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Five Decembers Q3: Belonging and action
McGrady is an outsider on the HPD (non-Hawaiian, ex-military), then the nature of his war experience further isolates him from his colleagues. He concludes his quest as a private individual. De Vries changes from an ineffectual coward to a brave and competent man who sidesteps the rigid bureaucracy to help McGrady. Kansei lies to protect McGrady, for Kansei's personal desires. Beamer is both a career policemen and a member of the American Nazi party.
To what extent are great things done by people within organisations, and what is achieved by those outside them (either not members, or sidestepping the rules)? Is that your experience of the world, or is it a genre conceit?
Comments
A lot of it is a genre conceit, I think! By some strange piece of synchronicity I saw one of those internet joke posts just yesterday about "how to succeed as a screenplay writer" which included the sage advice "a detective is incapable of solving a crime until he is either suspended or dismissed".
I am no great fan of large organisations, having once worked in them and now happily out of them, but I kind of feel that for law enforcement they have the edge over the private investigator.
I agree, a lot of it is genre conceit. When push comes to shove, most of us prefer that our institutions deal with things rather than well-meaning mavericks. But as someone who has to work with (often unreasonable) civic bureaucracies, it's always nice to cheer when some bureaucrat can see the forest through the trees and sets their blind loyalty to the system aside in order to get something done.
Veering away from the book, I've come to understand that most bureaucratic impediments aren't there to support the best of us, but rather to impede the incompetent and malicious. Bureaucratic checks often stop mistakes, and do more to constrain the actions of deliberate bad actors. On the one hand, look at the corruption in the UK government, allowed to happen on the basis of a constitution that assumes ministers are "jolly good chaps." On the other, look at aviation safety, where checklists and procedures are in place to catch all-too-human lapses.