girlish girls, manly men.

[robvalue]

Indeed. If you think depression is that simple, you know nothing about it. You have the opportunity to learn, or to remain wilfully ignorant. All you are doing in here is displaying your Bronze Age mentality as if someone is meant to be impressed.

[John V]

You get a terribly skewed picture of what works in society and what not by looking at discussion on message boards. I'd expect a higher proportion of people with problems of some sort to come here because it is easier to communicate if you're having depression, anxiety disorders or autism related issues. Also, you really should be careful with such a simplistic notion of what depression is. If someone has such serious psychological problems, it's not a matter of "manning up" to have it go away. That's a ridiculous proposition. You simply have misconceptions about how human psychology works, what you have is a cartoon version of that. Depression can hit you too if you're unlucky, and if at that point you're still stuck with your stone age concepts of psychology, this nonsense might hurt yourself too because you'll tie it to a failure of your manliness, when it's no such thing.

You need to do some reading, Sparky.
http://www.webmd.com/depression/features...treatments
That article gives ten ways to combat depression. At least five of those are also things a real man does. Note particularly:

Challenge negative thoughts. In your fight against depression, a lot of the work is mental -- changing how you think. When you're depressed, you leap to the worst possible conclusions.

In other words, "manning up."

Others:
Set goals
Exercise
Eat healthy
Take on responsibilities

[Alex K]

Ok, here's some basic Aristotelian (i.e. butt bugger fag) logic for you:

Axiom 1. Manly men in alpha male's definition, who for example think women need to be subordinate, also do the things X1...Xn

Axiom 2. Doing things X1...Xn helps fight depression.

From this one can not logically conclude: it makes sense to be a manly man according to alpha male's definition.

It also doesn't mean that this is some kind of useful way out of clinical depression in any individual case, irrespective of what WebMD writes. I mean, you are trying to insinuate that these people would not have depression if they adopted your lifestyle. That's an unwarranted conclusion.

The only conclusion you can draw is that playing the manly man according to alpha male's definition contains some aspects which might help fight depression. I'm not buying a car in order to light a cigarette either (*). Same thing.

(*) if I did smoke, which of course we don't because it's bad for manly men's sperm count and agility.

[robvalue]

Why should we strive to be like captain caveman again? I thought things had moved on a little.

[John V]

Why should we strive to be like captain caveman again? I thought things had moved on a little.

And how is that working out for you?

[Alex K]

Why should we strive to be like captain caveman again? I thought things had moved on a little.

And how is that working out for you?

You have kids, alpha male?

[Strider]

You need to do some reading, Sparky.
http://www.webmd.com/depression/features...treatments
That article gives ten ways to combat depression. At least five of those are also things a real man does. Note particularly:

Challenge negative thoughts. In your fight against depression, a lot of the work is mental -- changing how you think. When you're depressed, you leap to the worst possible conclusions.

In other words, "manning up."

Others:
Set goals
Exercise
Eat healthy
Take on responsibilities

You have a truly ignorant view of depression. Depression is a mental health issue that can't be remedied by "manning up" (whatever that means in relation to depression). The other things you mentioned are actually helpful in combating depression and in some people who do not have severe depression caused by a chemical imbalance those might be effective at alleviating mild cases. There is no silver bullet for depression and if there were it would not be by "manning up".

[John V]

Ok, here's some basic Aristotelian (i.e. butt bugger fag) logic for you:

Axiom 1. Manly men in alpha male's definition, who for example think women need to be subordinate, also do the things X1...Xn

Axiom 2. Doing things X1...Xn helps fight depression.

From this one can not logically conclude: it makes sense to be a manly man according to alpha male's definition.

It also doesn't mean that this is some kind of useful way out of clinical depression in any individual case, irrespective of what WebMD writes. I mean, you are trying to insinuate that these people would not have depression if they adopted your lifestyle. That's an unwarranted conclusion.

Straw man. I've noted more than once that in human behavior there are individual exceptions to the general rules.

The only conclusion you can draw is that playing the manly man according to alpha male's definition contains some aspects which might help fight depression. I'm not buying a car in order to light a cigarette either (*). Same thing.

Would you accept a light from the guy with the car, or refuse it out of spite or principle?

[Alex K]

Straw man. I've noted more than once that in human behavior there are individual exceptions to the general rules.

No, that's not a straw man. A straw man is if I misrepresent your position and then argue against that. Please tell me where I have misrepresented your position and how.

You are trying to establish a rule that is supposed to work in the majority of cases apart from exceptions, and I'm pointing out that you do it using faulty logic, and therefore you have not presented a valid argument. I wasn't arguing against your position using individual counter examples - if that were the case you'd have a point, but it's not.

Would you accept a light from the guy with the car, or refuse it out of spite or principle?

I think you are stretching my metaphor a bit too far.

[John V]

You have a truly ignorant view of depression.

No, I have an enlightened view of depression.

BTW, I had depression when I was young. I'm still susceptible to it. I did drugs every day for fifteen years. That didn't do my brain chemistry any good. I've learned how to overcome it.

Depression is a mental health issue that can't be remedied by "manning up" (whatever that means in relation to depression). The other things you mentioned are actually helpful in combating depression and in some people who do not have severe depression caused by a chemical imbalance those might be effective at alleviating mild cases. There is no silver bullet for depression and if there were it would not be by "manning up".

Yeah, and that's why I presented manning up as one part of a 5-point program (10-point if you go to the linked article), and didn't present it as a silver bullet. Another straw man. My points are apparently pretty good, as you guys have to distort them to argue against them.

BTW I disagree with the article regarding supplements. SAMe does wonders for many people with depression. In some countries it's a prescription drug. In the US it's an OTC supplement. So, it isn't recommended by doctors much because big pharma can't make a buck off of it.