Acceptable Sherlock

Having been falsely accused of straw man arguments on occasion, let me stage an argument between two of those fellows. (I say "fellows" because . . . well, they're both flawed at a level that's easier to identify as male these days.)

"All Sherlock Holmes is good Sherlock Holmes."

"Have you read/watched/used all Sherlock Holmes?'

"No. I just like Sherlock Holmes and want other people to be able to be free to like Sherlock Holmes."

"Okay, so if there's a Sherlock who's really into torture, and I mean seriously into torture. He enjoys the fine details of torture as a method of learning about his fellow man. And he always tells his John Watson, 'You kill, but you do not observe!' And the Sherlockians who are into that Sherlock Holmes actually enjoy torture. Do you want them having meetings at your house?"

"Well, no. But you're going to an extreme. That's not real."

"But possible, right? Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable . . ."

"Oh, stop it! There aren't torture Sherlockians."

"That you know of. You just don't want to admit that it's possible to have unacceptable Sherlock in your Lego Emmet view of the world."

"Leave Lego Emmet out of this! You're just trying to find an excuse to be a hater!"

"So, in your view, Torture Sherlock is good Sherlock. And let me get to Mucus Sherlock . . . ."

"That's just silly. Mucus Sherlock could be good Sherlock, though, if he's well written."

"AH-HA!! What if he's not well-written? Are you admitting a not-well-written Sherlock might be of lesser quality? That a not-well-written Sherlock might be, in effect, bad?"

"I didn't say that. And besides, define 'bad.'"

"I just did define 'bad." Did you not hear me say, 'of lesser quality?'"

"Well, I'm sure whoever wrote it did their best. We should consider their feelings."

"They got paid $105,000 to write that lesser quality Sherlock. When you make past that, you don't get any happier. Their feelings are fine. And how are they going to learn if we don't point out the flaws in their Sherlock."

"Flaws do not make something BAD!"

"Admit it, you're a fan of Mucus Sherlock, aren't you? You're not being objective about this."

"Well, you just hate mucus because of all the colds you had last winter! You're not objective either!"

"So 'bad' is subjective. Which means if one person thinks something is bad, it is actually bad to that person. And I think Mucus Sherlock is bad."

"And I think all Sherlock is good Sherlock."

Rinse, repeat, post on the internet.