Thoughts About Holmes On Homes
By John Taylor; 2009 June 25, Rahmat 01, 166 BE
I just went through a library DVD of the fourth season of the television program "Holmes on Homes." I watch these episodes with a mixture of horror and admiration. Horror at how much these renovations cost, and at how even if I had the money, how easy it would be, with bad luck, to see it all fly out the window. Admiration I feel when I watch a master at his trade at work. Almost every time at the end of the episode I am in tears. My horror at how badly a renovation can be botched then turns to horror at myself, at how I can get so sentimental about a silly home repair show. What is wrong with me?
For those who do not know about this production of the cable network "Home and Garden Television," Mike Holmes is a Toronto contractor whose motto is "Build it Right," perhaps intentionally a corrective to the animated character Bob the Builder's motto, "Can we build it? Yes we can!" Holmes goes into botched home renovations, assesses what has to be done and does it. Like the original James Bond series, where the spy is motivated by righteous indignation at a master criminal, Holmes is motivated by anger at incompetents and, worse, out-and-out grifters and scam artists who well know that the law is such that you cannot be arrested for fraud if you can demonstrate that you went in and did at least some work on the home, even if it is just banging in one nail.
At the start Holmes assesses the stalled project and points out what is wrong with it and why the workmanship is shoddy. He calls in experts to advise him and then tears out all sub-standard, half-finished construction, which sometimes is the result of several previous renovations, and starts afresh. Unlike in real life, he does not have to consider a tight budget; if anything is wrong with the house, he fixes it, shouting curses at the clowns who preceded him. "Unacceptable." "This is below code. Gut it!" are his repeated declarations. This tends to compromise some of the show's drama but for me it increases its educational value, since without budgetary constraints he can show new techniques and materials that I usually have never heard of.
At the end of each episode it is touching to see Holmes hand over the fruit of his work to delighted owners, many of whom had been burned so badly they lost their life savings paying for an unfinished project. Why do I feel sorry for people who are ten times richer than I am? I just do not understand myself. Anyway, you can see that Holmes and his co-workers not only know what they are doing, not only love their jobs, but they also derive genuine pleasure in giving these poor people a renovation that is correct, safe, and beautiful. In many cases the homeowner is already broke and they are donating their services -- though no doubt the publicity of being on television is worth its weight in gold as advertising. I hear that one of his suppliers and subcontractors, a spray insulation firm, is located not far from where I live.
This is how they should make television cop shows. Right now policiers concentrate exclusively on the violent, spectacular side of a grossly inadequate legal system. Police shows are all about justice as revenge and retribution, black deeds, killing, shooting, arrests and jails, all the aspects of criminal injustice that proper education would avoid in the first place.
Imagine a "Holmes on Homes" style approach for cop shows. There is no equivalent for a general contractor in the justice system, unfortunately, so this takes a very big leap of the imagination. But imagine a television show based on the aboriginal style of restorative justice where a wrongdoer is not branded a "criminal" for the rest of his life and segregated in prison, but rather he is purified by spending a period in the wilderness where he must fend for himself, completely alone. Imagine that purgation followed by efforts on the part of the whole community to reconcile the perpetrator with his victims, to restore the situation to how it was before the wrong was done, or even better. All this is already being done with minor crimes in many native communities across Canada, and it is being tried out tentatively with non-native crimes too.
Imagine a community with Holmes's motto, "make it right," who decided to do whatever it takes, spend any amount of money not only to "solve" a crime in the sense of finding whodunnit and punishing them, but really, actually solving the crime. I mean solving it for good, by healing its every bad effect as a particular crime and then seeing to it that such a wrong will never take place again.
A television series that dramatized restorative justice in action would be a great service to society. What is more, judging by the tears I often shed at the end of this -- of all things -- home renovation program, it would surely not be so hard for a cop show where wrongs are not retaliated against but righted to be a deeply moving and compelling experience. In fact I find that watching endless dramas of punitive justice, in spite of all their suspense and gunfire, an unsatisfying experience. As soon as the echo of shots dies down tedium sets in. To see a crime restored and cured would surely be both encouraging and inspiring. And, as Holmes does, a show highlighting innovation and improved methods in law and order might actually make us expect progress in abolishing crime and corruption. Once people imagine and expect something to get better, it tends to happen.
At least, that is what I am hoping for by watching Holmes on Homes these days. I expect, perhaps vainly, that if I watch it enough I might learn enough to get the confidence and gumption to renovate. Somehow I also have to conjure up the money, even if I do it all myself. Somehow our household needs to get a cheaper alternative to our present heating system, electric baseboard heaters. Last winter we paid more for heat than ever before, sometimes as much as 900 dollars a month. We clearly must do something before next winter hits and our stipends are sucked dry again.
I watched several Holmes on Homes episodes last night just before bed. In the morning I woke thinking about this theme -- a master craftsperson comes into a bad situation and uses all his skill to make it right. How close this is to what the Manifestation of God does to the hearts of men, and to the corrupt organizations that dare call themselves religions! He goes in, points out exactly what the problem is, tears it out and builds it right. Surely God's Messenger viewing the world feels very much the same indignation that a master builder like Mike Holmes does when he walks through botched houses, some of which are about to collapse or burn down because some loser wanted to save himself an hour's work.
Here is an example of what I am talking about.
I have been going over one of Baha'u'llah's most important statements about how to eliminate prejudice, and I note that right in the middle He inserts a very strong personal declaration of lifelong commitment to this mission:
"This wronged One hath, ever since the early days of His life, cherished none other desire but this (i.e. to root out contention), and will continue to entertain no wish but this wish." (Proclamation, 114)
It is wonderful that Baha'u'llah formalized the universal need for security in the branch of the institution of the learned who specialize in protection.
As I lay in bed, I imagined an entire profession of philosopher, inspired by guys like Mike Holmes, not to mention the learned guardians of Baha, who took a tour through our everyday thoughts and consultation, tore pieces away, examined our faulty presuppositions and angrily shouted, "This is just unacceptable!" "This is below code!" and, "What was this guy thinking?" If there had been guardian philosophers prowling the beer-halls of Germany in the 1920's, expunging racism, stereotypes and other fallacies as soon as they popped to the surface, I am sure that Nazism would never have stood a chance of gaining popularity.
Where are the master thought builders when we need them, now that global warming is breathing down our necks? Are we learning how to expunge prejudice, the lifelong dream of Baha'u'llah, or are we just stamping out a brushfire that will spring up somewhere else? I leave you with the thoughts of Comenius on how to get at the root of prejudice, which is ego and selfish lack of perspective. How similar his ideas are to a certain general contractor in Toronto!
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"A(n) ... obnoxious obstacle is a strangely inborn mental indifference which rests content with any kind of knowledge derived from any and every source, so that no room is found for truer or better things, although they are there for the taking. For since first impressions make their mark on men's minds, and hold fast there without giving way to those which come later, they keep our minds fully occupied.
"This is the origin of our prejudice that our views are truer and better than those of others, even though we do not know what kind of views the others hold. Prejudice of this sort keeps our minds so fettered that whatever opinion happens to be held by someone by chance or force of habit is believed to be above comparison with those of others; we therefore disdain, scorn, and condemn them without a hearing.
"This explains why every man's philosophy, and his opinions about things, his religion and his ritual for worshipping God, his politics, and his customary form of government, are just like idols. Therefore if we undertake the reform of affairs in earnest, we must make a strenuous effort to remove this barrier, too, so that every human being recognises that he is human, and just as liable as his neighbour to suffer from illusion, to make mistakes, and to lapse into error. ... Unless we set men universally free from the fetters of prejudice, it is futile for us to expect Universal Reform." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 6, para 5, pp. 100-101)
John Taylor
email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/
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