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 useful, thus his penchant for productivity boosters like cocaine.
He's a great character, but I wouldn't over pathologize him according to today's understanding of mental health. Doyle was a physician and gave Holmes various traits similar to what he had seen in his patients.
> ...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 was written to not to. This is not right.
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 inertia of the elephant takes over.
So you need a trigger to snap out of it, for Holmes it was a new case.
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).
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 two ways forward: Either make sure that mens issues gain a proportionate part of the public discourse or argue that all issues are a private matter.
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".
> It's ridiculous since women's issues are only being better represented recently while men have long dominated politics
This statement has more than one issue:
1. First and foremost, it is simply a rewrite of the history. There is a difference between descriptive and substantive representation. And it is true that men have been descriptively better represented. But the thoughtless implication that this leads to better substantive representation is simply wrong.
2. It justifies the idea of "reparations" for previous generations misdoing. Not only does this induce a high level if dissent, it is simply immoral. Even if we would accept reparations, it is still only justified by the rewrite of the history.
I appreciate the call for nuance, but I think the historical framing here deserves scrutiny.
You're right that men have dominated politicly, but it's worth distinguishing between who held power (descriptive representation) and whose interests were served (substantive representation). Most men throughout history had no political power - they were subjects of monarchies, excluded by property requirements, or conscripted into wars they didn't choose. The men making decisions were a tiny elite.
On "women's issues only recently being better represented" -this depends heavily on what we're measuring. If we look at something like life expectancy as a rough proxy for overall life quality (capturing war mortality, occupational deaths, access to resources, healthcare), historical data suggests men and women faced roughly equal burdens pre-industrialization, just distributed differently. Women faced maternal mortality and legal subordination; men faced conscription, dangerous labor, and social expendability. The female longevity advantage only emerges clearly in the modern era.
The point isn't to claim men had it worse - it's that "men have long dominated" obscures that most men were themselves dominated, and bore unique, severe costs within the same system.
I agree completely that rigid gender roles harm everyone. But framing current attention to men's issues as acceptable only because "patriarchal roles harm men too" still treats men's suffering as derivative of women's concerns, requiring feminist justification. Can't men's rising suicide rates, educational struggles, and social isolation warrant direct concern on their own terms?
The discourse does need less competition. But that requires actually taking men's issues seriously, not just when they can be reframed as collateral damage from patriarchy.
Honestly, I think that this delineation between descriptive vs. substantive representation is the more likely attempt at rewriting history. Even if you look only at political elites across time, you’ll easily see women disenfranchised from positions of power because of male lines of succession, or from certain lines of work (even knowledge work) because such activities were expected of and considered rightful for men. That’s not to say that women have it worse. While it’s true that men have been victims of conscription to wars and dangerous labor, by your own explanation, these forms of oppression would go away if only those men were rich—-but there wouldn’t be any respite for women even if they could change their socio-economic standing.
As regards generational blame, I disagree that it is immoral to place accountability (which is different from blame) on a people even across generations, and ergo, time. You might not have a hand at something that your ancestor did, but you could be reaping the benefits of it today. You don’t have to be sorry for it with your every breath, but since we’re already talking about morality, you do have the responsibility to recognize the past and where your current resources are from, and to make reparations towards people who are still suffering the consequences to the present.
And as a man, I would like for men’s issues to be more out there and recognized in its own right, but honestly, “men’s rights” is a very recent thing and only came about as a reaction against the rise of feminist discourse in social media. How could one not see that as a derivative of women’s issues? It’s not even talking about the things that really matter to me as a man, such as the discrimination of men against an “alpha” ideal which, I could argue from experience, is really what’s driving those mental health issues and suicidal thoughts. I’ve seen that men’s rights movements are actually trying to defend this ideal, and it doesn’t even seem to consider LGBT men in the picture.
First, we have only discussed equal representation of men's and women's issues with the argument that an imbalance in the public discourse leads to an imbalance in personal opinion. You are going of of slope to misrepresent this as a mens rights movement - that is not very polite.
You are completely right in your observations about women being disenfranchised from power and not hold the same rights. But this is just a minor aspect of life and invite you to reflect on whether this in its own right led to worse lifes as a whole for women - if you take all other obligations and privileges into consideration. I tried indicating that life expectancy could be a well understood proxy, but you are free to find other holistic proxies.
I do believe in full gender equality. and as while women has gained autonomy and agency men need to gain the same amount of protection of that of women. Men can not be the only ones conscripted for war. Men can not be the only ones taking dangerous and physical jobs.
I am also not here to push a zero sum view of these things - But to push a reasonable understanding of "sum" and be open for being taught something if it turns out that what we thought was not right.
Your comment about generational blame for entire groups of people is abhorrent and needs to be rejected. It leads to people "paying reparations" or "taking blame" for something they have not done just by being a part of that group. It is out of touch with societies based on rule of law. And it needs to be rejected.
You have absolutely no responsibility to accept or recognize anything you have not been a part of. This mere idea that you can force people to adapt (by accepting) a truth i borderline authoritarian. It is such an extreme form of mental coercion and needs to be rejected.
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 not going to discuss anywhere else, because if I started talking about it at work, or even close relationships, I'm asking people without any ability to help me with it to just take it and work it out with me, and that's not helpful.
But at the same time, we do need to talk to people about it. And there are some toxic barriers we could do with addressing.
Men are not "meant" to cry or show vulnerability in almost all contexts in almost all cultures. That's sad, because while we don't all want men breaking down in tears when their coffee order isn't quite right, we also know it's healthy for men to acknowledge and process difficult feelings like grief and rejection.
While most people realise it's not OK to tell a woman she'd look prettier if she smiled more, few people see the hypocrisy in thinking it's OK to tell a man he'd be sexier if he was more confident. That causes problems I think we can all call out and name in modern dating culture.
According to some stats I just pulled up for the UK, surveys suggest that more than 75% of men report as having had mental health issues, but only 60% have ever spoken to another human being about it at all, with 40% of men stating it would have to be so bad that they are considering self-harm or suicide to talk to anyone, ever. This is horrible.
So, sure, perhaps we don't need to talk about Freudian analysis down the pub, and nobody at work wants to hear about you reconciling feelings about how you were treated as a child by members of your family, but please:
Most men need to talk to somebody about their mental health. And for many problems, that somebody needs to be somebody with the appropriate skills and abilities to help them with it.
If you're reading this, and think that might be you, please, for your own sake, go talk to a professional.
You might not gel with the first therapist, counsellor, psychiatrist or psychologist you speak to. That's OK, they won't mind if you say you want to try a few different people. You can find people who will help in your town, on video calls, on apps, all over. Just speak to someone.
I'd like to elaborate on something you touch on briefly:
> I'm asking people without any ability to help me with it to just take it and work it out with me, and that's not helpful.
> that somebody needs to be somebody with the appropriate skills and abilities to help them with it.
I think there's an important line to walk here. I think it's important everyone (men and women) are able to talk about their feelings and experiences with their friends - but I don't think the goal needs to be "helping work it out". Just sharing and listening can be liberating, can help ease the road to talking to a professional, and can help others see that others struggle too.
There is a tendency in conversations of any sort to be always searching for a "solution" or an "answer", instead of just listening.
(There's a lot of nuance here in choosing when to share, etc, but I just wanted to talk a bit about it)
Being frustrated with something at work and having somebody to rant about it with is one of the pillars of any friendship. Your friends can do the work of listening, empathising, reassuring and then helping you get past it and enjoying the beer, game or barbecue you're at. That's cool, I agree.
Having deep feelings of inadequacy and bringing that to the friendship at every opportunity is asking that friend to help you with those feelings, they probably aren't equipped to do that in all sorts of ways.
As with most things, it's a spectrum, not binary. Some friends would love to help you overcome childhood trauma, but most will not. Your partner may be able to help you deal with the way that family member behaves, but quite often, that's your thing, not theirs, deal with it. A work colleague might be able to support you when a co-worker is being a jerk, but might not have the skill or ability to help you manage your feelings or deal with that behaviour.
A therapist is trained to help you with those things your friends, family and colleagues can't. More specifically, they are trained to help you figure out what you are going to do about it.
Sometimes, when we talk to people about problems, we're "giving them the problem", as in, we want them to tell us what to do about it, or to actually do something about it. They often can't or won't do that - it's your thing. Therapists won't take it either, but they'll help you manage it as your thing.
A friend who is just there to listen, that's different, if the ask is just to listen and be somebody to talk to, sure, most friends have that ability and skill, and are happy to do so. But there's a lot of stuff people go through where that isn't enough, and asking those same people to do more is probably not going to work.
> Sometimes, when we talk to people about problems, we're "giving them the problem", as in, we want them to tell us what to do about it, or to actually do something about it. They often can't or won't do that - it's your thing. Therapists won't take it either, but they'll help you manage it as your thing.
I actually think that, most of the time, people just want someone to listen. But there's something in our culture that injects that need to "give advice" instead of "just listen."
> if the ask is just to listen
We need to swap this default around. People should need to request advice/help, not request that they listen.
> But there's a lot of stuff people go through where that isn't enough, and asking those same people to do more is probably not going to work.
Certainly - but in my experience just talking about those things can be hugely beneficial, and sure, it would be great if they'd go to a therapist for those things - but as discussed, therapy still has a ways to go toward being accessible to everyone. In the meantime, if someone needs to vent about something, we should be here to listen*
* - up to a point, of course. There's a lot of nuance and lines to walk here that I feel I'm not addressing properly, but
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.
Integrity and character are about values and how you plan to behave and expect to have others behave towards you. They are not the same as your ability to process emotions that emerge as a result of that behaviour.
Having values is important. Integrity, humility, all of that, absolutely useful.
They are not in themselves sufficient to assure you of good mental health.
We care about the smooth processing of emotions, among other reasons, because when impeded it generally affects how we're going to plan and behave; especially when under some sort of stress. This is not something new to our generation; philosophers have had a clear undestanding of this for millennia, in both Western and Eastern philosophical traditions.
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.
"few people see the hypocrisy in thinking it's OK to tell a man he'd be sexier if he was more confident"
Is that really a thing?
I mean sure there might people doing this, but it is obvious that telling someone they have too little self esteem, that this is a personal and can very well be perceived as an attack (especially by someone with low self esteem).
(Also I think the distinction is a bit weird in general. Isn't confidence sexy in women, too?)
I have been told this. I know men who have been told this. It doesn't help when you have low self-esteem.
Confidence is sexy. Smiling faces are more attractive. That does not mean you have a right to say that to somebody as if they "owe you" sexiness or attractiveness. Negging somebody who is feeling crap about themselves is not going to make them want to be with you.
"Trauma" ultimately just means "severe injury" or something like that, doesn't it?
We take it for granted that virtually no one will make it through life without ever sustaining a serious or enduring physical injury. Why is it so implausible to say that practically everyone can expect to eventually have to deal with at least one significant mental injury, too?
I think the reason why mental health is more public these days is because it wasn't talked about and addressed.
To extend you physical injury analogy: yes, people get physically injured. People break legs, and because of the focus and progress on physical injuries, they wear a cast for a few weeks, and then - for all practical intents and purposes - the injury never happened.
Because the same attention wasn't applied to mental health, I think people realised they were surrounded by the equivalent of people dragging themselves around on the ground because of a broken leg a decade ago that never got fixed. Why would anyone do that? Either because they don't know about the treatment, or because they live in an environment where the idea of getting treatment is seen as a bad or weak or shameful thing.
> Why is it so implausible to say that practically everyone can expect to eventually have to deal with at least one significant mental injury, too?
Just like we expect to walk down the street and see the occasional person with a plaster or bandage to handle a physical injury, if you accept we all have mental injuries, why do you expect to see them handled any more privately than physical ones?
Because historically we haven't handled mental injuries as well as the physical ones. I don't completely disagree with your original points. I think depth, nuance, and accuracy of the conversation matters most of all. There is plenty of superficial, influencer-level chatter in both realms.
The word trauma is weighty but has a very broad application. I think most people learn about it in the context of e.g. post-traumatic stress disorder (formerly known as battle fatigue, formerly known as shellshock) and associate it with veterans coming back from the war, but it basically applies to anything that have a lasting effect on people. Could be something like parents being emotionally unavailable, childhood bullying, etc.
No, not at all, the word trauma is predominately used today as the name for a sort of "psychic damage", like that which sometimes occurs when one is severely injured but which can also occur in many other circumstances, often purely social or emotional.
> A more feminine point of view is that we should shield against experiences that lead to a trauma.
I think that's true both for physical and psychological trauma! We should generally avoid preventable injuries and try to live and work with safety in mind.
All I meant is that the phrase "[almost] everyone has experienced trauma" doesn't seem that radical or extreme to me. It seems like common sense. (And it's not the same thing as "everyone is falling apart" or something like that.)
There is something to be said for soldiering through a rough phase. It's not always the right thing to do but below a certain threshold, it's necessary to build some amount of resilience.
Collapsing at the slightest exposure to an uncomfortable situation and having to rely on an extensive support structure that includes a therapist, drugs and other things should not, in my opinion, be the default.
As for Holmes, I read, re-read and practically memorised most of the canon when I was in my late teens and early 20s. Mental health was never one of my take aways. I was fascinated by the intensity of the character and how his work meant so much to him. That the lack of it depressed him might have been something Doyle observed in his patients and decided to use as a foil but I don't think he was "exploring men's mental health" in the stories. He was merely trying to make a believable detective who explains his methods. My feeling is that this is overlaying a 2025 interpretation onto a Victorian tale.
Well, my nonprofessional opinion about those is, that no amount of therapy can help here, when their problem is isolation and the cure living close to people they like.
(But therapy might help them getting there again. True eremits by heart are rare)
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. :(
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.
> Have you tried tobacco, indoor firearms and cocaine?
I don't do alcohol, drugs, et cetera, because I saw other people who did, and found them disgusting. I don't want to be like that. Though if I could easily get my hands on a weapon, I would have probably shot myself already.
> 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.
I used to think that therapists were ridiculous. But after having one for six or seven years now, I realize that it’s literally just someone you pay to help you be the happiest and best version of yourself. Maybe everyone doesn’t need that, but I don’t think anyone is inherently always the best version of themselves. What’s the point of not trying to be a little better?
I feel like the world would be a much better place if literally everyone did have a therapist. Having a neutral, trained professional you talk you for 45 minutes twice a month about things that are tough in your life is not something that should alarm people, but being vehemently against it honestly kind of is...
The main issue is that therapy is expensive, and it's very middle-class to have the money to afford one long-term like that. Working class people have had to suck it up, or (preferably) have a good support network themselves.
While I am inclined to agree that most people would benefit from having a professional to talk to, it'd need to be economically viable as well.
But we're seeing this happening in real time; on the one side there's lower cost online councelling available (but whether that's actually certified professionals is debatable), and on the other ChatGPT became the biggest and most popular therapist almost overnight. But again, not sure if it has the necessary certifications, I suppose it's believable enough. I also want to believe OpenAI and all the other AI suppliers have hired professionals to direct the "chatbot as therapist" AI persona, especially now that the lawsuits for people losing their sanity or life after talking to AI are gaining traction.
You are definitely right about the financial barriers. I’ve struggled to find one every time I have switched or lost a certain insurance coverage too so there is a shortage even if you can afford them.
I’m inclined to think chatGPT would probably be good enough for therapy basics and could help people that have never encountered them, but would probably become much worse after needing any specialized help. Online platforms like BetterHelp are complete trash and just make the therapist and the person feel hopeless.
I have been in therapy on and off through most of my life. There are parts of the process and the profession that are helpful. There are also parts that are paternalistic bordering on abusive. “Literally just someone you pay to the be happiest…” is a small part of the picture. I take issue with this view of therapy, and the idea that it is somehow a universal force for good that will benefit everyone.
I have met some pretty unhinged therapists - both as a client and socially. I won’t even go into the history of psychiatry and clinical care.
One of the questions I like to pose is, what are we doing as a society by sending so many people to therapy? What do these practices do at a large scale? And to all those who decry things like gun violence: if you think our current mental health system would somehow be able to address the larger ills of society if only they had more funding, I have some serious questions about your view of its overarching effectiveness, and the specific effects of these practices.
Oh I was oversimplifying for sure and like most things in life it is very dependent on who you are and what type of therapist you have(lcsw,psychiatrist,psychologist,practicing RN, etc), also just the views and opinions of the people involved will vary greatly on the outcome.
I’ve had plenty of bad experiences which exacerbated my hopelessness but overall I feel I’ve found help when I most needed it.
I think the introductory things in almost any form of therapy will help people, after that it gets much more complicated and it’s up to the individual to find something that fits or decide it’s not for them.
Do you mean therapy is designed to teach outcasts how to fit better into the machine? I would agree with that, and while I hate that it is partly true and reject anything like this for myself in general, individual happiness sometimes correlates with greasing your wheels to be a better subject.
In theory, at one point people will be done with therapy. I think a better analogy is a physical therapist; you go to one because of an injury.
A personal trainer is for boosting your physical health / performance. For mental health, you'd get a coach, training, or read one of many self-help books, not a therapist.
There are multiple kinds of psychological counseling. Some "supportive therapy" really is more of an ongoing thing, like having a personal trainer. Some kinds of psychological therapy always aim to have a terminus, like physical therapy.
Having a personal trainer for your physical fitness is something I'd expect a very low percentage of very wealthy individuals to have access to. Therapy appears to be more prevalent.
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.
What do you mean by “has a therapist”? Do they just mention it in passing, or do they bring up takeaways from their sessions in everyday conversation?
If it’s the latter, I’m not sure that’s really about mental-health openness. It feels more like a broader social habit, the need to present yourself as someone who’s constantly working on every aspect of your life. That’s a different modern-society quirk altogether.
Seems like we both agree that psychological language can be common in everyday offline life, such as at work for a large company. I don't have a problem with it, not sure where you got that from.
You're ignoring the subtext of the comment above yours.
> 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...
Their problem isn't with the language itself, but how it is handled in public. That point doesn't really translate if you pivot to creating an environment conductive to mental health.
Probably not what the parent is referring to, but there is 'therapy speak' and similar phenomena where a pop-sci bowdlerisation of professional practices or scientific theories become absorbed into the culture and change the way we express ourselves.
There is pathologisation which can be whimsical e.g. tidying/organising becomes OCD, studying becomes autistic or exaggerative e.g. sadness becoming depression, a bad experience becoming trauma or in order condemn e.g a political policy becomes sociopathic.
There is the way 'therapy speak' spills over into daily life e.g. your use of the work-kitchen must respect boundaries, leaving the milk out is triggering, the biscuits are my self-care etc.
There is also 'neuroscience speak' where people express their emotions in terms of neurotransmitters e.g. motivation and stimulation becomes 'dopamine', happiness and love become 'serotonin', stress becomes 'cortisol' etc.
It's just the way language and culture works and it now pulls more from science than myth and religion. New language might just be replacing older bowdlerisations e.g. hysteria. In the 'therapy-speak' cases, it's interesting how it often replaces more moralistic language and assertions about values that used be described in terms of manners, civility, respectability etc.
Agree. Some people have legitimate issues. Many just grab at the easy excuse for not achieving anything. “Suck it up and do the work” is still good advice for them.
99% of public human interaction is battles for dominance (ego, status, politics...). Which is gross. When psychology enters the conversation it gets even grosser.
I deeply dislike the inherent ideology of psychology. Liberalism, the idea of a health individual does not pay any idea to the shared whole, suffering which may be "noble" for the common good and rights and privileges awarded for suffering in such. I find such a ideologically loaded construct and the inherent biases (idealizations and an inability to talk about the cultural framework and tradeoffs) quite unhelpful for understanding, helping and as a basis for societal meta-communications.
There is not an inherent ideology to psychology, and I'm not sure what you mean by statements such as "the idea of a health individual does not pay any idea to the shared whole" (not even judging; I actually don't know what you mean).
Right. Even here in HN I was arguing with someone who has the hot take that “more conservative leaning men have less mental health issues than liberal and left leaning men and I don’t think we do enough to think about why exactly that might be and what those liberal men could do differently”, and got very angry when I suggested that maybe the reason for that was that conservative men were less likely to seek help or treatment or to even acknowledge, instead of outright deny, any mental health challenges, for fear of anything from seeming weak to being ostracized.
From experience, my response to this is, por que no los dos?
I am 100% certain that conservative men being less likely to seek help is _part_ of the reason why various data shows them as having fewer mental health issues than their liberal counterparts. But I doubt that's the whole picture, and it's also by far the least interesting part of the picture - the cause and effect there is pretty simple and clear.
As another commenter in this thread observes, there's "too much psychology talk in every day life, everyone is traumatised and has unresolved issues etc". I think that's part of it as well, and it's not difficult to believe that this is something that impacts "liberal and left leaning men" more than conservatives, due to sheer exposure if nothing else. I think you do a disservice to the discussion if you dismiss this outright.
My controverial opinion is that the "left" has more mental problems because of the therapy and pharmasutical industries.
Conservatives are less likely to see proffessional help but not help. They simply rely on family which imo has a better incentive structure than therapists.
Anecdotally I've watched a lot of people go down the therapy and medication route over the years. I've noticed they become more unstable as time passes. Maybe that would have happened anyways.
or
Maybe it's because humans weren't designed to spill our guts to strangers and then take prolonged phycoactive drugs to fix mental problems that science does not understand.
I'd be surprised if the people I worked with would think twice before working with someone that's been in psychiatric care, though I can't be sure, because I don't know that any of them did. I know that I wouldn't care. I have friends that stayed in hospitals for psychiatric reasons: they'd be great to work with, I think.
Yeah, I have a number of coworkers that have shared with me that they are on psychiatric medications, and have discussed mental health with. It's becoming normalized, and that's a good thing.
It’s still definitely a big deal. Note that the CIA and the NSA routinely declare ex-employees that whistleblow or leak as “mentally ill.”
It depends on the company. I worked for fairly “stolid” companies, for most of my career, and I suspect that they would treat mentally-ill people badly.
Mental illness is something that, unfortunately, I have a lot of experience with. I have severe mental illness in my family (I deal with it every day), and I spend a significant part of my life, interacting with folks at various stages of recovery from it.
I have been seeing therapists for much of my life. When I was a kid, I was diagnosed with autism, but was never told, so I spent decades, trying to “fix” myself, before finding out. Once I found out that I was “on the spectrum,” I realized that it can’t be “fixed”; only mitigated, and things started improving quickly, at that point.
That said, I think “mentally-ill” means “diagnosed and professionally-treated,” to most folks. It’s my opinion, that there’s a lot of undiagnosed/untreated mental illness out there. Just looking at the threads of interaction, on any Internet community, makes that clear. One “tell,” that I have encountered, is when someone has extremely strong opinions on psychiatry. It’s not something most folks even think about, so it’s unusual, when it’s a big deal to someone.
Mental illness also tends to get worse, as we get older, if untreated. An “eccentric” young man, may become an old hermit, flying around, keeping his piss in canopic jars.
Much of what we call “mental illness,” is actually self-developed coping mechanisms, in response to trauma, or brain-chemistry imbalance. That’s why getting medication doesn’t just “fix” us. We need to seek help in defusing the habits and rituals that were developed to help deal with the problem.
I think the problem with "mental illness" is that I think in many cases it's the environment that is not suitable. In modern times we've created this environment that just doesn't fit all archetypes of people and those who it doesn't fit well with, we declare "mentally ill". There are obviously actual serious issues, but I believe a lot of it has to do with environment. It's not a clear illness like diabetes, etc. For instance I couldn't handle going to school, people can label it ADHD or Autism, but does it make sense in the first place to force me to study specific things that I don't care about as opposed to playing into my interests and strengths. I'm glad I'm grown up now, and can decide to learn what I'm actually interested in and do it 100x more effective per unit of time, as opposed to in school.
One of the issues I face, with my family member, is that they can’t handle stress, well.
I have found that we only advance, when we are outside our “comfort zone.” As long as everything is copacetic, there’s no need to improve.
But a “comfort zone” is a “fuzzy” quality. Too far out, is “trauma.” Different folks handle discomfort and trauma, in a variety of ways. I do think our families and support systems, can make a huge difference.
For myself, being “on the spectrum” has really been an asset, in many ways. I have always learned technology quickly, but I’m a high school dropout with a GED, and almost all my education has been self-directed. Most of my life has been spent “outside my comfort zone.”
Yeah, that's complicated. I guess from my own experience related to stress and going out of comfort zone what I can speak to is that I have trouble going out of comfort zone when I'm doing something I'm not interested in and when I feel like I have to pretend that I'm someone I'm not. E.g. normal social situations where I have to pretend that I have favourite food, favourite place to go, or I even know places. I zone out on 90%+ topics, and I can't understand why on earth people are talking about these things.
But if I'm passionate about something, I will be excited to present to a large audience, to go through things that you might consider going out of comfort zone, be competitive etc.
Now in school I had so many situations where I had to "be out of comfort zone" in things I wasn't interested in. Social situations I didn't enjoy. I left things to last minute, then stressed, lost confidence, massively. Eventually dropped out of high school.
Luckily managed to get a successful career going where I've been passionately moving forward, and this has massively boosted my confidence too. Now I'm a successful member of society, make quite a bit, pay taxes, etc, and can build the exact life that I want and works out best for me.
Thanks for sharing. To be clear, I don't doubt that there are people that would make a problem out of a history of mental illness. But, it's definitely not everyone and someone with such a history shouldn't be discouraged to get out there and be open about it. Or, at least I'd like to see this stuff talked about without stigma.
I have a nephew with bipolar. He has chosen to “go public” about it, on LinkedIn. His reasoning, is that it helps remove the stigma. He seems to be doing fine, but he also has a very good background, and a lot of advantages, not available to others (I come from a fairly Ivy League family, and my sister has a lot of resources).
For myself, I have been in Recovery from drug addiction, for over 45 years. I was once a Very Bad Boi. I quit at 18, so never got a[n adult] record.
It’s not something that I have chosen to reveal, while I was working. I know, damn well, that it would not have worked in my favor (even though the Recovery process has conferred significant advantages). I never explicitly told my employees or my employers. My last employer was a Japanese company, and drug addiction suffers a great stigma, in most Asian nations. It would not have gone well. As it was, they kept me for decades, and I enjoyed an “inner circle” level of trust (a significant part of my path of Recovery is rigorous Honesty, Personal Integrity, and self-Discipline. I’m a very trustworthy and hard-working person). They never knew it, but they got a great deal of benefit from my addiction and subsequent Recovery.
In fact, I guarantee that some folks, after reading that, now suddenly hate me (in addition to the ones that already do, because they think I’m a stuck-up boomer). There’s a great deal of emotion, in mental illness and Recovery, and there’s a very good reason that folks don’t reveal it. I’ve watched it happen, for a long time. It’s a real thing.
As it is, I still don’t mention it often, though it’s a primary fact of life, for me. It’s not relevant to most of my interactions, and most people have no understanding of Recovery (and shouldn’t be required to, either). It’s very much a “If I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand” thing. It’s my problem, and my responsibility to manage. I have to understand others; they don’t need to understand me.
I think in many places there's now enough of critical mass where people are understanding enough and call out anyone who uses that information negatively towards the person.
I built and released a game called Autism Simulator recently. Online feedback was overwhelmingly positive but with plenty of gaslighting sprinkled in, e.g. "everybody's a bit autistic", "that just sounds like working in tech".
Minimization is always the default go-to for men's mental health issues.
In the instance of your simulator, I think this is moreso due to the popular idea that people in tech tend to be autistic and the cultural desire to be part of the ingroup, rather than a snub at autistic people/men.
What do they mean by "vulnerability" here? There is this constant redefinition of words. In mainstream usage, "vulnerability" is not a good thing as it means you are open to problems and can easily be attacked. They presumably mean it in the sense of being "open to your own emotions" or tender. Silly misuse of words for a serious subject.
It’s not a misuse - it’s exactly the intended meaning and it is perfectly common in mainstream usage.
Allowing yourself to be vulnerable means you are indeed open to attack. But it is also a large part of emotional connection. The alternative is being a fortress - with all the relationship problems that entails.
The very fact that you see vulnerability as “bad” is a perfect example of what that language is intended to highlight.
> In sociology, siege mentality is a shared feeling of victimization and defensiveness—a term derived from the actual experience of military defences of real sieges. It is a collective state of mind in which a group of people believe themselves constantly attacked, oppressed, or isolated in the face of the negative intentions of the rest of the world. Although a group phenomenon, the term describes both the emotions and thoughts of the group as a whole, and as individuals. The result is a state of being overly fearful of surrounding peoples, and an intractably defensive attitude.
> Among the consequences of a siege mentality are black and white thinking, social conformity, and lack of trust, but also a preparedness for the worst and a strong sense of social cohesion.
I would say yes. Your weaknesses, if truly shared are weaknesses which can be used against you to hurt you and thereby you are vulnerable to them. Further, even if you don't care about the judgment of others then you can still be harmed by decisions of and social coordination between people who judge you.
We agree, assuming self knowledge, that the judgments of others tell you about them rather than about you.
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 it's a problem about men unwilling to be vulnerable, it's more so about them happening to be around people who might use it against them (and it succeeding effectively, ergo there being a critical mass of people supporting this).
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.
If you are currently a target of DV, reach out; there are lots of people and organizations who want to support you and have tools to do so. This may not apply to you but seemed appropriate place to remind us all.
> 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.
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?
In my opinion and in this context the common striped-down-to-its-consistent-core usage is taking the actions that expose one's inner/core emotional space/thoughts/feelings. FWIW I would agree that this doesn't have to be a true vulnerability in the dictionary or any other sense. I think many people talk past each other a lot without knowing it with this word. There is a lot of diversity in specific semantics so good question. The idea that one is vulnerable when one is known seems to encode the victim mindset many get stuck in but that's reality for many. Even when I yack at my therapists for years they still only learn small slivers of my whole person so certainly the broader being is not so vulnerable by sharing just little moments. I think openness is true strength (obvious caveats for secrets like passwords/PINs/et cetera. The contradicting position seems to be that by withholding and looking for opening for attack you position yourself for "winning". In the meantime, it seems to me, you lock in isolation and losing, missing your opportunity to connect, learn, and grow increasing your vulnerability over time. Busy night, rushed through writing so hopefully not too many errors or stupid thoughts.
[edit: Giving up control seems to be a common feature. Maybe more simply being willing to cooperate when your interactant could defect.]
Do you think there's something that you are intentionally hiding from your therapists that might make you vulnerable? Or it's just, that you don't have enough time to give full overview into yourself? I've gone to therapists and many different ones through my whole life too. Maybe in the past I had times when there were some things I might have not told them, but I feel like I'm pretty stream of consciousness now.
I think I'm a at a point in my life where I think that as long as with each person that I interact with, I'm looking to benefit both of our lives, I'm free to be myself. This wasn't always the case, and especially as a teenager, I was a lot more paranoid that people are out to get me, and in my 20s as well. I think I wasn't being myself because at those times it didn't seem like myself was received truly well.
But now if I think everything I do is to benefit both parties - or whoever is in my circle, there's nothing to be ashamed about anything that I do. And any situation I treat as being in a team together whether it's work, friends, or with my life partner.
So what I'm thinking still is - if I do it like that, I can communicate my thoughts without concern. And is that being vulnerable or not? I don't think I'm a "kind" person or trying to virtue signal here or something or a naive person that could be taken advantage of because of this strategy. I do think however life is too short to be playing any such social games trying to hide or seek advantage from. I'd prefer to truly understand people and what they think, transparency. I'd prefer any situation is treated as a team working on a unified goal, whether it's understanding the World, each other, or making best of any gathering in terms of jokes, entertainment, insight or whatever.
There are still situations of course where I have to be on guard, and these I'm really bothered by, e.g. corporate environments. Not the best place for me in that sense. But I try to be as honest as I can. I guess my main issue is that I work in weird passionate bursts and I have trouble doing organizing/maintenance/routine stuff, so I feel like I have to hustle around that and what actually gives me frequently feelings of being an impostor. That I can't do many of the routine things that I consider boring, yet are frequently expected. I sometimes do 16h of very passionate, efficient, effective work, but the other days I'm completely disinterested in my paid work and so I have to kind of fake being productive or something, as I'm not sure how it plays to people that I just can't be bothered to work if I don't feel like it. Like I can't be that 9 to 5 person, but I work in corporate environment, because it pays me the most.
> Giving up control seems to be a common feature.
That is also an interesting one. What does giving up control exactly means?
Another thing I've heard a lot about in my life. Someone's controlling, someone doesn't like to let go of control etc. I can understand how there are unhealthy controlling behaviors (e.g. intruding someone's freedom by pressuring or manipulating them to do what you want or not do what you don't want etc), but what does it mean to exactly giving up control over yourself?
I guess in romantic relationships maybe people can be vulnerable early in terms of getting hurt? E.g. putting yourself out there to be rejected. But I don't think that's where there's an actual problem with men? With men there must be this problem elsewhere.
Reading the article again - it doesn't seem to super register to me that it's the male vulnerability that is the problem. It seems there's an example of a homeless character that lies about being homeless. Is it that men don't want to leave an impression that they are unsuccessful? I can see how that's the case, although I think the main issue here is not the vulnerability, it's the fact that he's homeless in the first place. Perhaps if he didn't hide it, it could be solved somehow, but I don't know if that's exactly the case.
> Do you think there's something that you are intentionally hiding from your therapists that might make you vulnerable? Or it's just, that you don't have enough time to give full overview into yourself?
Nothing hidden. Hiding from anyone feels pointless and would leave me even more alone. I would need to live in a shell/shadow of myself and have to do a bunch of work to keep track of the boundaries - exhausting waste! Part of it is that I am a very odd primate. I had life circumstances that had me separated from most people followed by an existential crisis at 8 with no adults that could even start to discuss or support me through it. That led me off into lots of weird spaces and problems (and problem definitions) that I've been working on since then. My struggles mostly have to do with how humanity undermines and underperforms while dragging those attempting better down. I often try to enlist therapist's creativity to help solve subproblems but having a forum to discuss these things is itself relieving.
I'm with you about being able to just speak one's mind. Living your values and in a positive economic outcomes oriented manner is a pretty bullet proof strategy but it assumes a certain amount of physical and economic safety. A lot of people get stuck in the "social intrigue" pattern/asynchronous information building suboptimal strategy. I spend a lot of time trying to invite people to join and give them the tools and supports that make it plausible.
> e.g. corporate environments
Yeah, I've kinda washed out of all the horsecarp that happens in those. After 20 years and lots of success I still enjoy the work but the people ruin it for me. I'm planing a transition to farming. These social patterns destroy industry performance but it seems locked in on them.
> What does giving up control exactly means?
One always, outside of dystopic electrode or mind control ray scenarios, retains exclusive control over their connected neutral infrastructure but in having attachment to values we can feel induced into tradeoffs we would otherwise reject. Becoming attached to a life partner can cause shifts in your priorities and gives up control of priority updates, at least partially, to an uncontrolled entity. Lies told, being stuck in abuse patterns, and many other factors can create adverse dynamics and all these are risked. Similar risks can manifest in a business or investment decision. Even the accumulated knowledge, increase communications efficiency, and shared experience of any long term relationship becomes an asset that can exert control. Usually a worthwhile risk and trade-off.
The problem isn't gendered, that's just a distraction to keep us distracted warring against ourselves. Not to ignore the gender associated norms that lead to gender correlated adverse outcomes inside of a societal system that reflects and countersolves these. The problem is the distributed defection status and the challenges of social coordination coupled with social knowing not scaling.
However, I kinda ignore your last bit. I think you are saying "isn't the submission to satisfying the external the problem?" I believe it is a problem but it's paired with the collaboration can lead to far better outcomes factor. Society puts a lot of effort to make us dependent and through it dependence subservient. On the platform of society some attempt to get us to enslave ourselves (and others) to the whims of those same. Through such tangles, we all lose and pay dearly, living underperforming lives in an underperforming existence.
Historic ‘stoic male’ personas existed for a reason. Because in many situations, it works. Despite the complaining.
And being less ‘emotionally connected’ is valuable when people use that connection to exploit or hurt you. A very common experience for many men.
That people (especially women) then complain you won’t open up to them is a riot in those situations because it’s like someone complaining you keep putting on your bullet proof vest - while they keep shooting at you.
Historic male mental health issues also resulted. But notably, folks depending on the stoic persona for their own wellbeing would typically throw you under the bus for those issues too.
“How dare you get mad! You’re a dangerous threat!” says the person constantly harassing the person, or the boss putting you in worse and worse work conditions while pretending they are doing you a favor, etc.
They do that, of course, because mad people actually fight back. But if you need the job or are dependent on the relationship…
As many men have experienced, the only way to ‘win’ is shut off caring about what people say on that front - among other emotions.
> Historic ‘stoic male’ personas existed for a reason.
What are you talking about here. "Historic male persona" differs between periods and places, but anger, friendships and happiness are basically always parts of it.
Odysseus "weeps" and "cries". The whole romantic era was about overly emotional, passionate and sensitive guys.
Homer predates the stoics by several centuries, so that makes sense. Though I do think Homer does make a solid case of traditional male ideals being fairly emotional, and this is something that persists to modern day.
Achilles in particular spends half the Iliad sulking in his tent, and the other half making shish kebabs out of the Trojan army on a tireless revenge-rampage where he's so goddamn angry he picks a fight with a river.
These types of characters are still written today, John Wick is something of a superficial parallel.
Though it could be argued that Achilles lengthy sulking is diva behavior, few would argue Captain Kirk is effeminate because he's more emotionally driven than Spock, who in many ways turns the stoic ideals up to 11. Likely because despite occasionally chewing the scenery with emotional moments, he is still ultimately in control.
(It's also worth noting that neither Achilles or Odysseus were likely intended as ideals, but rather tragic extremes, and Homer's works largely deal with the consequences of their personalities; the pride and rage of Achilles like we just discussed, the pathological distrust and constant scheming of Odysseus protracting his journey and being the true source of many of his countless obstacles)
Even if it was written post-peak-stoic-era (it wasn’t), you still would probably not find many historic ‘stoic men’ as primary characters in a drama such as the Iliad. They would tend to be either scenery/setting, or somewhat uninteresting.
for good reason.
They are typically not very dramatic, and do the right thing - even in difficult circumstances. That is anti-drama.
They are the ‘good dads’. The strong leaders who make sure the right things actually happen. Etc.
They are not perfect, or superhuman. They can’t change the tide of a tsunami. But they do tend to make sure their family (and anyone who will listen to them without making their primary mission difficult!) also get to high ground at the right time.
If society actually listens to them, society might even build a high enough sea wall that the Tsunami doesn’t even destroy the city. That one is rare, however.
I had no question. You also do not know what historical stoicism as a philosophy and behavior was, but I assumed actual historical stoicism was not the point.
My point was, you made up "historic stoic persona" based on conservative ideology. Not as something that actually characterized historical manhood.
The point of stoicism is to make your own decisions and be able to chart your own life by following principles you believe are just - in large part by avoiding being controlled by emotional reactivity/manipulation.
Not to cut out emotions all together, but to not be driven by them. Especially when someone is trying to induce them in you.
This often comes across as ‘stone faced in the face of extreme emotion’ - but doesn’t mean the person isn’t feeling them. Rather that they are not letting themselves be driven by or controlled by them in the moment, if they do not serve a useful purpose for them.
It's always about that isn't it? Not getting the reaction you want, vilifying your interlocutor, then run crying with fingers in your ears screaming "lalala I didn't want it anyway" and declaring yourself a stoic is really indicative of the type of people who in the present day call themselves stoics.
This whole thread is just a long-winded version of redpill discourse, people who can see past minor adolescent romantic mishaps.
How pathetic is it to still model your whole life after women while pretending to be an isle of self-reliance? Men really are lost.
I didn't see any vilification of women. Women value sharing and emotional vulnerability. It's how they bond with other women, who make up the bulk of their friends. Men's experiences with other men, the bulk of their friends, often make them wary of being emotionally vulnerable. Hence, naturally, a disconnect when a man and a woman are establishing a relationship.
Women value sharing and emotional vulnerability, but typically not from the males in their lives. There is a significant disconnect between average women and genuine male emotions, and males are expected to show emotional resilience and self-control first and foremost precisely to bridge that gap and then allow the 'sharing' to occur unimpeded, though still in a somewhat controlled way.
Are men expected to do so? Male anger is more tolerated then female anger. Also, if you look at men who are popular or get far, they are super emotional - Trump, Musk, Tate heck even Vance and Hengensberg.
Emotions driven males are cultural and political leaders literally now.
this is the general insanity of today’s world, today’s leaders would be laughed at as weakest of the weak in vast majority of human history, just absolute weakest men imaginable are “leaders” now…
There is a saying in wealth management - ‘the first generation builds it, the second generation preserves it, the third generation smokes it’.
It’s hard to not see that playing out in a large sense society wise right now, if we assume the first generation was the post WW2 folks, and the wealth was the post-WW2 economic benefits from the US not being bombed into the Stone Age like most of the rest of the world - and if anything, being the only major economy still standing.
Where exactly you draw the lines generationally is of course up for debate. But we’re starting to have to relearn a lot of hard lessons now that the post WW2 (and depression) generations understood as basic table stakes.
And it’s not because people today are ‘weaker’ per-se. Rather, they’ve lived a (relatively) comfortable life. That generally leads to not having to learn the hard lessons (or being so miserable) that they do the hard things required to build that society. And there is no free lunch. And it was never ideal, then, or now, and will never be ideal in the future either.
But it can be better if we put in the work and take the risk.
OP blamed women for supposedly complaining that men dont open up. Men simultaneously have natural friendships with other men, but it is women fault men do not open up.
Por op, women are at wrong when they want men to talk (which is outrageous ask), but also cause of men not talking. Which includes men not talking to other men, which is also fault of women.
Yes, it's projection for sure. A large number of men appear to need validation from women. Pathetic. I guess from an evolutionary perspective it had to that way. Men who didn't need that validation worked themselves out of the gene pool.
Completely ignoring what everyone thinks and doing your own thing is a good way to get in a very dangerous situation from a basic-life-needs perspective. And with women being a bit over half the population, saying ‘fuck it’ to what half the population wants, especially if you’re picking fights with them, is quite dangerous - even if they are not 100%.
But you know who can handle dangerous, and doesn’t need validation from the population (in that form) to get what they want and have their needs met?
The actual king.
It’s a high risk, high reward (potentially) strategy. Better be good (and actually strong) if you want to not need to be liked.
What I think we’ve been seeing play out is entire generations of men who learned that the best strategy was to be liked by women so the women would do all the work to support them. Which seems to have worked quite well for many of them for awhile.
But now people are burning out, and the ‘easy wins’ from the prior approach (or just lifestyle creep/inflation!) is causing more real and visible difficulty - and the situation is indeed getting more difficult. We even have clear predators showing up and operating in the open, with no one stopping them.
There needs to be more than just vibes and following the rules for things to work out now, and a different approach is needed.
We’ll see what ends up shaking out, eh?
One thing is clear though - if society won’t accept someone stepping up and punching someone in the face or worse (even if it is to protect them), you’ll eventually end up with a bunch of predators who will do whatever they want without fear taking advantage of society.
I don't think there's any redefinition here, and it's exactly this dichotomy that makes this a big issue. Vulnerability is indeed not "a good thing", but the issue is that the struggle to constantly keep yourself invulnerable at all times is a "worse thing", leading to many stress-related issues (amongst other problems). So the modern psychological advice, as I understand it, is to find particular people, spaces and opportunities where we can let our guard down, even at the risk of being open to attack, because the alternative is worse.
There's a stoic quote I love:
> our ideal wise man feels his troubles, but overcomes them
> Is this something that generally goes beyond school?
The things that make you vulnerable change depending on what year and situation you're in. I can very much get behind the idea that you should consider whether your legacy sense of what makes you vulnerable is relevant to your current circumstances. I'm not so much behind the "freely dispense the rope people will use to hang you" version.
There's a lot of abstraction in this thread, but I would like to hear specifics.
What are the exact vulnerabilities that we are talking about?
From my side I guess I can say I frequently feel like impostor type of things or that I'm not doing enough. I won't mention that at work, but I definitely share those feelings to my partner.
I would hate not being able to share something like that to my partner for instance.
When I was at school (and in the 20th century generally) admitting to anything outside traditional masculinity / heterosexuality made you vulnerable to physical / verbal attack. Which remains the case for a lot of people in the 21st century. If they want to be loud and proud then good for them, but I can understand it if they prefer to keep it quiet. Whereas, at least around me, now, I think you can come out as gay without too much concern for your physical safety.
Conversely, at my school you could be as overtly homophobic as you wanted with no consequences, whereas now you should probably be a lot more cautious if you harbour homophobic sentiments.
Talking about partners in particular, I've had partners I felt fairly safe sharing anything (most things anyway) with, and I've also had partners who would mine our conversations for any kind of viable ammunition. Which led to me being a bit more careful what I said. We can perhaps agree the first kind of relationship is better.
Yeah, I think the 2nd type of relationship is much worse than no relationship, I'd say the problem there wouldn't be with someone being vulnerable, it's the problem with the relationship...
Yeah, during school it's difficult since you are forced together with potentially toxic people. As an adult you can choose at least in personal life and to an extent workplace, although sometimes workplace can also be difficult to get right.
I'd 100% rather be alone than around people who might judge or use in someway against me anything about me. It would feel internally disgusting for me to think that someone might be trying to get at my expense and that I'm not around people who are there to try and build each other. What a waste of time.
The thing is, what you want is specifically a relationship where you are not vulnerable. If you're not worried about the consequences of the things you say, there's no actual vulnerability. You're just adapting to a safe situation. In which case good for you and you partner.
Ultimately, what I'm trying to do though, is to build myself such a life that if my internal principles are good, I shouldn't have to worry in most cases about what I'm saying since I want to believe in my principles. I want my interactions with people to be win-win, and I want to surround myself with people who want that too. If someone displays lose-win behavior, I should always naturally have the "moral" upper-hand assuming other people around me are reasonable. And if none of the people around me are reasonable, I should go and find the reasonable people.
People seem to be romanticizing the term "vulnerable" though. I think it would be important to go deeper into this. What does "vulnerability" exactly mean. I have had depression, anxiety diagnosed in the past and addictions and other similar issues, are these vulnerabilities because they may interfere with me acting optimally or are they vulnerabilities because they provide someone a tool to try and get at me if they so wanted because they think there's stigma around those labels to influence others to think worse of me?
You really don't need to reach that far. As a man if you are too often vulnerable, too much, for the wrong reasons or at the wrong time you will loose the respect of your partner and soon after there love.
Most people seek emotional support, resilience and trustworthiness from their partner, and being excessively "vulnerable" can definitely hinder you from playing that role effectively. This is what can sometimes be experienced as a loss of respect. What you really want is to show a mere modicum of emotional vulnerability that your partner can then have some opportunity to empathize with, and not view you as overly brittle. But not more than that.
Why are you assuming that someone who sensibly refrains from overly impulsive behavior wrt. showing their emotions (this is what "self-monitoring" ultimately means: we all do it in all sorts of social contexts, and it's a normal part of being a healthy, well-adjusted person) must necessarily be "disconnecting" from them altogether and lacking in emotional resilience?
If you manage to "self-monitor" all the time, and never show more than a modicum of vulnerability, that seems very disconnected to me.
Perhaps 'disconnected' is the wrong word, but what I mean is that emotionally healthy people feel their emotions and express them, not just hold them at arm's length and pick and choose which to feel and express.
On the contrary, part of being a well-adjusted person is learning how to express any emotion in a gradual and controlled fashion, without letting it dominate your behavior in dysfunctional ways. As the ancient philosopher Epictetus famously put it: "If anyone were to deliver your body in public to whomever he wished, that any passer-by might do as he liked with it, you would certainly be angry and indignant. But that you should then set your mind at the mercy of all the world, to be troubled and disturbed whenever anyone should happen to revile you--are you not ashamed of that?" In a way, this is at essence the underlying tension that's inherently in play whenever someone advocates for "vulnerability".
Right I forgot we are on HN where we even need a scientific paper on "do women like weak vulnerable or strong confident men?" because nobody ever goes outside.
I bet that people who advocate for showing "vulnerability" are modeling this as a facet of strong confidence, and not opposed to it. But the thing is, if you really have reached the level of effortless confidence where that's a realistic prospect, you won't need that advice! You'll just be able to intuitively calibrate how much "vulnerability" to allow others, as a direct outcome of that strong emotional stability. Most people would probably be better off being told to be a little bit more guarded about their emotions.
Not really, it's just that most of us are adults who have experiences with healthy adult relationships. "Is my partner going to leave me if I display emotional vulnerability" is not really a concern in healthy, adult relationships.
Differences between men and women are down to the situation.
Sometimes the long situation. When a situation has lasted a long time, it sticks, and turns into culture, gender roles.
When a situation has lasted a really long time, it sticks hard, and becomes biology.
But most of the time, it's neither culture or biology which decides what men and women do. It's the immediate situation.
And even if you think it's culture, even if you think it's biology, if you don't like how men are (or how women are) you have to start with changing the immediate situation. The others will follow - eventually.
I think some concrete examples would be great. I think we need some examples of vulnerability too. Is vulnerability just about showing your actual emotional state? E.g. if you are depressed, anxious or nervous?
My take is you've got the right reasoning but the wrong conclusion, I agree with your contextless definition of vulnerability and with the use of it in this context, vulnerability makes people vulnerable, by definition.
From my experience, the reason you'd risk being vulnerable is there are some things you can't achieve without doing so, it'd be like trying to do surgery with a scalpel on someone wearing platemail, or trying to detect radiation with a Geiger counter behind 20 meters of lead, for some tools to work properly they're required to be in a position where they're 'vulnerable', like eyes.
I think it's sad that performative emotions & vulnerability seem to be a popular thing to have to signal for acceptance. Which in my opinion is worse than nothing as at least when you're not faking something it's easier to agree that you haven't really tried it.
> I think it's sad that performative emotions & vulnerability seem to be a popular thing to have to signal for acceptance.
You only think it's performative because you think people are signaling. They're not and performative anything is not required for acceptance, but people are not accepting of others who deal with their social interaction in these terms and your very language betrays where you stand. These imaginary requirements for affection are not what's sad here.
> You only think it's performative because you think people are signalling
You're correct that I think something because I think something else. You're assuming I'm unwilling or unable to tell the difference.
I don't see a betrayal to state that I think it's a shame that people that have copied a performative action, gotten nothing out of it and are then hesitant to try again because they feel they've already tried that avenue and had bad results. It's the same feeling of sadness I get when people have tried therapy, for whatever reason haven't gotten much out of it and then write it off as a sham.
I do get that you're saying 'aha ! I've detected your true intent through my clever analysis of your language' - consider your assumption "You only think it's performative because you think people are signaling. They're not"
They're not? You can state absolute facts with confidence about the people I've experienced in my life that you don't know anything about? That is either some amazing superpower or regular old conjecture.
It might help you to notice how many times I said I think or in my opinion, and how many absolutes you're willing to state.
I think you are projecting the sense of the word from computer security onto people. But "vulnerability" always has that second sense in common speech, as in "showing vulnerability". If a person is actually open to being harmed in some way we use the phrasing "they are vulnerable to ...", which has quite a different meaning.
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.
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've not read much of Holmes, so I can't really speak to the original character, but I would point out that the "he can socialize, he just doesn't like to" bit is somewhat part of BBC's Sherlock too - look at the relationship he developed with the woman to get at Magnussen. It's an aspect of him they never really explored much beyond that though - you're definitely right in that he seems more incapable of it than anything else.
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.
The American series (House and Elementary) has the advantage of more seasons and episodes, which I think is sometimes required to showcase the challenges of drug addiction and mental health.
The fact that these characters having to come back to face the same problem over and over again episode after episode is more true to the nature of the mental health problem itself.
BBC Sherlock has too little episodes to bring audience along a prolonged struggle with mental health.
It's definitely one of those pieces of media that is extremely frustrating because of how close it came to being an all-time great adaptation. Moffat needed somebody in the writers room with him to tell him 'no' sometimes.
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."
A few things; one, even if it's not strictly speaking true that cocaine use always leads to addiction every single time, we know now better than in Victorian era England how often it does, and Doyle not having been a cocaine user may have lost some of the elements of how cocaine is addictive and what it looks like. I hate to say that there is some moral duty to show a protagonist using cocaine as having a problem with its use that needs to be overcome, but I do think it'd be strange too to keep what was effectively this SMBC comic (https://smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=191) as Holmes' use of coke.
Secondly, the stories that mention coke use are all written from the perspective of Holmes' best friend, who we'd expect to be biased towards writing about his friend in a positive light. I don't think this is accidental. Watson quotes him effectively saying "I just do coke because life is so mundane and boring, and not stimulating enough for me" which is nearly the exact same justification and thought process used by like, every addict and if not a word-for-word quote, then at least very similar for Chris Moltisanti's justification of his own addiction to Tony Soprano.
It may not be an exact rendering of what was in the books but it is extremely natural modification to make, where otherwise we'd have flat Marty Stu character who is talking in ways that seem very consistent with at least problematic use and yet who's not addicted. "Our own times" have dealt with at least 100 years of coke addiction, 50 years of crack so maybe we're just not naive enough to believe that a guy who's saying "my friend just takes it when he's bored, but he's bored all the time because his mind is too sharp for this dull world" isn't a problematic user or addict.
I re-read most of the stories a few years ago.
It's shocking/surprising/depressing just how many things repeat themselves. From the obvious, veteran of Afghanistan war in the form of Dr. Watson, to London being a melting pot of so many cultures, with high society reigning from ... on high.
I also agree that the view directly into the state of mind of both Watson and Holmes was refreshing.
It's notable that the BBC recent adaptation set in the present day was also able to make Watson an Afghanistan veteran.
I read the stories as an child, and seen various of the film adaptations; Holmes became a meme even within Conan Doyle's lifetime, but I'm sure I'd benefit from going back to the source as an adult.
Is there a better history pedagogy? I remember history as a set of dates and Kings. Only later I learned about Roman demagoguery, the relationship between newly independant India to present day and other topics that teach there is nothing new under the sun.
I 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 considered (barely) socially acceptable and holmes was still respectable. Note that he wasn't an alcoholic.
Shout out to the bbc adaptation which does a fantastic and hilarious job of portraying holmes as an erratic drug addict.
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
Mind actually using words to form useful sentences?
He of course insisted he wasn’t an addict - like all addicts do - but he always went back that I remember - like all addicts do. And he used it to cope with not having any interesting problems and the misery of life.
He was enabled by Watson and his brother, and mostly supported in the elements of normal social functioning by them.
Where we draw the line between addict and not is quite subjective in these situations eh?
Only if you think a large empire is the epitome of success.
People have a tendency to look at the cruelest warriors of history and think that is success. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar or Napoleon are not something to emulate. They were successful by causing horrific pain to a lot of people.
Success and greatness of historical figures do not mean they were moral heroes although people would like you to believe otherwise. King Example XIV of the 15th century might have been a really good guy but he never did anything so nobody knows or cares about him. His half brother and uncle killed him and invaded and subjugated 6 neighbouring states but was less bad then everyone else at the time so he's great and successful instead of a villain. I don't think there are rules, but i think anyone who generally advances progress instead of reversing it is considered great. Genghis Khan as far as i know didn't so he isn't. Julius Caesar did so he is.
Pure misandrist nonsense. You could have picked Hitler or Stalin to at least have half a point.
Napoleon spread enlightenment values that benefitted generations that came after. Julius Caesar took civilization across a continent. Deng Xiaoping was leader during Tianenmen Square but brought more people out of poverty than anyone else in history.
Being great means being able to do some things others do not like because the resulting upside is better for everyone.
The old boys network and class still plays a big role in UK politics. I'm convinced that the behaviour of Boris Johnson and even Starmer is incomprehensible without that unspoken element.
Is it a bad thing? perhaps. Is it a recipe for disaster? I would say the historical evidence is pretty clear that no, not really. It worth pointing out that the US where class is much less important is more successful.
In my head Holmes is descended from minor nobility while Watson is solidly upper middle class.
Now, Labours envy based attacks on the private schools that gave them all their advantages in life helps nobody. It won't matter to rich kids and is just a barrier to success for middle class kids. When you consider the quality of state education, at least there should be some educated people to run the country, even if it's a bad system.
Ot but hogwarts is a great parody of the British boarding school system. A drafty, dangerous castle full of dangerous animals, homicidal, abusive and incompetent teachers, serious injuries are a fact of life and complacent staff. Add in the most incompetent and negligent headmaster in all literature, who hardly does anything throughout the series and thinks that soul sucking demons are an acceptable security measure to protect his students and runs the school as his personal domain. Throw in class based bullying in the student body and you have everything. I always found it striking that the most hatable character in the series is a school inspector (Umbridge).
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.
Again the Brits had their biggest empire when led by this caste of people, which is why their boarding schools get so much overseas business today. To paint that as incompetence or a failed society is wishful thinking - they were the peak of what they could be.
Not from Doyle, but the film, "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution", presents Holmes as very vulnerable. Especially given the amazing cast, it is an excellent portrayal.
That Holmes would encounter Sigmund Freud seemed to me at the time as a wild use of artistic license. Since then though I have come to believe that there were a lot fewer people on the Earth in general than I could really appreciate at the time, and some of these luminaries may well have shared a drink together. (So why not a fictional luminary as well?)
One of the Rathbone/Bruce films in the 40s has Holmes chasing Nazi's for some microfilm. I understand "supporting the fighting spirit" of the times, but still find it difficult to reconcile.
I wonder how much of it is just Arthur Conon Doyle hating his character. Which has was known for as the stories progressed. He even killed him, just to resurrect him later because of public demand.
He accumulated character flaws along the way, as if Doyle wanted to make Holmes as unsympathetic as he could without changing his core traits.
> [Holmes] battles with drug addiction, loneliness and depression. His genius thrives in part because of these vulnerabilities, not despite them.
If there was a pill for that, how many masterpieces like the Sherlock Holmes books would never be made? The products of misery have always been the devil's advocate's best arguments. If Doyle had not sympathized with Holmes' afflictions, he could not have written him. Or if he had written Holmes as a Mary Sue we wouldn't have cared. (Though for some reason it worked for Harry Potter.)
An effective education requires a certain amount of torture, and it works better when self inflicted.
Yeh, I agree with this. My art (painting and building) comes at a much faster rate when I am content. Having time and metal space to contemplate colour scheme, being confident to start something bold: that doesn't happen if I am tired, preoccupied or depressed
You probably don't know very many poor people then, because poverty, food insecurity, physical insecurity, homelessness, job loss are all very common depression triggers. It's just that these cases don't make the front page of newspapers at the same rate as celebrities committing suicide.
> no mental bandwidth for things like spiritual constipation
That's a feature, not a bug. Fighting for life has more meaning and purpose that yearning for death. We're designed for it. It has only recently become atypical.
Over-emphasized maybe, but myth? Could Doyle have written a sympathetic lonely depressed addict so well without more than academic understanding of those things?
He was a physician and had said that his experience treating patients influenced his characters. So, he had more than academic experience, but I'm not sure if it's enough to prove he experienced those things personally.
For every tortured genius whose passion comes from pain, there's a hundred who never get started because they lack the energy to get out of bed half the time, are slowly killing themselves with alcohol and other substances, and so on. But a pill alone doesn't fix that -- hell, current research shows most of those pills do no better than a placebo -- so the mythology of the nobility of suffering will continue for some time hence.
(Fun fact, you know that "lorem ipsum" text that's used as filler? It's not nonsense Latin, it's from a speech by Cicero where he denounces the stoic ideal of suffering being good for the soul, or at least "pointless" suffering anyway)
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 analysis of Doyle’s work. Hell, it doesn’t even provide a single quote from Holmes to illustrate the mental anguish or “battles with drug addiction” which the author claims that he experiences in the books. Holmes’ 7% “solution of cocaine” usage was never presented as rising to the level of addiction in the books, by the way. Nor does the paper delve into the repressive nature of the Victorian society in which these stories were written and released to show us what was so novel about Doyle allegedly tackling these subjects and why he might have had to merely allude to them rather than discussing them frankly.
All in all, this essay is a poor showing and would have earned the author a C at best in high school English for failing to provide adequate supporting evidence for her assertions.
I wouldn't be surprised if many of those who upvoted this did so because the agree with the sentiment in principle, not because they read the article and appreciated the contents.
Perhaps it made it to the top of HN because there are a lot of Sherlock Holmes fans here who are curious about some of the nuances of the character not often cited. That the article itself may be lacking in specifics may not be a problem if it has at least whetted the curiosity of a number of us. (And we can then seek out more details, or better still, read the whole series of books with a keener eye.)
If HNer's want to talk about something, or just feel the topic is important, then a short & weak article is more than good enough to be a sort of seed crystal.
(If you know of better articles on this topic, then please provide links!)
Yes, i thought it was silly as well. revisionist analysis such as these are pretty common, though normally better written. You can probably find half a dozen essays with titles like "Sherlock holmes fought against colonial oppression, a deep dive in how Conan doyle covered unpopular and controversial topics in the victorian age". And another 50 essays arguing the opposite point.
> 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.
We live in a culture of transparency where you are rewarded for confessing your weaknesses. At the time people tackled their issues outside of print, outside of public discourse. Just because there's no record of a person's private life doesn't mean it was taboo. It's just not for you to know about.
I suspect they are talking about pop culture which is awash with drama.
But it always has been, just less self-important/self-reporting drama (x is getting divorced because they told us!), and more ‘we just found out x celebrity is getting divorced’.
My personal favorite is The five napoleons. Is someone breaking Napoleonic busts out of some idee fixe? Or is there a motive of crime behind the seemingly delusional behavior?
I suspect that it is purely a literary invention. The core idea of the story is a variant of the "Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", where a stolen gem was eaten by a goose. For the new plot, Conan Doyle needed some identical copies of something where a jewel could be hidden. These copies need to be destroyed, in order to reveal the jewel. If you decide on using busts in 1904 for an American and British audience, Napoleon is an ideal candidate: notorious, but not venerated. Imagine what a scandal it might have been if busts of the late Queen Victoria or of Abraham Lincoln had been smashed.
The whole point is calling them “mental health problems” infers there is something systematically wrong with them as opposed to the obvious result of putting men in modern society.
> putting loneliness and depression on a pedestal here
Where is this happening?
Pointing out something is entirely normal, standard and expected is in not putting it on a pedestal.
You want to condemn them too, and I won’t. Their manifestation is a sign of other problems, as shown through history, and to paint them as mental illness is a way to avoid the other problems.
Mental health issues existing in the past does not mean they are not mental health issues. Besides, most men were neither alcoholics, depressed nor lonely.
Loneliness in particular is neither specifically masculine (like, is not at all specifically masculine, neither in history nor now). Nor is there a reason to believe was more or equal amount of it in the past ... when men were part of in person group pretty much regardless of what they were doing.
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.
>The RAND American Life Panel and the Ipsos KnowledgePanel are nationally representative probability-based survey panels of adults in the United States
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.
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.
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 useful, thus his penchant for productivity boosters like cocaine.
He's a great character, but I wouldn't over pathologize him according to today's understanding of mental health. Doyle was a physician and gave Holmes various traits similar to what he had seen in his patients.
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 was written to not to. This is not right.
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 inertia of the elephant takes over.
So you need a trigger to snap out of it, for Holmes it was a new case.
> 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.
Holmes is basically a border collie?
We all are.
If this is an accurate summary, the character sounds relatable enough that I might try one of these books.
> 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...
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 two ways forward: Either make sure that mens issues gain a proportionate part of the public discourse or argue that all issues are a private matter.
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".
> It's ridiculous since women's issues are only being better represented recently while men have long dominated politics
This statement has more than one issue:
1. First and foremost, it is simply a rewrite of the history. There is a difference between descriptive and substantive representation. And it is true that men have been descriptively better represented. But the thoughtless implication that this leads to better substantive representation is simply wrong.
2. It justifies the idea of "reparations" for previous generations misdoing. Not only does this induce a high level if dissent, it is simply immoral. Even if we would accept reparations, it is still only justified by the rewrite of the history.
I appreciate the call for nuance, but I think the historical framing here deserves scrutiny.
You're right that men have dominated politicly, but it's worth distinguishing between who held power (descriptive representation) and whose interests were served (substantive representation). Most men throughout history had no political power - they were subjects of monarchies, excluded by property requirements, or conscripted into wars they didn't choose. The men making decisions were a tiny elite.
On "women's issues only recently being better represented" -this depends heavily on what we're measuring. If we look at something like life expectancy as a rough proxy for overall life quality (capturing war mortality, occupational deaths, access to resources, healthcare), historical data suggests men and women faced roughly equal burdens pre-industrialization, just distributed differently. Women faced maternal mortality and legal subordination; men faced conscription, dangerous labor, and social expendability. The female longevity advantage only emerges clearly in the modern era.
The point isn't to claim men had it worse - it's that "men have long dominated" obscures that most men were themselves dominated, and bore unique, severe costs within the same system.
I agree completely that rigid gender roles harm everyone. But framing current attention to men's issues as acceptable only because "patriarchal roles harm men too" still treats men's suffering as derivative of women's concerns, requiring feminist justification. Can't men's rising suicide rates, educational struggles, and social isolation warrant direct concern on their own terms?
The discourse does need less competition. But that requires actually taking men's issues seriously, not just when they can be reframed as collateral damage from patriarchy.
Honestly, I think that this delineation between descriptive vs. substantive representation is the more likely attempt at rewriting history. Even if you look only at political elites across time, you’ll easily see women disenfranchised from positions of power because of male lines of succession, or from certain lines of work (even knowledge work) because such activities were expected of and considered rightful for men. That’s not to say that women have it worse. While it’s true that men have been victims of conscription to wars and dangerous labor, by your own explanation, these forms of oppression would go away if only those men were rich—-but there wouldn’t be any respite for women even if they could change their socio-economic standing.
As regards generational blame, I disagree that it is immoral to place accountability (which is different from blame) on a people even across generations, and ergo, time. You might not have a hand at something that your ancestor did, but you could be reaping the benefits of it today. You don’t have to be sorry for it with your every breath, but since we’re already talking about morality, you do have the responsibility to recognize the past and where your current resources are from, and to make reparations towards people who are still suffering the consequences to the present.
And as a man, I would like for men’s issues to be more out there and recognized in its own right, but honestly, “men’s rights” is a very recent thing and only came about as a reaction against the rise of feminist discourse in social media. How could one not see that as a derivative of women’s issues? It’s not even talking about the things that really matter to me as a man, such as the discrimination of men against an “alpha” ideal which, I could argue from experience, is really what’s driving those mental health issues and suicidal thoughts. I’ve seen that men’s rights movements are actually trying to defend this ideal, and it doesn’t even seem to consider LGBT men in the picture.
First, we have only discussed equal representation of men's and women's issues with the argument that an imbalance in the public discourse leads to an imbalance in personal opinion. You are going of of slope to misrepresent this as a mens rights movement - that is not very polite.
You are completely right in your observations about women being disenfranchised from power and not hold the same rights. But this is just a minor aspect of life and invite you to reflect on whether this in its own right led to worse lifes as a whole for women - if you take all other obligations and privileges into consideration. I tried indicating that life expectancy could be a well understood proxy, but you are free to find other holistic proxies.
I do believe in full gender equality. and as while women has gained autonomy and agency men need to gain the same amount of protection of that of women. Men can not be the only ones conscripted for war. Men can not be the only ones taking dangerous and physical jobs.
I am also not here to push a zero sum view of these things - But to push a reasonable understanding of "sum" and be open for being taught something if it turns out that what we thought was not right.
Your comment about generational blame for entire groups of people is abhorrent and needs to be rejected. It leads to people "paying reparations" or "taking blame" for something they have not done just by being a part of that group. It is out of touch with societies based on rule of law. And it needs to be rejected.
You have absolutely no responsibility to accept or recognize anything you have not been a part of. This mere idea that you can force people to adapt (by accepting) a truth i borderline authoritarian. It is such an extreme form of mental coercion and needs to be rejected.
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 not going to discuss anywhere else, because if I started talking about it at work, or even close relationships, I'm asking people without any ability to help me with it to just take it and work it out with me, and that's not helpful.
But at the same time, we do need to talk to people about it. And there are some toxic barriers we could do with addressing.
Men are not "meant" to cry or show vulnerability in almost all contexts in almost all cultures. That's sad, because while we don't all want men breaking down in tears when their coffee order isn't quite right, we also know it's healthy for men to acknowledge and process difficult feelings like grief and rejection.
While most people realise it's not OK to tell a woman she'd look prettier if she smiled more, few people see the hypocrisy in thinking it's OK to tell a man he'd be sexier if he was more confident. That causes problems I think we can all call out and name in modern dating culture.
According to some stats I just pulled up for the UK, surveys suggest that more than 75% of men report as having had mental health issues, but only 60% have ever spoken to another human being about it at all, with 40% of men stating it would have to be so bad that they are considering self-harm or suicide to talk to anyone, ever. This is horrible.
So, sure, perhaps we don't need to talk about Freudian analysis down the pub, and nobody at work wants to hear about you reconciling feelings about how you were treated as a child by members of your family, but please:
Most men need to talk to somebody about their mental health. And for many problems, that somebody needs to be somebody with the appropriate skills and abilities to help them with it.
If you're reading this, and think that might be you, please, for your own sake, go talk to a professional.
You might not gel with the first therapist, counsellor, psychiatrist or psychologist you speak to. That's OK, they won't mind if you say you want to try a few different people. You can find people who will help in your town, on video calls, on apps, all over. Just speak to someone.
This is a brilliant comment.
I'd like to elaborate on something you touch on briefly:
> I'm asking people without any ability to help me with it to just take it and work it out with me, and that's not helpful.
> that somebody needs to be somebody with the appropriate skills and abilities to help them with it.
I think there's an important line to walk here. I think it's important everyone (men and women) are able to talk about their feelings and experiences with their friends - but I don't think the goal needs to be "helping work it out". Just sharing and listening can be liberating, can help ease the road to talking to a professional, and can help others see that others struggle too.
There is a tendency in conversations of any sort to be always searching for a "solution" or an "answer", instead of just listening.
(There's a lot of nuance here in choosing when to share, etc, but I just wanted to talk a bit about it)
Being frustrated with something at work and having somebody to rant about it with is one of the pillars of any friendship. Your friends can do the work of listening, empathising, reassuring and then helping you get past it and enjoying the beer, game or barbecue you're at. That's cool, I agree.
Having deep feelings of inadequacy and bringing that to the friendship at every opportunity is asking that friend to help you with those feelings, they probably aren't equipped to do that in all sorts of ways.
As with most things, it's a spectrum, not binary. Some friends would love to help you overcome childhood trauma, but most will not. Your partner may be able to help you deal with the way that family member behaves, but quite often, that's your thing, not theirs, deal with it. A work colleague might be able to support you when a co-worker is being a jerk, but might not have the skill or ability to help you manage your feelings or deal with that behaviour.
A therapist is trained to help you with those things your friends, family and colleagues can't. More specifically, they are trained to help you figure out what you are going to do about it.
Sometimes, when we talk to people about problems, we're "giving them the problem", as in, we want them to tell us what to do about it, or to actually do something about it. They often can't or won't do that - it's your thing. Therapists won't take it either, but they'll help you manage it as your thing.
A friend who is just there to listen, that's different, if the ask is just to listen and be somebody to talk to, sure, most friends have that ability and skill, and are happy to do so. But there's a lot of stuff people go through where that isn't enough, and asking those same people to do more is probably not going to work.
> Sometimes, when we talk to people about problems, we're "giving them the problem", as in, we want them to tell us what to do about it, or to actually do something about it. They often can't or won't do that - it's your thing. Therapists won't take it either, but they'll help you manage it as your thing.
I actually think that, most of the time, people just want someone to listen. But there's something in our culture that injects that need to "give advice" instead of "just listen."
> if the ask is just to listen
We need to swap this default around. People should need to request advice/help, not request that they listen.
> But there's a lot of stuff people go through where that isn't enough, and asking those same people to do more is probably not going to work.
Certainly - but in my experience just talking about those things can be hugely beneficial, and sure, it would be great if they'd go to a therapist for those things - but as discussed, therapy still has a ways to go toward being accessible to everyone. In the meantime, if someone needs to vent about something, we should be here to listen*
* - up to a point, of course. There's a lot of nuance and lines to walk here that I feel I'm not addressing properly, but
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.
Integrity and character are about values and how you plan to behave and expect to have others behave towards you. They are not the same as your ability to process emotions that emerge as a result of that behaviour.
Having values is important. Integrity, humility, all of that, absolutely useful.
They are not in themselves sufficient to assure you of good mental health.
We care about the smooth processing of emotions, among other reasons, because when impeded it generally affects how we're going to plan and behave; especially when under some sort of stress. This is not something new to our generation; philosophers have had a clear undestanding of this for millennia, in both Western and Eastern philosophical traditions.
We care about how we plan and behave, because we feel emotions about things that happen. Like you say, nothing new.
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.
exactly, men process emotions just like how women rip massive dimensional tearing farts - so discretely as if it never happens
"few people see the hypocrisy in thinking it's OK to tell a man he'd be sexier if he was more confident"
Is that really a thing?
I mean sure there might people doing this, but it is obvious that telling someone they have too little self esteem, that this is a personal and can very well be perceived as an attack (especially by someone with low self esteem).
(Also I think the distinction is a bit weird in general. Isn't confidence sexy in women, too?)
I have been told this. I know men who have been told this. It doesn't help when you have low self-esteem.
Confidence is sexy. Smiling faces are more attractive. That does not mean you have a right to say that to somebody as if they "owe you" sexiness or attractiveness. Negging somebody who is feeling crap about themselves is not going to make them want to be with you.
"Trauma" ultimately just means "severe injury" or something like that, doesn't it?
We take it for granted that virtually no one will make it through life without ever sustaining a serious or enduring physical injury. Why is it so implausible to say that practically everyone can expect to eventually have to deal with at least one significant mental injury, too?
I think the reason why mental health is more public these days is because it wasn't talked about and addressed.
To extend you physical injury analogy: yes, people get physically injured. People break legs, and because of the focus and progress on physical injuries, they wear a cast for a few weeks, and then - for all practical intents and purposes - the injury never happened.
Because the same attention wasn't applied to mental health, I think people realised they were surrounded by the equivalent of people dragging themselves around on the ground because of a broken leg a decade ago that never got fixed. Why would anyone do that? Either because they don't know about the treatment, or because they live in an environment where the idea of getting treatment is seen as a bad or weak or shameful thing.
> Why is it so implausible to say that practically everyone can expect to eventually have to deal with at least one significant mental injury, too?
Just like we expect to walk down the street and see the occasional person with a plaster or bandage to handle a physical injury, if you accept we all have mental injuries, why do you expect to see them handled any more privately than physical ones?
Because historically we haven't handled mental injuries as well as the physical ones. I don't completely disagree with your original points. I think depth, nuance, and accuracy of the conversation matters most of all. There is plenty of superficial, influencer-level chatter in both realms.
I'd say that significant mental injury is _far_ more likely than physical.
The word trauma is weighty but has a very broad application. I think most people learn about it in the context of e.g. post-traumatic stress disorder (formerly known as battle fatigue, formerly known as shellshock) and associate it with veterans coming back from the war, but it basically applies to anything that have a lasting effect on people. Could be something like parents being emotionally unavailable, childhood bullying, etc.
No, not at all, the word trauma is predominately used today as the name for a sort of "psychic damage", like that which sometimes occurs when one is severely injured but which can also occur in many other circumstances, often purely social or emotional.
Your view is representing a traditionally more masculine point of view.
A more feminine point of view is that we should shield against experiences that lead to a trauma.
What we want as a society is a democratic process, and it is heavily up for negotiation these years. It is completely fine.
Personally, my core belief is that whatever we ultimately decide on, it counts for all equivalent regardless of their gender.
> A more feminine point of view is that we should shield against experiences that lead to a trauma.
I think that's true both for physical and psychological trauma! We should generally avoid preventable injuries and try to live and work with safety in mind.
All I meant is that the phrase "[almost] everyone has experienced trauma" doesn't seem that radical or extreme to me. It seems like common sense. (And it's not the same thing as "everyone is falling apart" or something like that.)
If obsessing about such injuries was sufficient to heal them, they would all be long solved.
I agree here.
There is something to be said for soldiering through a rough phase. It's not always the right thing to do but below a certain threshold, it's necessary to build some amount of resilience.
Collapsing at the slightest exposure to an uncomfortable situation and having to rely on an extensive support structure that includes a therapist, drugs and other things should not, in my opinion, be the default.
As for Holmes, I read, re-read and practically memorised most of the canon when I was in my late teens and early 20s. Mental health was never one of my take aways. I was fascinated by the intensity of the character and how his work meant so much to him. That the lack of it depressed him might have been something Doyle observed in his patients and decided to use as a foil but I don't think he was "exploring men's mental health" in the stories. He was merely trying to make a believable detective who explains his methods. My feeling is that this is overlaying a 2025 interpretation onto a Victorian tale.
As a matter of interest, many of the traits were inspired by someone Doyle worked for named Dr. Joseph Bell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bell) who emphasised and used careful observation - a skill that can be very useful to a medical practitioner. The relationship between Bell and Doyle was fictionalised into a series called "Murder Rooms". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_Rooms:_Mysteries_of_the...
> Too much psychology talk in every day life
I'm curious to hear how often do you hear it in every day life outside of the internet.
In all fairness, the internet is for many people a near 100% part of their life.
Especially for people working remotely without a family.
Well, my nonprofessional opinion about those is, that no amount of therapy can help here, when their problem is isolation and the cure living close to people they like.
(But therapy might help them getting there again. True eremits by heart are rare)
HN is like 70% of my life.
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.
> Have you tried tobacco, indoor firearms and cocaine?
I don't do alcohol, drugs, et cetera, because I saw other people who did, and found them disgusting. I don't want to be like that. Though if I could easily get my hands on a weapon, I would have probably shot myself already.
> 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.
There is also lobste.rs
I feel that. I wish the same.
It definitely does feel like every American I know "has a therapist", sometimes.
I used to think that therapists were ridiculous. But after having one for six or seven years now, I realize that it’s literally just someone you pay to help you be the happiest and best version of yourself. Maybe everyone doesn’t need that, but I don’t think anyone is inherently always the best version of themselves. What’s the point of not trying to be a little better?
I feel like the world would be a much better place if literally everyone did have a therapist. Having a neutral, trained professional you talk you for 45 minutes twice a month about things that are tough in your life is not something that should alarm people, but being vehemently against it honestly kind of is...
The main issue is that therapy is expensive, and it's very middle-class to have the money to afford one long-term like that. Working class people have had to suck it up, or (preferably) have a good support network themselves.
While I am inclined to agree that most people would benefit from having a professional to talk to, it'd need to be economically viable as well.
But we're seeing this happening in real time; on the one side there's lower cost online councelling available (but whether that's actually certified professionals is debatable), and on the other ChatGPT became the biggest and most popular therapist almost overnight. But again, not sure if it has the necessary certifications, I suppose it's believable enough. I also want to believe OpenAI and all the other AI suppliers have hired professionals to direct the "chatbot as therapist" AI persona, especially now that the lawsuits for people losing their sanity or life after talking to AI are gaining traction.
You are definitely right about the financial barriers. I’ve struggled to find one every time I have switched or lost a certain insurance coverage too so there is a shortage even if you can afford them.
I’m inclined to think chatGPT would probably be good enough for therapy basics and could help people that have never encountered them, but would probably become much worse after needing any specialized help. Online platforms like BetterHelp are complete trash and just make the therapist and the person feel hopeless.
I have been in therapy on and off through most of my life. There are parts of the process and the profession that are helpful. There are also parts that are paternalistic bordering on abusive. “Literally just someone you pay to the be happiest…” is a small part of the picture. I take issue with this view of therapy, and the idea that it is somehow a universal force for good that will benefit everyone.
I have met some pretty unhinged therapists - both as a client and socially. I won’t even go into the history of psychiatry and clinical care.
One of the questions I like to pose is, what are we doing as a society by sending so many people to therapy? What do these practices do at a large scale? And to all those who decry things like gun violence: if you think our current mental health system would somehow be able to address the larger ills of society if only they had more funding, I have some serious questions about your view of its overarching effectiveness, and the specific effects of these practices.
Oh I was oversimplifying for sure and like most things in life it is very dependent on who you are and what type of therapist you have(lcsw,psychiatrist,psychologist,practicing RN, etc), also just the views and opinions of the people involved will vary greatly on the outcome.
I’ve had plenty of bad experiences which exacerbated my hopelessness but overall I feel I’ve found help when I most needed it.
I think the introductory things in almost any form of therapy will help people, after that it gets much more complicated and it’s up to the individual to find something that fits or decide it’s not for them.
The digestion juices of individualistic society?
Do you mean therapy is designed to teach outcasts how to fit better into the machine? I would agree with that, and while I hate that it is partly true and reject anything like this for myself in general, individual happiness sometimes correlates with greasing your wheels to be a better subject.
How is it different to having a personal trainer for your physical fitness?
In theory, at one point people will be done with therapy. I think a better analogy is a physical therapist; you go to one because of an injury.
A personal trainer is for boosting your physical health / performance. For mental health, you'd get a coach, training, or read one of many self-help books, not a therapist.
There are multiple kinds of psychological counseling. Some "supportive therapy" really is more of an ongoing thing, like having a personal trainer. Some kinds of psychological therapy always aim to have a terminus, like physical therapy.
Having a personal trainer for your physical fitness is something I'd expect a very low percentage of very wealthy individuals to have access to. Therapy appears to be more prevalent.
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.
What do you mean by “has a therapist”? Do they just mention it in passing, or do they bring up takeaways from their sessions in everyday conversation? If it’s the latter, I’m not sure that’s really about mental-health openness. It feels more like a broader social habit, the need to present yourself as someone who’s constantly working on every aspect of your life. That’s a different modern-society quirk altogether.
More the former.
I recall when I first visited the USA and walked into an American bookshop...
... the selves of 'self-help' books I found utterly bizarre. It was very much an eye-opener into the differences of our cultures.
"Self-help" is more like a modern folk religion than anything to do with actual psychology.
At work, like all the time? Empowerment, values, growth mindset, psychological safety, mindfulness, emotional intelligence...
Half of these aren't people talking about mental health problems, but preconditions for mental health. That's your problem?
Seems like we both agree that psychological language can be common in everyday offline life, such as at work for a large company. I don't have a problem with it, not sure where you got that from.
You're ignoring the subtext of the comment above yours.
> 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...
Their problem isn't with the language itself, but how it is handled in public. That point doesn't really translate if you pivot to creating an environment conductive to mental health.
Probably not what the parent is referring to, but there is 'therapy speak' and similar phenomena where a pop-sci bowdlerisation of professional practices or scientific theories become absorbed into the culture and change the way we express ourselves.
There is pathologisation which can be whimsical e.g. tidying/organising becomes OCD, studying becomes autistic or exaggerative e.g. sadness becoming depression, a bad experience becoming trauma or in order condemn e.g a political policy becomes sociopathic.
There is the way 'therapy speak' spills over into daily life e.g. your use of the work-kitchen must respect boundaries, leaving the milk out is triggering, the biscuits are my self-care etc.
There is also 'neuroscience speak' where people express their emotions in terms of neurotransmitters e.g. motivation and stimulation becomes 'dopamine', happiness and love become 'serotonin', stress becomes 'cortisol' etc.
It's just the way language and culture works and it now pulls more from science than myth and religion. New language might just be replacing older bowdlerisations e.g. hysteria. In the 'therapy-speak' cases, it's interesting how it often replaces more moralistic language and assertions about values that used be described in terms of manners, civility, respectability etc.
Agree. Some people have legitimate issues. Many just grab at the easy excuse for not achieving anything. “Suck it up and do the work” is still good advice for them.
99% of public human interaction is battles for dominance (ego, status, politics...). Which is gross. When psychology enters the conversation it gets even grosser.
Ah yes, the old "out of sight, out of mind"-solution. Only it never solves anything.
I deeply dislike the inherent ideology of psychology. Liberalism, the idea of a health individual does not pay any idea to the shared whole, suffering which may be "noble" for the common good and rights and privileges awarded for suffering in such. I find such a ideologically loaded construct and the inherent biases (idealizations and an inability to talk about the cultural framework and tradeoffs) quite unhelpful for understanding, helping and as a basis for societal meta-communications.
There is not an inherent ideology to psychology, and I'm not sure what you mean by statements such as "the idea of a health individual does not pay any idea to the shared whole" (not even judging; I actually don't know what you mean).
Why?
Right. Even here in HN I was arguing with someone who has the hot take that “more conservative leaning men have less mental health issues than liberal and left leaning men and I don’t think we do enough to think about why exactly that might be and what those liberal men could do differently”, and got very angry when I suggested that maybe the reason for that was that conservative men were less likely to seek help or treatment or to even acknowledge, instead of outright deny, any mental health challenges, for fear of anything from seeming weak to being ostracized.
From experience, my response to this is, por que no los dos?
I am 100% certain that conservative men being less likely to seek help is _part_ of the reason why various data shows them as having fewer mental health issues than their liberal counterparts. But I doubt that's the whole picture, and it's also by far the least interesting part of the picture - the cause and effect there is pretty simple and clear.
As another commenter in this thread observes, there's "too much psychology talk in every day life, everyone is traumatised and has unresolved issues etc". I think that's part of it as well, and it's not difficult to believe that this is something that impacts "liberal and left leaning men" more than conservatives, due to sheer exposure if nothing else. I think you do a disservice to the discussion if you dismiss this outright.
I agree that there is some support that working with your problems create them.
As written in a sibling thread, I am mostly concerned with the relative visibility of issues as that creates equal opportunity.
The implication of not focusing on men's issues is that we can not focus on women's issues either.
Good luck fighting for that.
My controverial opinion is that the "left" has more mental problems because of the therapy and pharmasutical industries.
Conservatives are less likely to see proffessional help but not help. They simply rely on family which imo has a better incentive structure than therapists.
Anecdotally I've watched a lot of people go down the therapy and medication route over the years. I've noticed they become more unstable as time passes. Maybe that would have happened anyways.
or
Maybe it's because humans weren't designed to spill our guts to strangers and then take prolonged phycoactive drugs to fix mental problems that science does not understand.
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I'd be surprised if the people I worked with would think twice before working with someone that's been in psychiatric care, though I can't be sure, because I don't know that any of them did. I know that I wouldn't care. I have friends that stayed in hospitals for psychiatric reasons: they'd be great to work with, I think.
Yeah, I have a number of coworkers that have shared with me that they are on psychiatric medications, and have discussed mental health with. It's becoming normalized, and that's a good thing.
It’s still definitely a big deal. Note that the CIA and the NSA routinely declare ex-employees that whistleblow or leak as “mentally ill.”
It depends on the company. I worked for fairly “stolid” companies, for most of my career, and I suspect that they would treat mentally-ill people badly.
Mental illness is something that, unfortunately, I have a lot of experience with. I have severe mental illness in my family (I deal with it every day), and I spend a significant part of my life, interacting with folks at various stages of recovery from it.
I have been seeing therapists for much of my life. When I was a kid, I was diagnosed with autism, but was never told, so I spent decades, trying to “fix” myself, before finding out. Once I found out that I was “on the spectrum,” I realized that it can’t be “fixed”; only mitigated, and things started improving quickly, at that point.
That said, I think “mentally-ill” means “diagnosed and professionally-treated,” to most folks. It’s my opinion, that there’s a lot of undiagnosed/untreated mental illness out there. Just looking at the threads of interaction, on any Internet community, makes that clear. One “tell,” that I have encountered, is when someone has extremely strong opinions on psychiatry. It’s not something most folks even think about, so it’s unusual, when it’s a big deal to someone.
Mental illness also tends to get worse, as we get older, if untreated. An “eccentric” young man, may become an old hermit, flying around, keeping his piss in canopic jars.
Much of what we call “mental illness,” is actually self-developed coping mechanisms, in response to trauma, or brain-chemistry imbalance. That’s why getting medication doesn’t just “fix” us. We need to seek help in defusing the habits and rituals that were developed to help deal with the problem.
I think the problem with "mental illness" is that I think in many cases it's the environment that is not suitable. In modern times we've created this environment that just doesn't fit all archetypes of people and those who it doesn't fit well with, we declare "mentally ill". There are obviously actual serious issues, but I believe a lot of it has to do with environment. It's not a clear illness like diabetes, etc. For instance I couldn't handle going to school, people can label it ADHD or Autism, but does it make sense in the first place to force me to study specific things that I don't care about as opposed to playing into my interests and strengths. I'm glad I'm grown up now, and can decide to learn what I'm actually interested in and do it 100x more effective per unit of time, as opposed to in school.
I agree with this.
One of the issues I face, with my family member, is that they can’t handle stress, well.
I have found that we only advance, when we are outside our “comfort zone.” As long as everything is copacetic, there’s no need to improve.
But a “comfort zone” is a “fuzzy” quality. Too far out, is “trauma.” Different folks handle discomfort and trauma, in a variety of ways. I do think our families and support systems, can make a huge difference.
For myself, being “on the spectrum” has really been an asset, in many ways. I have always learned technology quickly, but I’m a high school dropout with a GED, and almost all my education has been self-directed. Most of my life has been spent “outside my comfort zone.”
Yeah, that's complicated. I guess from my own experience related to stress and going out of comfort zone what I can speak to is that I have trouble going out of comfort zone when I'm doing something I'm not interested in and when I feel like I have to pretend that I'm someone I'm not. E.g. normal social situations where I have to pretend that I have favourite food, favourite place to go, or I even know places. I zone out on 90%+ topics, and I can't understand why on earth people are talking about these things.
But if I'm passionate about something, I will be excited to present to a large audience, to go through things that you might consider going out of comfort zone, be competitive etc.
Now in school I had so many situations where I had to "be out of comfort zone" in things I wasn't interested in. Social situations I didn't enjoy. I left things to last minute, then stressed, lost confidence, massively. Eventually dropped out of high school.
Luckily managed to get a successful career going where I've been passionately moving forward, and this has massively boosted my confidence too. Now I'm a successful member of society, make quite a bit, pay taxes, etc, and can build the exact life that I want and works out best for me.
Sounds like we share some things in common.
Thanks for sharing.
Yes, not sure if you entered the high school drop out immediately and I missed it or it was edit, but yes, looks very similar! Thanks for sharing too.
Sorry. I tend to "edit and review" for a little while, on my lonform posts. My bad.
Thanks for sharing. To be clear, I don't doubt that there are people that would make a problem out of a history of mental illness. But, it's definitely not everyone and someone with such a history shouldn't be discouraged to get out there and be open about it. Or, at least I'd like to see this stuff talked about without stigma.
I have a nephew with bipolar. He has chosen to “go public” about it, on LinkedIn. His reasoning, is that it helps remove the stigma. He seems to be doing fine, but he also has a very good background, and a lot of advantages, not available to others (I come from a fairly Ivy League family, and my sister has a lot of resources).
For myself, I have been in Recovery from drug addiction, for over 45 years. I was once a Very Bad Boi. I quit at 18, so never got a[n adult] record.
It’s not something that I have chosen to reveal, while I was working. I know, damn well, that it would not have worked in my favor (even though the Recovery process has conferred significant advantages). I never explicitly told my employees or my employers. My last employer was a Japanese company, and drug addiction suffers a great stigma, in most Asian nations. It would not have gone well. As it was, they kept me for decades, and I enjoyed an “inner circle” level of trust (a significant part of my path of Recovery is rigorous Honesty, Personal Integrity, and self-Discipline. I’m a very trustworthy and hard-working person). They never knew it, but they got a great deal of benefit from my addiction and subsequent Recovery.
In fact, I guarantee that some folks, after reading that, now suddenly hate me (in addition to the ones that already do, because they think I’m a stuck-up boomer). There’s a great deal of emotion, in mental illness and Recovery, and there’s a very good reason that folks don’t reveal it. I’ve watched it happen, for a long time. It’s a real thing.
As it is, I still don’t mention it often, though it’s a primary fact of life, for me. It’s not relevant to most of my interactions, and most people have no understanding of Recovery (and shouldn’t be required to, either). It’s very much a “If I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand” thing. It’s my problem, and my responsibility to manage. I have to understand others; they don’t need to understand me.
Have you seen a change in these attitudes?
Sorta/kinda.
In the US, yes, but not overseas.
I think in many places there's now enough of critical mass where people are understanding enough and call out anyone who uses that information negatively towards the person.
> because I don't know that any of them did
This is telling in itself.
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>huge taboo to have your employer or your fellow co-workers know that you have been institutionalized in the past for mental health problems
Depend if you have the right trendy label that HR is in love with then you will get more and better jobs because if it.
That's right.
I built and released a game called Autism Simulator recently. Online feedback was overwhelmingly positive but with plenty of gaslighting sprinkled in, e.g. "everybody's a bit autistic", "that just sounds like working in tech".
Minimization is always the default go-to for men's mental health issues.
In the instance of your simulator, I think this is moreso due to the popular idea that people in tech tend to be autistic and the cultural desire to be part of the ingroup, rather than a snub at autistic people/men.
> I built and released a game called Autism Simulator recently.
Would you mind linking to the game so I can check it out?
What do they mean by "vulnerability" here? There is this constant redefinition of words. In mainstream usage, "vulnerability" is not a good thing as it means you are open to problems and can easily be attacked. They presumably mean it in the sense of being "open to your own emotions" or tender. Silly misuse of words for a serious subject.
It’s not a misuse - it’s exactly the intended meaning and it is perfectly common in mainstream usage.
Allowing yourself to be vulnerable means you are indeed open to attack. But it is also a large part of emotional connection. The alternative is being a fortress - with all the relationship problems that entails.
The very fact that you see vulnerability as “bad” is a perfect example of what that language is intended to highlight.
> The alternative is being a fortress - with all the relationship problems that entails.
I’m reminded of the concept of siege mentality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_mentality
> In sociology, siege mentality is a shared feeling of victimization and defensiveness—a term derived from the actual experience of military defences of real sieges. It is a collective state of mind in which a group of people believe themselves constantly attacked, oppressed, or isolated in the face of the negative intentions of the rest of the world. Although a group phenomenon, the term describes both the emotions and thoughts of the group as a whole, and as individuals. The result is a state of being overly fearful of surrounding peoples, and an intractably defensive attitude.
> Among the consequences of a siege mentality are black and white thinking, social conformity, and lack of trust, but also a preparedness for the worst and a strong sense of social cohesion.
Is vulnerable about letting people know how you feel or your weaknesses?
What about letting people know how you feel and your weaknesses while not caring if someone judges you for it? Is that being vulnerable or not?
I would say yes. Your weaknesses, if truly shared are weaknesses which can be used against you to hurt you and thereby you are vulnerable to them. Further, even if you don't care about the judgment of others then you can still be harmed by decisions of and social coordination between people who judge you.
We agree, assuming self knowledge, that the judgments of others tell you about them rather than about you.
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 it's a problem about men unwilling to be vulnerable, it's more so about them happening to be around people who might use it against them (and it succeeding effectively, ergo there being a critical mass of people supporting this).
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.
If you are currently a target of DV, reach out; there are lots of people and organizations who want to support you and have tools to do so. This may not apply to you but seemed appropriate place to remind us all.
> 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?
In my opinion and in this context the common striped-down-to-its-consistent-core usage is taking the actions that expose one's inner/core emotional space/thoughts/feelings. FWIW I would agree that this doesn't have to be a true vulnerability in the dictionary or any other sense. I think many people talk past each other a lot without knowing it with this word. There is a lot of diversity in specific semantics so good question. The idea that one is vulnerable when one is known seems to encode the victim mindset many get stuck in but that's reality for many. Even when I yack at my therapists for years they still only learn small slivers of my whole person so certainly the broader being is not so vulnerable by sharing just little moments. I think openness is true strength (obvious caveats for secrets like passwords/PINs/et cetera. The contradicting position seems to be that by withholding and looking for opening for attack you position yourself for "winning". In the meantime, it seems to me, you lock in isolation and losing, missing your opportunity to connect, learn, and grow increasing your vulnerability over time. Busy night, rushed through writing so hopefully not too many errors or stupid thoughts.
[edit: Giving up control seems to be a common feature. Maybe more simply being willing to cooperate when your interactant could defect.]
Do you think there's something that you are intentionally hiding from your therapists that might make you vulnerable? Or it's just, that you don't have enough time to give full overview into yourself? I've gone to therapists and many different ones through my whole life too. Maybe in the past I had times when there were some things I might have not told them, but I feel like I'm pretty stream of consciousness now.
I think I'm a at a point in my life where I think that as long as with each person that I interact with, I'm looking to benefit both of our lives, I'm free to be myself. This wasn't always the case, and especially as a teenager, I was a lot more paranoid that people are out to get me, and in my 20s as well. I think I wasn't being myself because at those times it didn't seem like myself was received truly well. But now if I think everything I do is to benefit both parties - or whoever is in my circle, there's nothing to be ashamed about anything that I do. And any situation I treat as being in a team together whether it's work, friends, or with my life partner.
So what I'm thinking still is - if I do it like that, I can communicate my thoughts without concern. And is that being vulnerable or not? I don't think I'm a "kind" person or trying to virtue signal here or something or a naive person that could be taken advantage of because of this strategy. I do think however life is too short to be playing any such social games trying to hide or seek advantage from. I'd prefer to truly understand people and what they think, transparency. I'd prefer any situation is treated as a team working on a unified goal, whether it's understanding the World, each other, or making best of any gathering in terms of jokes, entertainment, insight or whatever.
There are still situations of course where I have to be on guard, and these I'm really bothered by, e.g. corporate environments. Not the best place for me in that sense. But I try to be as honest as I can. I guess my main issue is that I work in weird passionate bursts and I have trouble doing organizing/maintenance/routine stuff, so I feel like I have to hustle around that and what actually gives me frequently feelings of being an impostor. That I can't do many of the routine things that I consider boring, yet are frequently expected. I sometimes do 16h of very passionate, efficient, effective work, but the other days I'm completely disinterested in my paid work and so I have to kind of fake being productive or something, as I'm not sure how it plays to people that I just can't be bothered to work if I don't feel like it. Like I can't be that 9 to 5 person, but I work in corporate environment, because it pays me the most.
> Giving up control seems to be a common feature.
That is also an interesting one. What does giving up control exactly means? Another thing I've heard a lot about in my life. Someone's controlling, someone doesn't like to let go of control etc. I can understand how there are unhealthy controlling behaviors (e.g. intruding someone's freedom by pressuring or manipulating them to do what you want or not do what you don't want etc), but what does it mean to exactly giving up control over yourself?
I guess in romantic relationships maybe people can be vulnerable early in terms of getting hurt? E.g. putting yourself out there to be rejected. But I don't think that's where there's an actual problem with men? With men there must be this problem elsewhere.
Reading the article again - it doesn't seem to super register to me that it's the male vulnerability that is the problem. It seems there's an example of a homeless character that lies about being homeless. Is it that men don't want to leave an impression that they are unsuccessful? I can see how that's the case, although I think the main issue here is not the vulnerability, it's the fact that he's homeless in the first place. Perhaps if he didn't hide it, it could be solved somehow, but I don't know if that's exactly the case.
> Do you think there's something that you are intentionally hiding from your therapists that might make you vulnerable? Or it's just, that you don't have enough time to give full overview into yourself?
Nothing hidden. Hiding from anyone feels pointless and would leave me even more alone. I would need to live in a shell/shadow of myself and have to do a bunch of work to keep track of the boundaries - exhausting waste! Part of it is that I am a very odd primate. I had life circumstances that had me separated from most people followed by an existential crisis at 8 with no adults that could even start to discuss or support me through it. That led me off into lots of weird spaces and problems (and problem definitions) that I've been working on since then. My struggles mostly have to do with how humanity undermines and underperforms while dragging those attempting better down. I often try to enlist therapist's creativity to help solve subproblems but having a forum to discuss these things is itself relieving.
I'm with you about being able to just speak one's mind. Living your values and in a positive economic outcomes oriented manner is a pretty bullet proof strategy but it assumes a certain amount of physical and economic safety. A lot of people get stuck in the "social intrigue" pattern/asynchronous information building suboptimal strategy. I spend a lot of time trying to invite people to join and give them the tools and supports that make it plausible.
> e.g. corporate environments
Yeah, I've kinda washed out of all the horsecarp that happens in those. After 20 years and lots of success I still enjoy the work but the people ruin it for me. I'm planing a transition to farming. These social patterns destroy industry performance but it seems locked in on them.
> What does giving up control exactly means?
One always, outside of dystopic electrode or mind control ray scenarios, retains exclusive control over their connected neutral infrastructure but in having attachment to values we can feel induced into tradeoffs we would otherwise reject. Becoming attached to a life partner can cause shifts in your priorities and gives up control of priority updates, at least partially, to an uncontrolled entity. Lies told, being stuck in abuse patterns, and many other factors can create adverse dynamics and all these are risked. Similar risks can manifest in a business or investment decision. Even the accumulated knowledge, increase communications efficiency, and shared experience of any long term relationship becomes an asset that can exert control. Usually a worthwhile risk and trade-off.
The problem isn't gendered, that's just a distraction to keep us distracted warring against ourselves. Not to ignore the gender associated norms that lead to gender correlated adverse outcomes inside of a societal system that reflects and countersolves these. The problem is the distributed defection status and the challenges of social coordination coupled with social knowing not scaling.
However, I kinda ignore your last bit. I think you are saying "isn't the submission to satisfying the external the problem?" I believe it is a problem but it's paired with the collaboration can lead to far better outcomes factor. Society puts a lot of effort to make us dependent and through it dependence subservient. On the platform of society some attempt to get us to enslave ourselves (and others) to the whims of those same. Through such tangles, we all lose and pay dearly, living underperforming lives in an underperforming existence.
If you are under attack, vulnerability is bad.
Historic ‘stoic male’ personas existed for a reason. Because in many situations, it works. Despite the complaining.
And being less ‘emotionally connected’ is valuable when people use that connection to exploit or hurt you. A very common experience for many men.
That people (especially women) then complain you won’t open up to them is a riot in those situations because it’s like someone complaining you keep putting on your bullet proof vest - while they keep shooting at you.
Historic male mental health issues also resulted. But notably, folks depending on the stoic persona for their own wellbeing would typically throw you under the bus for those issues too.
“How dare you get mad! You’re a dangerous threat!” says the person constantly harassing the person, or the boss putting you in worse and worse work conditions while pretending they are doing you a favor, etc.
They do that, of course, because mad people actually fight back. But if you need the job or are dependent on the relationship…
As many men have experienced, the only way to ‘win’ is shut off caring about what people say on that front - among other emotions.
> Historic ‘stoic male’ personas existed for a reason.
What are you talking about here. "Historic male persona" differs between periods and places, but anger, friendships and happiness are basically always parts of it.
Odysseus "weeps" and "cries". The whole romantic era was about overly emotional, passionate and sensitive guys.
Homer predates the stoics by several centuries, so that makes sense. Though I do think Homer does make a solid case of traditional male ideals being fairly emotional, and this is something that persists to modern day.
Achilles in particular spends half the Iliad sulking in his tent, and the other half making shish kebabs out of the Trojan army on a tireless revenge-rampage where he's so goddamn angry he picks a fight with a river.
These types of characters are still written today, John Wick is something of a superficial parallel.
Though it could be argued that Achilles lengthy sulking is diva behavior, few would argue Captain Kirk is effeminate because he's more emotionally driven than Spock, who in many ways turns the stoic ideals up to 11. Likely because despite occasionally chewing the scenery with emotional moments, he is still ultimately in control.
(It's also worth noting that neither Achilles or Odysseus were likely intended as ideals, but rather tragic extremes, and Homer's works largely deal with the consequences of their personalities; the pride and rage of Achilles like we just discussed, the pathological distrust and constant scheming of Odysseus protracting his journey and being the true source of many of his countless obstacles)
Even if it was written post-peak-stoic-era (it wasn’t), you still would probably not find many historic ‘stoic men’ as primary characters in a drama such as the Iliad. They would tend to be either scenery/setting, or somewhat uninteresting.
for good reason.
They are typically not very dramatic, and do the right thing - even in difficult circumstances. That is anti-drama.
They are the ‘good dads’. The strong leaders who make sure the right things actually happen. Etc.
They are not perfect, or superhuman. They can’t change the tide of a tsunami. But they do tend to make sure their family (and anyone who will listen to them without making their primary mission difficult!) also get to high ground at the right time.
If society actually listens to them, society might even build a high enough sea wall that the Tsunami doesn’t even destroy the city. That one is rare, however.
Notice how I never said what you are disagreeing with, and if you read what I said, your question is answered?
I had no question. You also do not know what historical stoicism as a philosophy and behavior was, but I assumed actual historical stoicism was not the point.
My point was, you made up "historic stoic persona" based on conservative ideology. Not as something that actually characterized historical manhood.
Haha, Marcus Aurelis is very disappointed.
Tell me what I made up, eh?
The point of stoicism is to make your own decisions and be able to chart your own life by following principles you believe are just - in large part by avoiding being controlled by emotional reactivity/manipulation.
Not to cut out emotions all together, but to not be driven by them. Especially when someone is trying to induce them in you.
This often comes across as ‘stone faced in the face of extreme emotion’ - but doesn’t mean the person isn’t feeling them. Rather that they are not letting themselves be driven by or controlled by them in the moment, if they do not serve a useful purpose for them.
> (especially women)
It's always about that isn't it? Not getting the reaction you want, vilifying your interlocutor, then run crying with fingers in your ears screaming "lalala I didn't want it anyway" and declaring yourself a stoic is really indicative of the type of people who in the present day call themselves stoics.
This whole thread is just a long-winded version of redpill discourse, people who can see past minor adolescent romantic mishaps.
How pathetic is it to still model your whole life after women while pretending to be an isle of self-reliance? Men really are lost.
I didn't see any vilification of women. Women value sharing and emotional vulnerability. It's how they bond with other women, who make up the bulk of their friends. Men's experiences with other men, the bulk of their friends, often make them wary of being emotionally vulnerable. Hence, naturally, a disconnect when a man and a woman are establishing a relationship.
Women value sharing and emotional vulnerability, but typically not from the males in their lives. There is a significant disconnect between average women and genuine male emotions, and males are expected to show emotional resilience and self-control first and foremost precisely to bridge that gap and then allow the 'sharing' to occur unimpeded, though still in a somewhat controlled way.
Are men expected to do so? Male anger is more tolerated then female anger. Also, if you look at men who are popular or get far, they are super emotional - Trump, Musk, Tate heck even Vance and Hengensberg.
Emotions driven males are cultural and political leaders literally now.
> Male anger is more tolerated then female anger
That's only one emotion. What about all the rest?
In the context of "males are expected to show emotional resilience and self-control first" this is absolutely the primary thing that matters.
Only if not directed where society wants.
Fighting a war? Absolutely. Defending your family? Absolutely. Getting in an argument with your spouse? Not at all.
this is the general insanity of today’s world, today’s leaders would be laughed at as weakest of the weak in vast majority of human history, just absolute weakest men imaginable are “leaders” now…
There is a saying in wealth management - ‘the first generation builds it, the second generation preserves it, the third generation smokes it’.
It’s hard to not see that playing out in a large sense society wise right now, if we assume the first generation was the post WW2 folks, and the wealth was the post-WW2 economic benefits from the US not being bombed into the Stone Age like most of the rest of the world - and if anything, being the only major economy still standing.
Where exactly you draw the lines generationally is of course up for debate. But we’re starting to have to relearn a lot of hard lessons now that the post WW2 (and depression) generations understood as basic table stakes.
And it’s not because people today are ‘weaker’ per-se. Rather, they’ve lived a (relatively) comfortable life. That generally leads to not having to learn the hard lessons (or being so miserable) that they do the hard things required to build that society. And there is no free lunch. And it was never ideal, then, or now, and will never be ideal in the future either.
But it can be better if we put in the work and take the risk.
It's possible you are hanging around with the wrong women.
OP blamed women for supposedly complaining that men dont open up. Men simultaneously have natural friendships with other men, but it is women fault men do not open up.
Por op, women are at wrong when they want men to talk (which is outrageous ask), but also cause of men not talking. Which includes men not talking to other men, which is also fault of women.
> OP blamed women for supposedly complaining that men dont open up
Correct. And often accurate.
> it is women fault men do not open up
I don't think OP said that.
> Por op, women are at wrong when they want men to talk
Nor that.
> Which includes men not talking to other men, which is also fault of women
Nor that.
Never did I say such a thing at all.
>> (especially women)
>It's always about that isn't it?
>How pathetic is it to still model your whole life after women while pretending to be an isle of self-reliance? Men really are lost.
If I were to hazard a guess: he said it in the passing. You read into it a little too much.
Frankly, a large portion of these replies feel like some pretty clear cut projection. It’s impressive.
Yes, it's projection for sure. A large number of men appear to need validation from women. Pathetic. I guess from an evolutionary perspective it had to that way. Men who didn't need that validation worked themselves out of the gene pool.
It depends on the degree.
Completely ignoring what everyone thinks and doing your own thing is a good way to get in a very dangerous situation from a basic-life-needs perspective. And with women being a bit over half the population, saying ‘fuck it’ to what half the population wants, especially if you’re picking fights with them, is quite dangerous - even if they are not 100%.
But you know who can handle dangerous, and doesn’t need validation from the population (in that form) to get what they want and have their needs met?
The actual king.
It’s a high risk, high reward (potentially) strategy. Better be good (and actually strong) if you want to not need to be liked.
What I think we’ve been seeing play out is entire generations of men who learned that the best strategy was to be liked by women so the women would do all the work to support them. Which seems to have worked quite well for many of them for awhile.
But now people are burning out, and the ‘easy wins’ from the prior approach (or just lifestyle creep/inflation!) is causing more real and visible difficulty - and the situation is indeed getting more difficult. We even have clear predators showing up and operating in the open, with no one stopping them.
There needs to be more than just vibes and following the rules for things to work out now, and a different approach is needed.
We’ll see what ends up shaking out, eh?
One thing is clear though - if society won’t accept someone stepping up and punching someone in the face or worse (even if it is to protect them), you’ll eventually end up with a bunch of predators who will do whatever they want without fear taking advantage of society.
I don't think there's any redefinition here, and it's exactly this dichotomy that makes this a big issue. Vulnerability is indeed not "a good thing", but the issue is that the struggle to constantly keep yourself invulnerable at all times is a "worse thing", leading to many stress-related issues (amongst other problems). So the modern psychological advice, as I understand it, is to find particular people, spaces and opportunities where we can let our guard down, even at the risk of being open to attack, because the alternative is worse.
There's a stoic quote I love:
> our ideal wise man feels his troubles, but overcomes them
- Seneca, Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 9 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let...
The way I see it, if you never let yourself be vulnerable, you can never fully feel your troubles, and you cannot fully overcome them.
I guess the question is -> why do we need that guard in the first place?
Is this about other people being immature or looking to abuse us? Is this something that generally goes beyond school?
> Is this something that generally goes beyond school?
The things that make you vulnerable change depending on what year and situation you're in. I can very much get behind the idea that you should consider whether your legacy sense of what makes you vulnerable is relevant to your current circumstances. I'm not so much behind the "freely dispense the rope people will use to hang you" version.
There's a lot of abstraction in this thread, but I would like to hear specifics.
What are the exact vulnerabilities that we are talking about?
From my side I guess I can say I frequently feel like impostor type of things or that I'm not doing enough. I won't mention that at work, but I definitely share those feelings to my partner.
I would hate not being able to share something like that to my partner for instance.
I wonder what others are talking about?
When I was at school (and in the 20th century generally) admitting to anything outside traditional masculinity / heterosexuality made you vulnerable to physical / verbal attack. Which remains the case for a lot of people in the 21st century. If they want to be loud and proud then good for them, but I can understand it if they prefer to keep it quiet. Whereas, at least around me, now, I think you can come out as gay without too much concern for your physical safety.
Conversely, at my school you could be as overtly homophobic as you wanted with no consequences, whereas now you should probably be a lot more cautious if you harbour homophobic sentiments.
Talking about partners in particular, I've had partners I felt fairly safe sharing anything (most things anyway) with, and I've also had partners who would mine our conversations for any kind of viable ammunition. Which led to me being a bit more careful what I said. We can perhaps agree the first kind of relationship is better.
Yeah, I think the 2nd type of relationship is much worse than no relationship, I'd say the problem there wouldn't be with someone being vulnerable, it's the problem with the relationship...
Yeah, during school it's difficult since you are forced together with potentially toxic people. As an adult you can choose at least in personal life and to an extent workplace, although sometimes workplace can also be difficult to get right.
I'd 100% rather be alone than around people who might judge or use in someway against me anything about me. It would feel internally disgusting for me to think that someone might be trying to get at my expense and that I'm not around people who are there to try and build each other. What a waste of time.
The thing is, what you want is specifically a relationship where you are not vulnerable. If you're not worried about the consequences of the things you say, there's no actual vulnerability. You're just adapting to a safe situation. In which case good for you and you partner.
Ultimately, what I'm trying to do though, is to build myself such a life that if my internal principles are good, I shouldn't have to worry in most cases about what I'm saying since I want to believe in my principles. I want my interactions with people to be win-win, and I want to surround myself with people who want that too. If someone displays lose-win behavior, I should always naturally have the "moral" upper-hand assuming other people around me are reasonable. And if none of the people around me are reasonable, I should go and find the reasonable people.
People seem to be romanticizing the term "vulnerable" though. I think it would be important to go deeper into this. What does "vulnerability" exactly mean. I have had depression, anxiety diagnosed in the past and addictions and other similar issues, are these vulnerabilities because they may interfere with me acting optimally or are they vulnerabilities because they provide someone a tool to try and get at me if they so wanted because they think there's stigma around those labels to influence others to think worse of me?
> Is this about other people being immature or looking to abuse us? Is this something that generally goes beyond school?
Yes to both.
Psychopaths do to everyone what everyone does to out-groups, and we're all someone else's out-group.
You really don't need to reach that far. As a man if you are too often vulnerable, too much, for the wrong reasons or at the wrong time you will loose the respect of your partner and soon after there love.
I guess that would depend on the partner? And what do you mean by vulnerability in that context that would make her lose respect?
And what do you mean by wrong times or reasons?
Most people seek emotional support, resilience and trustworthiness from their partner, and being excessively "vulnerable" can definitely hinder you from playing that role effectively. This is what can sometimes be experienced as a loss of respect. What you really want is to show a mere modicum of emotional vulnerability that your partner can then have some opportunity to empathize with, and not view you as overly brittle. But not more than that.
Why would I seek emotional support from someone so disconnected from their emotions they can't show more than a "modicum" of vulnerability?
How could I trust someone's resilience when they don't show they've been through things that built that resilience, and demonstrate it?
How can I trust someone who so closely monitors how much and what sort of emotions to show to me?
Why are you assuming that someone who sensibly refrains from overly impulsive behavior wrt. showing their emotions (this is what "self-monitoring" ultimately means: we all do it in all sorts of social contexts, and it's a normal part of being a healthy, well-adjusted person) must necessarily be "disconnecting" from them altogether and lacking in emotional resilience?
If you manage to "self-monitor" all the time, and never show more than a modicum of vulnerability, that seems very disconnected to me.
Perhaps 'disconnected' is the wrong word, but what I mean is that emotionally healthy people feel their emotions and express them, not just hold them at arm's length and pick and choose which to feel and express.
On the contrary, part of being a well-adjusted person is learning how to express any emotion in a gradual and controlled fashion, without letting it dominate your behavior in dysfunctional ways. As the ancient philosopher Epictetus famously put it: "If anyone were to deliver your body in public to whomever he wished, that any passer-by might do as he liked with it, you would certainly be angry and indignant. But that you should then set your mind at the mercy of all the world, to be troubled and disturbed whenever anyone should happen to revile you--are you not ashamed of that?" In a way, this is at essence the underlying tension that's inherently in play whenever someone advocates for "vulnerability".
I don't see how being emotional vulnerable means letting your emotions "dominate your behavior in dysfunctional ways"
What could be examples of excessive vulnerability?
Not everyone's partner is that shallow.
Exceptions don't invalidate the rule. Everybody thinks there partner isn't right until they are.
Your experiences don't validate the rule, either.
Right I forgot we are on HN where we even need a scientific paper on "do women like weak vulnerable or strong confident men?" because nobody ever goes outside.
I bet that people who advocate for showing "vulnerability" are modeling this as a facet of strong confidence, and not opposed to it. But the thing is, if you really have reached the level of effortless confidence where that's a realistic prospect, you won't need that advice! You'll just be able to intuitively calibrate how much "vulnerability" to allow others, as a direct outcome of that strong emotional stability. Most people would probably be better off being told to be a little bit more guarded about their emotions.
Was I just described not only as "effortlessly confident" but also "emotionally stable"?
That's new. My crippling depressing and social anxiety will be glad to hear it!
I think you're working too hard to be pithy and are therefore forgetting to actually communicate.
What are some things that make a man seem vulnerable?
Not really, it's just that most of us are adults who have experiences with healthy adult relationships. "Is my partner going to leave me if I display emotional vulnerability" is not really a concern in healthy, adult relationships.
Differences between men and women are down to the situation.
Sometimes the long situation. When a situation has lasted a long time, it sticks, and turns into culture, gender roles.
When a situation has lasted a really long time, it sticks hard, and becomes biology.
But most of the time, it's neither culture or biology which decides what men and women do. It's the immediate situation.
And even if you think it's culture, even if you think it's biology, if you don't like how men are (or how women are) you have to start with changing the immediate situation. The others will follow - eventually.
An actual adult realizes the real world differences between "should not" and "will not".
I'm not sure what this is trying to say? Can you elaborate please?
One is ‘I wish’. The other is ‘won’t happen’.
divorced dad take
Crazy cat lady take. See I can make useless remarks too.
your whole text above is useless for everyone but you, but I understand you can't contain how you feel about woman
Amateur level reflection
I think some concrete examples would be great. I think we need some examples of vulnerability too. Is vulnerability just about showing your actual emotional state? E.g. if you are depressed, anxious or nervous?
My take is you've got the right reasoning but the wrong conclusion, I agree with your contextless definition of vulnerability and with the use of it in this context, vulnerability makes people vulnerable, by definition.
From my experience, the reason you'd risk being vulnerable is there are some things you can't achieve without doing so, it'd be like trying to do surgery with a scalpel on someone wearing platemail, or trying to detect radiation with a Geiger counter behind 20 meters of lead, for some tools to work properly they're required to be in a position where they're 'vulnerable', like eyes.
I think it's sad that performative emotions & vulnerability seem to be a popular thing to have to signal for acceptance. Which in my opinion is worse than nothing as at least when you're not faking something it's easier to agree that you haven't really tried it.
> I think it's sad that performative emotions & vulnerability seem to be a popular thing to have to signal for acceptance.
You only think it's performative because you think people are signaling. They're not and performative anything is not required for acceptance, but people are not accepting of others who deal with their social interaction in these terms and your very language betrays where you stand. These imaginary requirements for affection are not what's sad here.
> You only think it's performative because you think people are signalling
You're correct that I think something because I think something else. You're assuming I'm unwilling or unable to tell the difference.
I don't see a betrayal to state that I think it's a shame that people that have copied a performative action, gotten nothing out of it and are then hesitant to try again because they feel they've already tried that avenue and had bad results. It's the same feeling of sadness I get when people have tried therapy, for whatever reason haven't gotten much out of it and then write it off as a sham.
I do get that you're saying 'aha ! I've detected your true intent through my clever analysis of your language' - consider your assumption "You only think it's performative because you think people are signaling. They're not"
They're not? You can state absolute facts with confidence about the people I've experienced in my life that you don't know anything about? That is either some amazing superpower or regular old conjecture.
It might help you to notice how many times I said I think or in my opinion, and how many absolutes you're willing to state.
I think you are projecting the sense of the word from computer security onto people. But "vulnerability" always has that second sense in common speech, as in "showing vulnerability". If a person is actually open to being harmed in some way we use the phrasing "they are vulnerable to ...", which has quite a different meaning.
CVEs basically.
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.
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.
If you're looking for a portrayal closer to the books, I'd highly recommend Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes produced by Granada TV from the 80s.
I don't think any actor has come as close as Jeremy Brett did.
I've not read much of Holmes, so I can't really speak to the original character, but I would point out that the "he can socialize, he just doesn't like to" bit is somewhat part of BBC's Sherlock too - look at the relationship he developed with the woman to get at Magnussen. It's an aspect of him they never really explored much beyond that though - you're definitely right in that he seems more incapable of it than anything else.
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.
Also why I enjoyed House which is basically modern Sherlock Holmes in a medical setting
The American series (House and Elementary) has the advantage of more seasons and episodes, which I think is sometimes required to showcase the challenges of drug addiction and mental health. The fact that these characters having to come back to face the same problem over and over again episode after episode is more true to the nature of the mental health problem itself.
BBC Sherlock has too little episodes to bring audience along a prolonged struggle with mental health.
BBC Sherlock also slowly morphed him into a less empathic version of the Doctor from Doctor Who.
But I did like how it started with Watson joining him to get a hit of adrenaline and not deal with his soldiering past. Was a great scene.
Also, re: Dr. Who, Moffat gonna Moffat
It's definitely one of those pieces of media that is extremely frustrating because of how close it came to being an all-time great adaptation. Moffat needed somebody in the writers room with him to tell him 'no' sometimes.
> 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...
In the One True TV Holmes https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086661/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_acc... this is even shown as a tension between Holmes and Watson, with Watson showing the modern view.
Of course Brett was in fact completely out of it for much of the filming on all sorts of things.
A few things; one, even if it's not strictly speaking true that cocaine use always leads to addiction every single time, we know now better than in Victorian era England how often it does, and Doyle not having been a cocaine user may have lost some of the elements of how cocaine is addictive and what it looks like. I hate to say that there is some moral duty to show a protagonist using cocaine as having a problem with its use that needs to be overcome, but I do think it'd be strange too to keep what was effectively this SMBC comic (https://smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=191) as Holmes' use of coke.
Secondly, the stories that mention coke use are all written from the perspective of Holmes' best friend, who we'd expect to be biased towards writing about his friend in a positive light. I don't think this is accidental. Watson quotes him effectively saying "I just do coke because life is so mundane and boring, and not stimulating enough for me" which is nearly the exact same justification and thought process used by like, every addict and if not a word-for-word quote, then at least very similar for Chris Moltisanti's justification of his own addiction to Tony Soprano.
It may not be an exact rendering of what was in the books but it is extremely natural modification to make, where otherwise we'd have flat Marty Stu character who is talking in ways that seem very consistent with at least problematic use and yet who's not addicted. "Our own times" have dealt with at least 100 years of coke addiction, 50 years of crack so maybe we're just not naive enough to believe that a guy who's saying "my friend just takes it when he's bored, but he's bored all the time because his mind is too sharp for this dull world" isn't a problematic user or addict.
I re-read most of the stories a few years ago. It's shocking/surprising/depressing just how many things repeat themselves. From the obvious, veteran of Afghanistan war in the form of Dr. Watson, to London being a melting pot of so many cultures, with high society reigning from ... on high.
I also agree that the view directly into the state of mind of both Watson and Holmes was refreshing.
It's notable that the BBC recent adaptation set in the present day was also able to make Watson an Afghanistan veteran.
I read the stories as an child, and seen various of the film adaptations; Holmes became a meme even within Conan Doyle's lifetime, but I'm sure I'd benefit from going back to the source as an adult.
Realising current day events rhyme very closely with historical events is pretty eye opening.
It’s a tragedy of the commons we are all largely oblivious as a species.
Is there a better history pedagogy? I remember history as a set of dates and Kings. Only later I learned about Roman demagoguery, the relationship between newly independant India to present day and other topics that teach there is nothing new under the sun.
Original source: https://theconversation.com/arthur-conan-doyle-explored-mens...
Although tbf this is probably one of Linford's undergraduate papers
No kidding.
I 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 considered (barely) socially acceptable and holmes was still respectable. Note that he wasn't an alcoholic.
Shout out to the bbc adaptation which does a fantastic and hilarious job of portraying holmes as an erratic drug addict.
> 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
Where do you draw the line between user and addict?
He was definitely not holding together his life by any traditional measure.
Tell me you haven't read the books without telling me you haven't read them!
Read them all. Multiple times.
Mind actually using words to form useful sentences?
He of course insisted he wasn’t an addict - like all addicts do - but he always went back that I remember - like all addicts do. And he used it to cope with not having any interesting problems and the misery of life.
He was enabled by Watson and his brother, and mostly supported in the elements of normal social functioning by them.
Where we draw the line between addict and not is quite subjective in these situations eh?
Britain was a very repressed culture at the time and for a long time after this.
An Englishman’s proverbial “stiff upper lip” came to be a cliche for a reason.
“Boarding school syndrome” would be the term coined for the emotional damage that was an educational ideal for a long while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boarding_school#Psychological_...
Yet the UK was most successful when led by people from that system.
Only if you think a large empire is the epitome of success.
People have a tendency to look at the cruelest warriors of history and think that is success. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar or Napoleon are not something to emulate. They were successful by causing horrific pain to a lot of people.
Success and greatness of historical figures do not mean they were moral heroes although people would like you to believe otherwise. King Example XIV of the 15th century might have been a really good guy but he never did anything so nobody knows or cares about him. His half brother and uncle killed him and invaded and subjugated 6 neighbouring states but was less bad then everyone else at the time so he's great and successful instead of a villain. I don't think there are rules, but i think anyone who generally advances progress instead of reversing it is considered great. Genghis Khan as far as i know didn't so he isn't. Julius Caesar did so he is.
Pure misandrist nonsense. You could have picked Hitler or Stalin to at least have half a point.
Napoleon spread enlightenment values that benefitted generations that came after. Julius Caesar took civilization across a continent. Deng Xiaoping was leader during Tianenmen Square but brought more people out of poverty than anyone else in history.
Being great means being able to do some things others do not like because the resulting upside is better for everyone.
Sounds to me more like the winners writing the history. In other words, bullshit.
Napoleon or Julius Caesar won?
One was exiled, the other assassinated. They were in no position to write history.
Was?
The old boys network and class still plays a big role in UK politics. I'm convinced that the behaviour of Boris Johnson and even Starmer is incomprehensible without that unspoken element.
Is it a bad thing? perhaps. Is it a recipe for disaster? I would say the historical evidence is pretty clear that no, not really. It worth pointing out that the US where class is much less important is more successful.
In my head Holmes is descended from minor nobility while Watson is solidly upper middle class.
Now, Labours envy based attacks on the private schools that gave them all their advantages in life helps nobody. It won't matter to rich kids and is just a barrier to success for middle class kids. When you consider the quality of state education, at least there should be some educated people to run the country, even if it's a bad system.
Ot but hogwarts is a great parody of the British boarding school system. A drafty, dangerous castle full of dangerous animals, homicidal, abusive and incompetent teachers, serious injuries are a fact of life and complacent staff. Add in the most incompetent and negligent headmaster in all literature, who hardly does anything throughout the series and thinks that soul sucking demons are an acceptable security measure to protect his students and runs the school as his personal domain. Throw in class based bullying in the student body and you have everything. I always found it striking that the most hatable character in the series is a school inspector (Umbridge).
Starmer or Reeves boarded?
The boarding is the point.
I reject that. It's the network that's more important. I always found the concept of boarding school odd but that's neither here nor there.
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.
There is no fix yourself and try again.
Again the Brits had their biggest empire when led by this caste of people, which is why their boarding schools get so much overseas business today. To paint that as incompetence or a failed society is wishful thinking - they were the peak of what they could be.
I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding the system.
It’s one and done. The system doesn’t care.
Subtle, but the very last line of 1939's "Hounds of the Baskervilles" is "Oh, Watson - the needle!".
Not from Doyle, but the film, "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution", presents Holmes as very vulnerable. Especially given the amazing cast, it is an excellent portrayal.
That Holmes would encounter Sigmund Freud seemed to me at the time as a wild use of artistic license. Since then though I have come to believe that there were a lot fewer people on the Earth in general than I could really appreciate at the time, and some of these luminaries may well have shared a drink together. (So why not a fictional luminary as well?)
Luminaries also were concentrated in but a few spots of the world at the time: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859771
I'm not sure I'd refer to some of these individuals as "luminaries" which typically has a positive connotation.
Fair!
One of the Rathbone/Bruce films in the 40s has Holmes chasing Nazi's for some microfilm. I understand "supporting the fighting spirit" of the times, but still find it difficult to reconcile.
I wonder how much of it is just Arthur Conon Doyle hating his character. Which has was known for as the stories progressed. He even killed him, just to resurrect him later because of public demand.
He accumulated character flaws along the way, as if Doyle wanted to make Holmes as unsympathetic as he could without changing his core traits.
> Arthur Conon Doyle hating his character
But Holmes is not "unsympathetic" in any of the stories, so I don't see your theory matching the facts.
> He accumulated character flaws along the way, as if Doyle wanted to make Holmes as unsympathetic as he could
[citation needed]
I don't even see the first part of that assertion fulfilled, and I read the books multiple times.
> [Holmes] battles with drug addiction, loneliness and depression. His genius thrives in part because of these vulnerabilities, not despite them.
If there was a pill for that, how many masterpieces like the Sherlock Holmes books would never be made? The products of misery have always been the devil's advocate's best arguments. If Doyle had not sympathized with Holmes' afflictions, he could not have written him. Or if he had written Holmes as a Mary Sue we wouldn't have cared. (Though for some reason it worked for Harry Potter.)
An effective education requires a certain amount of torture, and it works better when self inflicted.
This is 100% not true.
> An effective education requires a certain amount of torture, and it works better when self inflicted.
It's the tortured artist myth. You can turn pain into art but it's not a prerequisite.
Yeh, I agree with this. My art (painting and building) comes at a much faster rate when I am content. Having time and metal space to contemplate colour scheme, being confident to start something bold: that doesn't happen if I am tired, preoccupied or depressed
Time for harvest and a separate time for planting.
Quite the opposite in fact. Throughout history the most successful artists have been the well funded ones.
The most miserable people I've known were rich people's children. Depression is more about the lack of hope than money.
You probably don't know very many poor people then, because poverty, food insecurity, physical insecurity, homelessness, job loss are all very common depression triggers. It's just that these cases don't make the front page of newspapers at the same rate as celebrities committing suicide.
The ones I knew weren't celebrities, they were friendless and isolated and consumed with self disgust.
Poor people trapped in unemployment have something in common with rich kids trapped in lethargy. A kind of spiritual constipation.
No, more like literal survival. In these conditions there is no mental bandwidth for things like spiritual constipation
> no mental bandwidth for things like spiritual constipation
That's a feature, not a bug. Fighting for life has more meaning and purpose that yearning for death. We're designed for it. It has only recently become atypical.
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When you're poor in a capitalist society, money is hope.
Exactly. You can hope for money. But if you have money and no hope, you're fucked.
I disagree. If you have money and no hope, you still have access to opportunities that poor people don't have. Hopelessness is a choice in that case.
Over-emphasized maybe, but myth? Could Doyle have written a sympathetic lonely depressed addict so well without more than academic understanding of those things?
He was a physician and had said that his experience treating patients influenced his characters. So, he had more than academic experience, but I'm not sure if it's enough to prove he experienced those things personally.
For every tortured genius whose passion comes from pain, there's a hundred who never get started because they lack the energy to get out of bed half the time, are slowly killing themselves with alcohol and other substances, and so on. But a pill alone doesn't fix that -- hell, current research shows most of those pills do no better than a placebo -- so the mythology of the nobility of suffering will continue for some time hence.
(Fun fact, you know that "lorem ipsum" text that's used as filler? It's not nonsense Latin, it's from a speech by Cicero where he denounces the stoic ideal of suffering being good for the soul, or at least "pointless" suffering anyway)
> or at least "pointless" suffering anyway
What bulletproof word choice. Robert Harris called Cicero the first modern politician, and that looks right.
Do you have a link to research pointing at antidepressants being no better than placebo?
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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 analysis of Doyle’s work. Hell, it doesn’t even provide a single quote from Holmes to illustrate the mental anguish or “battles with drug addiction” which the author claims that he experiences in the books. Holmes’ 7% “solution of cocaine” usage was never presented as rising to the level of addiction in the books, by the way. Nor does the paper delve into the repressive nature of the Victorian society in which these stories were written and released to show us what was so novel about Doyle allegedly tackling these subjects and why he might have had to merely allude to them rather than discussing them frankly.
All in all, this essay is a poor showing and would have earned the author a C at best in high school English for failing to provide adequate supporting evidence for her assertions.
I wouldn't be surprised if many of those who upvoted this did so because the agree with the sentiment in principle, not because they read the article and appreciated the contents.
Perhaps it made it to the top of HN because there are a lot of Sherlock Holmes fans here who are curious about some of the nuances of the character not often cited. That the article itself may be lacking in specifics may not be a problem if it has at least whetted the curiosity of a number of us. (And we can then seek out more details, or better still, read the whole series of books with a keener eye.)
If HNer's want to talk about something, or just feel the topic is important, then a short & weak article is more than good enough to be a sort of seed crystal.
(If you know of better articles on this topic, then please provide links!)
Yes, i thought it was silly as well. revisionist analysis such as these are pretty common, though normally better written. You can probably find half a dozen essays with titles like "Sherlock holmes fought against colonial oppression, a deep dive in how Conan doyle covered unpopular and controversial topics in the victorian age". And another 50 essays arguing the opposite point.
> 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.
>How did this make it to the top of HN? It’s an extremely facile work and reads >exactly like a high school essay
Asked and answered
We live in a culture of transparency where you are rewarded for confessing your weaknesses. At the time people tackled their issues outside of print, outside of public discourse. Just because there's no record of a person's private life doesn't mean it was taboo. It's just not for you to know about.
> We live in a culture of transparency where you are rewarded for confessing your weaknesses.
Where exactly do you observe this?
I suspect they are talking about pop culture which is awash with drama.
But it always has been, just less self-important/self-reporting drama (x is getting divorced because they told us!), and more ‘we just found out x celebrity is getting divorced’.
HR
Didn't Doyle support the White Feather movement, which led to many suicides?
My personal favorite is The five napoleons. Is someone breaking Napoleonic busts out of some idee fixe? Or is there a motive of crime behind the seemingly delusional behavior?
I suspect that it is purely a literary invention. The core idea of the story is a variant of the "Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", where a stolen gem was eaten by a goose. For the new plot, Conan Doyle needed some identical copies of something where a jewel could be hidden. These copies need to be destroyed, in order to reveal the jewel. If you decide on using busts in 1904 for an American and British audience, Napoleon is an ideal candidate: notorious, but not venerated. Imagine what a scandal it might have been if busts of the late Queen Victoria or of Abraham Lincoln had been smashed.
*six
Url changed from https://scienceclock.com/arthur-conan-doyle-delved-into-mens..., which points to this.
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If you read the article you’ll discover no, they don’t.
Drug addiction, loneliness and depression are masculinity instead of mental health problems? What about suicide?
All entirely standard male behaviors.
Just look at history for 30 seconds.
You should probably reconsider putting loneliness and depression on a pedestal here.
Where is this happening?
The whole point is calling them “mental health problems” infers there is something systematically wrong with them as opposed to the obvious result of putting men in modern society.
Previously you said they are basically traditional masculinity and what men always were. Now they are result of modern society?
A man lives by himself in the woods: is he lonely or depressed?
Are those the only two options? If you think the answer is yes then that suggests a moment of reflection.
I would suggest he is neither.
It's entirely possible.
Maybe you should ask him?
> ...loneliness and depression...
> All entirely standard male behaviors
> putting loneliness and depression on a pedestal here
Where is this happening?
Pointing out something is entirely normal, standard and expected is in not putting it on a pedestal.
You want to condemn them too, and I won’t. Their manifestation is a sign of other problems, as shown through history, and to paint them as mental illness is a way to avoid the other problems.
Mental health issues existing in the past does not mean they are not mental health issues. Besides, most men were neither alcoholics, depressed nor lonely.
Loneliness in particular is neither specifically masculine (like, is not at all specifically masculine, neither in history nor now). Nor is there a reason to believe was more or equal amount of it in the past ... when men were part of in person group pretty much regardless of what they were doing.
Why is this post allowed but this one[1] (40 points, 84 comments) is flagged and buried?
[1] New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46067363
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 panels of adults in the United States
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.