Url changed from https://scienceclock.com/arthur-conan-doyle-delved-into-mens..., which points to this.
Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes
231–240 of 304 posts
Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
We're still working a lot of this out because it's actually a relatively new thing culturally - my grandfathers generation would never have talked about mental health at all - but what is pretty clear is that most people do not talk enough about this, and do not deal with mental health very well. That does not mean we should all be talking to everybody about it all the time. I take stuff into a therapy session I'm no…
There was certainly quite a bit of deep talk about "integrity" and "character" in our grandfathers' generation, that was ultimately relating to issues we would now comprise under so-called 'mental health'. It's not clear to me that this medicalized framing ("...health") is necessarily and consistently better than a more traditional one focused on developing a well-adjusted character.
Some other old-fashioned-y terms in this context: "strength" and "fortitude".
Men generally process negative emotions in private so others don't worry about them. This has led to the incorrect common viewpoint that men don't process these emotions at all, and attempts to make men process them like women do.
Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes
#233I'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…
> ...when he's not working is when he's depressed. The cure for that is known since dawn of time - walking. Holmes, being an exceptionally observant man, definitely would observe that walks raise the mood, allow for (most often silly) ideas to come and, last but not least, increase observation capabilities, attention to details and speed of thought. Arthur Conan-Doyle did an extensive walks back then, but his hero wa…
Holmes is basically a border collie?
Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes
#234One 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.
I think Elementarys Sherlock is closer to the book version. In the BBC version he is totally aloof of social connections and norms, but in the books it is pretty clear, that Sherlock is able to tranverse London society - he had many case with high society people before Watson was part of his life - he just dislikes it.
I tried watching an episode of the bbc version and found it very off-putting, it was written almost as a caricature of holmes. elementary was definitely a lot closer in spirit.
Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes
#235> One of those taboo subjects was male vulnerability and mental health problems. (emphasis is mine) I would argue that still in 2025 this is an extreme and institutionalized taboo.
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...
Why?
Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes
#236I feel like this article is revisionism. The author is making a wild assumption that no male, no matter the circumstances was presented with having issues or trauma in victorian literature. Being nice and sympathetic is also not a concept which was only discovered recently. The article just throws in key words like mental health to make it sound relevant for today. Maybe the only interesting part is that drug use was…
> a fantastic and hilarious job of portraying holmes as an erratic drug addict. Except in Conan Doyle's books, Holmes was a user of cocaine, not an addict. This desire to portray Holmes as a drug addict says far more about our own times.
Regardless of if we consider Holmes a drug addict, abuser or merely a controlled user, it is clear from the stories that Watson was very concerned as both a Friend and Medical expert, that Holmes is damaging his mental faculties
Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also spend what feels to me like a lot of time here. I like it, despite its problems. But HN isn't good enough to deserve to be 70% of anyone's life. :(
I agree, but it's 12:10 PM, and I am in my third meeting, pretending to pay attention. I wish the job market improved.
Have you tried tobacco, indoor firearms and cocaine?
Oh … never mind.
I have always worked remote and been hermitting recently on a difficult set of (work) challenges.
I don’t know what I would do without HN.
I read a lot of science, math and tech news, but am only aware of one place where the discourse around topics that interest me has the quality of HN, which is HN.
Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
No the whole experience makes or breaks people, which is the idea. It is like failing fast for people. It looks cruel but in the long run is more honest. That is not to say the networks from exclusive day schools do not help, they do.
It's actually a terrible idea. You're giving the people who "fail fast" no real incentives to fix themselves up and try again, and the people who "succeed" no incentives to do even better in the future. Even aside from how cruel it obviously looks, it's really a recipe for pervasive incompetence and a failed society.
I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding the system.
It’s one and done. The system doesn’t care.
Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
It seems to me (and clearly I could be wrong) that you really want to express certain sentiments. Another way to say it is that you seem to be engaging in motivated arguing. Said with the more standard idiom, that you have "an axe to grind".
Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
It seems to me (and clearly I could be wrong) that you really want to express certain sentiments. Another way to say it is that you seem to be engaging in motivated arguing. Said with the more standard idiom, that you have "an axe to grind".
I am honestly just curious what people think, it is an interesting topic. I have heard off and on throughout my life this idea about being vulnerable. I was never fully certain what people meant by that. Even in this thread it seems people think of it differently, but no one really goes into details to clarify.
E.g. what are some concrete examples of what would make a man be vulnerable?