maximum gun and they have not. Yes. From from the same time period. And so yes, no, we have, you know, the advanced tools of industrializing lethal force. Mm-hmm. Because it's literally a machine gun. Yes.

You know. And but also modern drilling techniques, modern as modern an army technique, as you can have back then for your infantrymen, modern formations centered around these new guns. So the box formation where you can shoot at an army that's surrounding you. Well, stuff like that. Like you don't just have these antiquated napoleonic

lines of Pykemen coming towards you, but now they have rifles, which would have lost out against mountain mock disks. I got a quibble slightly. Okay. About the details of the argument you made. You're not totally wrong, but some of the details in the argument, I can't, it's gonna annoy me if I don't, if I don't, I'm too interested. So the square formation that you're talking about, line and square and column were during the Napoleonic era, they were like, you would form square against cavalry because that allowed

you to get all your guns pointing in every direction and consolidated your forces. Whereas if you're in line, it's a lot easier for cavalry to break the line as opposed to if you're in square, you know, if one of them breaks through, you've got them surrounded, you can, you know, cut them apart. Right. You know, and then there's times to use line and there's times to use column. By the time of the modest uprising and and Auderman, um, there was an understanding, there was a nascent understanding that the tactics of the Napoleonic era no longer worked. Like everybody had been observing the American Civil War in the 1860s. And the American Civil War proved, and there's a wonderful passage in the killer angels where Michael Sharat does a really good job of kind of info dumping without feeling like he's info dumping about how it was that

Napoleonic tactics no longer worked effectively when you had every man carrying a rifle to musket, because the ability of an individual soldier to kill a target at a much longer, to effectively kill a target at a much longer range, was a big deal. Now the thing was, by the time of the modest uprising, the lessons of the American Civil War had been learned. And so formations were changing.

What's interesting is, even at Omderman, the British army was fighting the American Civil War, tactically speaking, while using machine guns against an enemy that was trying to fight the siege of Acra during the first crusade. Right. If that makes sense, and actually Acra was first crusade, it was later crusade, but you get what I'm saying. You know, the modest were light years behind, you know, they were multiple eras of military technology behind the British, which again, even though the British were doing that thing that everybody

does, which is they fought the last war, that still put them centuries ahead of the modest. Okay, yeah, yeah. And so, and so, yeah, to Churchill, who was himself an unapologetic imperialist, this was just an example of the innate superiority of British civilization, ingenuity, manhood. I mean, you name it. Yeah, all the things. You know, sorry, excuse me. Sure. That one's knockup on me.

And so this idea of modernity and the dominance of modernity and scientific progress, what this all ties into is Holmes is a multi-disciplinary genius. He's a very good shot with a pistol. It could be argued that Watson is a better one, but Holmes is a crack shot with a pistol. Holmes is a, he knows how to use a rifle, although it rarely does. He's a champion, single stick fencer. He's a fencer. He knows how to

know his way around a sword. He knows Jujitsu. He is this combination of this scientist wizard, man of action, action hero character. He embodies all of these things. And my argument is that he's not, because you've, you've already kind of met at the end of the last episode, you were saying that he is this hero that the British Empire, that the middle class of the British Empire can look to as the person who's going to save them. I am going to argue, he is the avatar of the empire itself. Oh.

Well, shit, that's a good place to end this one then. Okay. Yeah. You know, and, but I want to kind of, you know, share the green of that a little bit. So he is, he is the Empire. He is, he is the empire. He is, he is modernity. He is the, the, and the lightning force,

he gets called in when Scotland Yard, who to extend the analogy, maybe to its breaking point, represents the other powers of Europe. Oh, okay. You know, when, when, when they don't know a solution to a problem, and they can't figure out what's going on, he shows up and through a combination of just his innate brilliance and hard work in the application of modern scientific principles,

he finds the answer. Watson is the insert character for the audience. Right. And Watson represents the people of the empire. Watson notably is a veteran of the second Afghan war. He studied Scarlet is set several years before it was actually written and so the second Afghan war had ended. I want to say in 1881, and I'd have to look it up. But Watson is a man of action who has a slum wound suffered in the field. But he is otherwise fit and I quote brown as a nut from his time in the sun. That's a start of a study in Scarlet. He is a foot soldier of the empire.

Literally, he was an army doctor in Afghanistan. So he is what we all could be and homes is what we all wish we were. We being British citizens. Yeah, yeah, middle class British citizens. Yeah. And so when I, when I elaborate on this, what's interesting is, in the original stories, Holmes is this, nobody ever questions as genius.

There are sometimes when Lestra had, and the other inspectors looked at him and go, well, I think you're kind of reaching there, Mr. Ooms, but then at the end, they all would, they inevitably wind up faunting over, well, you know, it couldn't, couldn't correct this without your help, et cetera, et cetera. Right.

And they may wind up going and stealing the credit, but there's this, there's this constant affirmation of his genius and his brilliance. And so when I elaborate on this, episodes to come, what's interesting is Holmes evolves as our view of Empire evolves. Okay. And the two most notable examples are in the two major recent television adaptations of the show. There is a very remarkable difference in tone and the character of

homes between Sherlock made by the BBC and elementary made in the United States. Okay. And so that's where I'm gonna drop this right now. Cool. That's a good place, yeah. That is my thesis. So with that being put out there, what do you think? What do you take away? I think that the episode where I talked about how Steve Rogers was the avatar of the new deal. I think thematically this is this is very much that. Oh yeah. It just you know changed

the person's name. You know X is the avatar of Y. Yeah. And it's you know here all of its components. So I'm very excited to hear all the ways in which he is and I think that you've done a really good job with the history leading up to it of already kind of setting the groundwork for that. So I'm excited to kind of enjoy the ride there. So that's right Matt with that. So not gonna do any book recommendations this week. This time I would like to hear from you. If someone were to watch a Sherlock Holmes visual medium, what would be the first one you would tell them to watch? Not the best one, but the one that really really sets the tone so that they'll understand and appreciate the other ones.

Is it Veronica Mars? I feel like it's Veronica Mars. No, no, Veronica Mars is not Holmes. Oh, okay. No, no. That would be if somebody wanted to dip their toes in who are, to get an understanding for that genre, it would totally be very, very hard. Okay, so it's Dennis the Messe.

Yes. Yes, Dennis the Messe. No, okay. The 1950s version black and white. It is. It is. No, okay. No, okay. Um, homalone, homalone with McCulloch and Colken. No, okay. No, um, that'd be more like if I wanted people to look at mutations of Rambo. Um, yeah. Oh my god, that's topic. Rambo is home alone. Yeah, well, you know, oh my god. I just wanted a toothbrush.

Yeah. You know, you know, and the funny thing is I just, I pulled that like literally out of the back of my brain. Yeah. There you go. Oh wow. Um, okay, wreck we inferred drink. Because Holmes is just trying to make ends meet.

Oh God, nobody ever fucking watched that thing. Jesus Christ, no. For not for anyways. Good God. Did I ever tell you? I found two Amazon trucks and they were just offloading back to back. And I stopped and I took a picture.

One of them looks out, he's like, what's going on? I was like, oh, the joke that this is for is way too complex and dark, but trust me, I'm not reporting you. I'm just making a really awful joke about a really well-made, horrible movie. Cause the trucks were butt to butt. Nice.

And so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. And so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's really tough to actually answer your question because there have been so many, there have been so many really good interpretations of the Holmes as a character.

I think what I would recommend would be to find the Cherimi Brett Sherlock Holmes shows that were done by Grenada Films. I want to say it was in the 1980s. Okay. Brett is an amazing homes He manages to do a wonder like the the character of Homes as written by Conan Doyle. I think is is best captured by Brett's performance because he manages to be outwardly because he manages to be outwardly, utterly a cold fish. Like his utterly placid and very dispassionate, but then Jeremy Brett was this amazing actor,

he's one of those actors like to share me a foot, and he'll be keep coming back to you. Who could he moat so effectively with his eyes? That you could capture so wonderfully, his the rest of his face would be totally placid, but you could see his eyes twinkling when he was getting one over on Watson. Sure. Sure. Or you could see how thoroughly and raged he was at the the doings of a villain or whatever. And it was just it was I mean it was it's it's an amazing performance. So the Jeremy Brett Grenada Holmes stories I think is where I would recommend you start. Okay. And then for sheer balls to the wall, fun to watch,

and for the portrayal of the friendship between homes and Watson. I would say. Great bounce detective. Yeah, I agree. That's a good one. That's actually a really good one. Not gonna lie.

But. Might have been my little brother's first movie. Oh yeah? He was not even two. Nice. Yeah. But the Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. Oh, okay.

Is like created whole cloth. It's not one of the original. It's not based on any of Conan Doyle's stories. Right. And it veers kind of into steam punk in terms of the technology involved. So it's kind of a fantasy movie. But the portrayal of Holmes and Watson

is pitch perfect. And Jude Law is Watson, I think, is one of the best. I mean, they're all good, but his Watson is amazing. Okay. And it's just a hell of a lot of fun. Nice. All right. Well, there we go.

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Where can you be found sir? You can find me on January 14th, February 4th, March 4th, and April 7th performing live at Luminas in Sacramento, California. You have to be vaccinated and pay the cover. But you can find me performing live with capital punishment. You can also find me the first Tuesday of every month on twitch.tv for slash capital puns, doing our digital shows still keeping up

with the international and certainly a nationwide flare that we've come to enjoy over the pandemic. You can also find me on Twitter and Instra at duh harmony, two inches in the middle. So that's more than enough. So yeah, for a geek history of time, I'm Deemian Harmony. And I'm Ed Blanlock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s. calling 20s.