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Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

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Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#221

Post by vacuity »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #218
vacuity wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you're asking a rhetorical question, but I believe it's because (whether right or wrong) the linked thread is perceived as belonging to the "redpilled, conservative, traditional masculinity" subculture.

I'm not asking a rhetorical question. The flagged thread is flagged, not downvoted. 45 points, 87 comments. I doubt RAND[1] and IPSOS are in the redpilled subculture, that's quite the reach. Not everything touching on men's problems in the current age is redpilled [1] https://www.rand.org/about.html >The RAND American Life Panel and the Ipsos KnowledgePanel are nationally representative probability-based survey panel…

Well, I was commenting on why I think the thread was flagged, not whether I think it should be. Also, the main content of an HN thread is typically in the comments, not the link.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#222

Post by tome »

donkey_brains wrote: post #21

How did this make it to the top of HN? It’s an extremely facile work and reads exactly like a high school essay: “In having his character consider execution to protect his and his family’s reputation, Doyle explored the societal expectations of Victorian masculinity and how men struggled with such pressures.” It’s an interesting topic, but the paper makes no revelatory statements and provides a very superficial analy…

> It’s an extremely facile work and reads exactly like a high school essay: “In having his character consider execution to protect his and his family’s reputation, Doyle explored the societal expectations of Victorian masculinity and how men struggled with such pressures.”

Not to mention that that the character in this particular story is not actually struggling with debt, he simply discovers, somewhat incredibly, whilst researching for a newspaper story, that he can earn far more money begging than in his job as a reporter. There simply is no pressure, he just lacks integrity.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#223

Post by papercrane »

GJim wrote: post #184
claw-el wrote: post #130

One reason I like CBS’s Elementary’s depiction of Sherlock (maybe more so than BBC’s Sherlock) is because how Elementary treats Sherlock’s mental health and addiction recovery as central to the character. As great as Sherlock is at solving cases, he still struggles greatly to handle his own mental health and addiction recovery, which makes him more grounded to earth.

> Sherlock’s mental health and addiction recovery As I said downthread..... In Conan Doyle's books, Holmes was a user of cocaine, not an addict. This modern desire to portray Holmes as a drug addict says far more about our own times.

When Doyle wrote most of the Holmes stories cocaine was a popular and novel new drug, it wasn't until later that it's risks became widely known. In one of his later stories, "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter", Doyle portrays it as an addiction that Watson weaned him of, but is still concerned that his friend may fall back into.

"For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug-mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was not dead but sleeping, and I have known that the sleep was a light one and the waking near when in periods of idleness I have seen the drawn look upon Holmes’ ascetic face, and the brooding of his deep-set and inscrutable eyes. Therefore I blessed this Mr. Overton, whoever he might be, since he had come with his enigmatic message to break that dangerous calm which brought more peril to my friend than all the storms of his tempestuous life."

- https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Return_of_Sherlock_Holmes...

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#224

Post by GeoAtreides »

vacuity wrote: post #221
GeoAtreides wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not asking a rhetorical question. The flagged thread is flagged, not downvoted. 45 points, 87 comments. I doubt RAND[1] and IPSOS are in the redpilled subculture, that's quite the reach. Not everything touching on men's problems in the current age is redpilled [1] https://www.rand.org/about.html >The RAND American Life Panel and the Ipsos KnowledgePanel are nationally representative probability-based survey panel…

Well, I was commenting on why I think the thread was flagged, not whether I think it should be. Also, the main content of an HN thread is typically in the comments, not the link.

>the main content of an HN thread is typically in the comments, not the link

this is what's killing HN (and everything else, tbh)

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#225

Post by tayo42 »

sudosteph wrote: post #198

I've read a lot of Holmes recently, and while I'm not a man, I do think Doyle portrays Holmes' issues in a way that is relatable. Holmes core thing though is that he has an almost ADHD-esque craving for novelty and tolerance for risk taking. He also can't stand not actively working on things, and when he's not working is when he's depressed. He doesn't seem to know how to actually feel good, but he knows how to be us…

If this is an accurate summary, the character sounds relatable enough that I might try one of these books.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#226

Post by mewpmewp2 »

erikerikson wrote: post #215
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This leads me to a conclusion that someone can only be truly vulnerable around people that you might consider toxic? It's unavoidable in many cases, but I'd prefer a life where I would surround myself with people who tried to build each other and not take advantage of each other. I think it's definitely possible, and I think I'm pretty much there at least. This leads me to the next point, which is that I don't think…

Not using a capacity may atrophy it but does not remove it. I haven't cherry picked with git in a very long time but I could if I wanted to. I'm not violent but physics still allows it. Toxicity is not required for people to be vulnerable. I totally prefer the lift each other up crowd too. They exist, often in the same spaces as everyone else. IMO, the problem comes down to a current inability to scale social knowing…

> However, you seem to want to grind on an axe and I worry I might be getting in the way of that. I suggest you consider what has you activated and whether you can take away it's power to echo through and continue hurting you.

What do you mean by that? What axe?

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#227

Post by n4r9 »

uxp100 wrote: post #186
n4r9 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "personal trainer" I just mean someone that you pay for a training session 1-3x per week. It's a comparable expense to therapy (depending on qualifications etc...).

I mean, that’s what they meant too. They’re expensive! Kinda a stereotypical rich thing to have, more so than therapy. One distinction that you might be thinking of without saying between individual sessions and group workouts which are cheaper.

Personal training sessions with experienced staff at my David Lloyds in London are around £50-60 for 45 minutes. That's entry-level cost for therapy, which can easily go north of £100 per hour around here.

I reckon the reason people use therapy is not because it's cheaper, but because they're less confident about how to do "mental exercise" than they are physical exercise.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#228

Post by vacuity »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #224
vacuity wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I was commenting on why I think the thread was flagged, not whether I think it should be. Also, the main content of an HN thread is typically in the comments, not the link.

>the main content of an HN thread is typically in the comments, not the link this is what's killing HN (and everything else, tbh)

I disagree. The link is at best one data point, when the comments provide a whole body of content. Of course, the bulk of the comments should be productive, then, in order for the thread to be productive.

While HN is not great on politics, I'm not aware of any decently large (or small!) community that is.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#229

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

tossandthrow wrote: post #70
apples_oranges wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I neither like the taboo nor the opposite. Too much psychology talk in every day life, everyone is traumatised and has unresolved issues etc. That may be, but I wish we would handle it all more privately...

This is a valid take. But we need to apply it evenly on the entire society. If we fill up the public discourse with the issues and wants of women and make the issues and wants of men a private matter this will skew the public understanding of the stance of women and men - we see this hardcore these days with boys and men being villainized, made invisible and made suspicious only due to their gender. From here we have…

Not the commenter, and I 'm not a fan of how normal it has become to do one's dirty laundry in public. But I find it lamentable that the most popular takeaway from the internet's mainstreaming of feminist thought is that men’s issues are necessarily in competition with women's issues for representation.

It's ridiculous since women's issues are only being better represented recently while men have long dominated politics, religion, and pop culture. But more importantly, the social pressures giving men and boys mental health issues come from the very same patriarchal gender roles that women's rights movements are rebelling against. This nuance had been drowned out by all the noise in internet "discourse".

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#230

Post by watwut »

geoka9 wrote: post #219
sireat wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I recall Holmes did in fact do a lot of walking. He vacillated between periods of inactivity(cocaine, violin, shooting V in wall with a revolver) and intense activity (taking up disguises and doing various physical activities including walking all across London and elsewhere. Just because your logical mind says one thing is good to do and you know you should do it you are not going to always obey your rider, the i…

> and intense activity AFAIR those had a specific purpose (chasing a perp, tracking down evidence, etc.). Most of his thinking he did sitting in a chair and smoking his pipe for hours on end (sometimes the whole night).

No they are not. He plays violin and shoots a gun inside his house for fun.
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