Sponges

Was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mentally ill?

Sherlock Holmes was formulated by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as virtually a God of Reason, a kind of contemporary Athena or Apollo. And, indeed, he is almost worshipped as such, to this very day! So much so, that Conan Doyle himself repeatedly tried to kill him off, but had no alternative but to keep writing the lucrative Sherlock Holmes stories if he wanted to maintain his luxurious lifestyle, no one was terribly interested in his other books. Conan Doyle was raised a staunch Catholic, but was forced to reject conventional religion by his medical training, which simply was inconsistent with these principles. Instead, he turned to "reason", as his new God and religion. Now, why might reason have been so appealing to him? Could it have had anything to do with the fact that his father spent the last 12 years of his life in lunatic asylums, hmmmmmmm? So, while Conan Doyle may indeed have been very uncomfortable for much of his life with the acclaim and devotion accorded to his creation, Sherlock Holmes, he probably could not possibly have created such an appealing and believeable God, unless to some extent the concept actually did fill some needs of his own at a fundamental level. A need for control, a fear of ending up like his father, a fear of descending into chaos, madness, destruction and death. And, we can certainly see this in his brilliant and disturbing early "ghost" story, "The Captain of the Pole Star". This work is certainly derived largely from Conan Doyle's own personal experiences, as a ship's physician on an arctic whaling ship. They obviously were not entirely pleasant ones! What makes this a particularly disturbing and believable "ghost" story, is that there's nothing in it that couldn't well have happened, and probably had happened, on many such voyages. Whether there is actually a ghost there, or not, is entirely indeterminate, and ambiguous. Whether the captain is killed by the ghost, or simply commits suicide on the ice, is also unclear. The captain's entire past is totally indeterminate, where he came from, who his lost love was, or exactly what happened to her, although we know she had a terrible violent death. Did the captain kill her, is that why he's constantly on the move, and his past is so murky? No answers are provided. It is a very disturbing story, indeed! And, with the constant threat of mutiny and death in the background, it is the precise opposite of the glorious imperial world order of reason and justice that the British were so proud of, the world Adolf Hitler had so much fun ridiculing in his rather brilliant speeches. And, yet, then, we have the serene the invincible God of Reason, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. And, it's creator, now running from the God he created, particularly after the disasters of WWI, descending into spiritualism, worshipping fascist Mussolini, writing his last Sherlock Holmes novel "The Valley of Fear", set in America, as a massive deflection from the incredible catastrophe of the Western Front of WWI. A novel of clear fascist implications, as the "troublemakers and slackers" have taken over the valley, and must be put in their place by force, by the God of Reason, and his surrogates, by Sherlock Holmes. Now it is profoundly ironic, or perhaps merely profoundly inevitable that The Valley of Fear inspired communist writer Dashell Hammett to write "Red Harvest", a novel of supreme nihilism, in which rather than order being restored to the corrupt town, the Pinkerton Op merely assists all sides to utterly destroy each other. I don't know, Red Harvest was written in 1929, Conan Doyle dropped dead of a heart attack in 1930. Do you think it's possible that reading about, or hearing about Red Harvest killed Conan Doyle? It's possible, you know. In any case, Red Harvest, inspired by The Valley of Fear, inspired the nihilistic samaurai films in Japan, with Toshiro Mifune, and those inspired the nihilistic Spaghetti Westerns, with Clint Eastwood. Somehow, inspiring so much nihilism with communist implications was not, I think, quite what Conan Doyle had in mind. It would certainly have disgusted and horrified him. Of course, by the end of his life Conan Doyle was so much absorbed in his spiritualist and fascist fantasies of supreme order, that he might have died happily convinced of being united with his wife and children in some fascist Victorian afterlife. In any case, his own children never had children of their own, their father had certainly scared them off from that! So, like the Captain of the Pole Star, his line was ended when he died, a prisoner of his own fantasies, and his own need for an established and irrevocable order to things. #sherlockholmes #arthurconandoyle #englishliterature #englishhistory #britishhistory #dectectivestories #psychology #psychiatry #psychoanalysis #spiritualism #fascism #mussolini #mentalillness #wwi #metaphysics #detectives #adolfhitler #hitler #classicinema #classicfilms #classicmovies #clinteastwood

How much of a mess did Albert Einstein make of things?

The Extreme Right -- Property vs. People.

The Jameson Raid

Self interest

Fascism in popular American music

Fred Astaire as propagandist

Opposition Thinkers

Corporate Capitalist Machines

Till Eulenspiegel

Health Care as Control Strategy

The Road Less Travelled

Elephants

Disappointment

The Dunning-Kruger effect

One of the more commonly cited psychological phenomena these days is the Dunning-Kruger effect, which specifically posits that people with low skill level are inclined to exaggerate their level of skill, whereas people with high skill level tend to underestimate their own skills, in a particular area. This is popularly misinterpreted in popular culture to mean that smart people think they're dumb, and dumb people think they're smart. The problem with this, is that the very concept of intelligence is virtually impossible to define or meaningfully evaluate. The reason this misinterpretation is popular, is that everyone likes to think that they are smart, and everyone else is dumb, this gives them confidence in life, and improves their own self-esteem, thus reducing their stress levels. However, even the technically accurate use of the concept of Dunning-Kruger has many problems with it. Are the reports based on what people really believe, or merely attempts to impress the experimenter? People with high levels of skill cannot possibly overestimate their skills, and people with low levels of skills cannot possibly underestimate them, so, inevitably the precise statistical result desired was obtained! Almost everyone sees themselves as being above average in everything, we are natural optimists, so , those with low skill levels, will inevitably appear wildly optimistic. In other words, the "scientists" involved in this study have managed to achieve great popular success, and make great careers for themselves, and probably make a great deal of money, by discovering nothing whatsoever. Was this their actual intention? Who knows? Quite possibly! Alas, this is the nature of professional science. Science is politics, science is marketing, science is sales, science is attention-seeking. And, also alas, that is the true scientific method, there is no other! #psychology #dunningkruger #intelligence #skills #ability #interpretation #prejudice #selfevaluation #popularculture #stress #confidence #academia #science #philosophyofscience #attentionseeking #showmen #sales #marketing #statistics #statisticalerror #scientificmethod

Judaism

Terrific result in Israeli election -- Arab Palestinians hold the balance of power now.

"Land for the Landless" -- Lincoln's motto

Death Cults

Insect Evolution

The National Debt

Hunger

Balloons

Amputations

Writers who discuss things ending

Why can't people just get along?

The EU

Are prisons for punishment?

Worlds within worlds