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?)
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...
Everyone suffers from ADHD or is mildly autistic nowadays, at least declaratively, so on that things seems to have changed.
Where things have not changed is that when it comes to real mental health problems, I'm talking institutionalized, things are as shitty as ever, that is correct, even in our very esteemed and supposedly very open-minded IT industry. It is still a huge taboo to have your employer or your fellow co-workers know that you have been institutionalized in the past for mental health problems, as in you will definitely lose future employment possibilities it word gets known around. I don't see that changing anytime soon, for both men and women.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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
> 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...
Everyone suffers from ADHD or is mildly autistic nowadays, at least declaratively, so on that things seems to have changed.
Where things have not changed is that when it comes to real mental health problems, I'm talking institutionalized, things are as shitty as ever, that is correct, even in our very esteemed and supposedly very open-minded IT industry. It is still a huge taboo to have your employer or your fellow co-workers know that you have been institutionalized in the past for mental health problems, as in you will definitely lose future employment possibilities it word gets known around. I don't see that changing anytime soon, for both men and women.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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 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.
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?
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?
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
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 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.
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?
CVEs basically.
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.
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.
> (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.
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.
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.
Original source: https://theconversation.com/arthur-conan-doyle-explored-mens...
Although tbf this is probably one of Linford's undergraduate papers
No kidding.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
>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
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.
These people want to frame masculinity as a mental health problem.
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.
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 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.
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