http://www.apria.com/resources/0,2725,4 ... 78,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story ... 40,00.html
Quote: "Right now," notes Barbara Ehrenreich, "America is in the grip of a cult of cheerfulness, which I first became aware of five years ago when was being treated for breast cancer. I was launched into this pink-riven culture back then. There is this sense that if you just have a positive attitude you can control your circumstances entirely, which is an idea that has no scientific basis at all: there is no evidence that positive people are more likely to survive cancer, for instance. And, in this culture, you can never be angry. Even if something terrible has happened, you have to put on a smiley face."
It's odd because I think they're absolutely right; but only with regard to public behavior. In private, and in places that feel private even though they aren't (read: the internet), you see people just seething with anger and/or wallowing in unhappiness. It feels similar to the paradox of hypersexed movies and TV shows coupled with severe sexual repression in "polite society". Perhaps it's just passion in general that's being kept in check?
Quote: Increasingly it is becoming unacceptable to voice legitimate distress. If you lose your job, become chronically ill, or fall prey to loneliness or depression, you are likely to be told - often abrasively - to look on the bright side. With unseemly haste, people rush to put an optimistic gloss on a disaster or to suggest a patently unworkable solution. We seem to be cultivating an intolerance of pain - even our own.