Toxic Positivity

From dark, medieval Prague, Kafka imagined his Amerika where everyone there always, invariably, was smiling. 

The underbelly of that imagination is offered up in our discussion piece as it critiques society's enforced bias towards positivity (The Art Of Negativity). Resist the temptation to write off the observations as simply the reflex of Gloomy Gus or Debbie Downer. You may see here a kind of toxic positivity that has inculcated so much of our contemporary everyday interactions.

At its heart is the notion of responsible negative thinking in the sense of it being the seed of the critical thinking that we all need as we face life's inevitable difficulties, uncertainties, and setbacks. The label of negative, rather than connoting some destructive mentality, is better seen as part of the process to work things through. 

Seeing it in that context reveals the comparative shallowness of the trite affirmations we often see and hear today e.g. some decades ago, having been diagnosed with a world-class though non-terminal illness, I was invited to just look at the bright side knowing that it probably wouldn't kill me. Have a nice day.

Society at large seems filled by gaslighting platitudes (MM 11/6/17 Gaslighting), from the empty slogan to the ubiquitous beach selfie, as if life were one continuous infantile showtime. Perhaps the suppression of all things emotionally authentic is the root cause of so much societal depression. After all, if negative emotions are part of the normal human condition, the demand for constant optimism engenders the stress of shame or resentment among those who don't necessarily share in such pretensions.

Enter the industrial wellness complex to indulge the masses with positivity commodification all the way from subliminal corporate advertising to literal theme park,Truman Show-like existence (cough*Disney*cough). Whatever. So long as we're always, invariably, smiling.