Toxic Positivity (and False Negativity)
- Admin
- Aug 7, 2024
- 11 min read
Updated: Aug 12, 2024
Cultivating a realistic view of the world is one of the most positive things you can do for yourself and those around you.
I’m often accused of being negative when taking a (decidedly neutral) realistic stance. It has nothing to do with feeling negative or indeed positive towards the thing in question, but it does inform a positive outcome, which I am aiming for. It’s not a cold, emotionless stance - but in fact crucial for real peace of mind.
I recently listened to ‘Happy’, an audiobook by Derren Brown on a very insightful deep dive into how to frame happiness, and how paying attention to our thought processes can greatly improve our lives. I found that he eloquently drew on historical references and philosophies through the ages, to arrive logically at many of the lessons I often try to communicate.
I will quote a couple of what I found to be impactful lines from it alongside my writing in this piece, because as I always contend, intellectual honesty with yourself is crucial to overall happiness. This necessarily involves frequent corrections, which rather than being unafraid to acknowledge, people too readily dismiss as ‘negativity’.
First I’ll outline some main points I want to make. Then I will focus on a personal experience I had in a bit of depth, to give an example and some context to my outlining the points.
Realistic is not the Same as Negative
If anything, a realistic stance is mostly skewed towards positive rather than negative, in terms of how you can apply that information. It’s also positive in terms of avoiding building unrealistic hope and the likely disappointment which follows, rather than being prepared for all outcomes.
Derren outlines the opposite and often flawed alternative to realistic thinking below. On outdated ideas of faith, lack of reasoning, lack of realistic thinking and desiring control:
“…they tend to presume that by self-belief and goal setting, visualising ourselves winning and so on, we can claim full control over our achievements and therefore our fortune itself. However, as we now know, blind optimism rarely thinks to distinguish between what is, and what is not, in our control; and instead relies on rhetoric and the repetition of sheer faith to have us believe that everything is under our sway – even the universe itself, if only we believe and desire strongly enough…this does not reflect the reality of life.”
Taking a realistic approach is about directing your energy to a useful, and therefore more positive outcome; just as preparing for the worst is positive and useful by reducing the probability of a bad outcome. This also reduces the psychological impact of problem, should it happen. Car insurance is an obvious example of this, outside of the mind.
If you practice allowing wishful thinking framed as ‘positivity’ to drive your choices, you will learn to make ill-informed reasoning a habit. You become more susceptible to marketing cons, for example. How can you learn how to differentiate what is real if you ignore that thought process in favour of ‘positivity’? This is also known as gullibility – a trait which has a high chance of landing anyone in trouble.
Equally, if you practice dismissing realistic or relevant criticism as ‘negativity’ to justify an idea, you learn the habit of arguing in bad faith. This is where you ignore checking your own logic and become closed-minded at any cost to defend your position, rather than assess it fairly. It’s commonly seen in the form of the logical fallacy ‘Ad Hominem’ (attacking the person instead of the argument) and is intellectually dishonest. It is often a misdirection of the conversation to avoid having to back up your claim, actions, or beliefs.
Merely saying that something is positive or negative doesn’t make it so. By extension, correctly pointing out that a positive-sounding claim is wrong, isn’t negative (it’s useful). But the outcome of treating the claim as right even after it was correctly challenged easily becomes negative.
To paraphrase Derren Brown:
“Blind faith is more often a recipe for disaster, than for triumph.”
When are corrections positive?
It may be easier to understand why some corrections aren't negative, with a few examples:
The meaning or pronunciation of a word – avoids future embarrassment/misunderstandings. Deepens your ability to communicate meaningfully and accurately.
A logical error – less likely to fall into the same trap in future under a different guise.
Wrong information for health topics – prevents potentially harmful or even fatal decision making. At the least, stops undue worrying and money wasted.
Myths, old tales, superstitious beliefs – makes you less likely to fall victim to scams, waste money, and be preyed on emotionally. Less likely you will stress out over a meaningless superstition as your brain grasps for control. More likely that you will find healthy, reality-based coping methods that will work.
The legitimacy of certain ‘evidence’ – helps improve analytical skills and understand what information you can trust and what is questionable.
These are broad strokes, but they encompass countless everyday situations.
Why is it Triggering to be Corrected?
I’m aware it probably seems like stating the obvious so far. The real issues occur when emotion prevents thought. They can definitely co-exist at the same time, but thought can easily be silenced by emotion.
As soon as it’s something you don’t agree with but hold close to your identity. Something you have been fooled by (it’s often uncomfortable to admit). Even merely a desire for it to be true and don’t want to let go...
That is when reasoning may fly out of the window and the best thing your mind can do, when challenged on the spot, is become victim to a non-existent attack. There are plenty more reasons. It might feel familiar to this:
The (possibly) misinformed idea you had is challenged: you feel somehow personally attacked (even though it’s the claim being challenged – not you).
The person being realistic (with better informed knowledge) seems negative, unwilling to share your hope (for good reason), seemingly wants it to fail or be false (in fact, they want you to share the better information and use it to benefit you by avoiding poor reasoning). You take that to heart.
You rattle off a few personal jibes in retaliation to this assumed attack (ad hominem – “you’re always so negative”).
You subconsciously try any number of things to avoid acknowledging you might be wrong (but you don’t ask yourself that question). You do this using logical errors or ‘fallacies’. On it goes, mostly in a conversation-ending way.
Know that it’s a net positive to receive better, useful information - not negative, despite the initial discomfort that being wrong can bring. Overall, you are better off knowing the truth than living a false moment of positivity.
“…preserve your overarching happiness by keeping yourself rooted in reality.”
Truth necessarily leads to more knowledge. Knowledge leads to more accuracy and therefore control. More control equals better decisions and outcomes, more of the time.
A note on control
Personal Example
Not long ago, I was told I was negative, and just ‘don’t like herbs’ because I pointed out that cinnamon doesn’t help digestion (it’s worth noting there are countless wrong claims like this in life. Just look at most adverts on social media and TV). There is no credible evidence of this whatsoever (or even any mention of it) – I trawled numerous scientific resources to make sure.
Was this blind faith on my part?
Was this blind faith on their part?
The Logical Errors
In the above context, is it a logical fallacy to call me negative? Given that it was said to defend the claim that cinnamon helps digestion, yes. It’s partly an ad hominem attack on me as being the problem, rather than the real problem: there is a lack of evidence for the claim. This is also a Red Herring fallacy – a distraction from the criticism to avoid engaging with it.
Probably also a strawman fallacy; simplifying my view on the claim as ‘I don’t like herbs’ when my position is far more substantial and nuanced than that, and I never expressed this as my opinion or an argument at all.
With a response as densely flawed as that, I was wound up and reacted emotionally. I was then criticised for not remaining calm, being told I’m “usually the calm, reasonable one”. This is a bit of a trap to throw doubt on my point. I now seemed the unreasonable one, even though my criticism was still as relevant, and the claim as weak.
Whether deliberate or not (probably not), the fact is that this whole exchange was a bad faith argument with many components: in defence of a claim, poor logic was used to misdirect, deflect, and attack me, the person. It was further used to wind me up and then criticise me for becoming frustrated with it. The cinnamon claim was no longer the topic of criticism, I was the new target. No attempt was made to back up the claim.
Thus, the intellectually dishonest barrage against me, I view as part of “Toxic Positivity”. The summing up of attitudes and behaviours which frame useful corrections as ‘negativity’. Avoiding honest conversation. Weaponising ‘positivity’ over thought and a genuine desire for truth.
My attempted correction was met with unthinking dismissal and branded ‘negative’. To again borrow Derren Brown:
“By removing or ignoring the sources of honest feedback, we create a neat means of fuelling the downward spiral of self-deception.”
Cinnamon for Digestion: The Correction for a Positive Outcome
In reality, I love herbs and spices – cinnamon especially. They’re tasty, fragrant, and many effective drugs are derived from them (one component of them) when scientifically tested, proven, engineered to have a significant effect, and regulated.
But do marketed herbs and spices have even minor health benefits medicinally, when taken in their raw herb form, or as a supplement? The short answer is no.
A drug designed to enhance and deliver that particular effect to the body will outperform them every time, because the un-proven herb will likely require you to take harmful amounts of it (herbs are full of different compounds, evolved to protect the plant from various threats including being eaten) to get anywhere near the same positive effect that a drug would, because a drug is using the actual ingredient that works.
The small effect a supplement might have, is usually lower than placebo biases – in other words, are as effective as doing nothing. A digestion drug, on the other hand, will work safely and unequivocally.
What’s more, supplements and herbs are unregulated, and you can’t be sure what you’re getting and whether it’s harmful.
Side note on Cinnamon:
To achieve a positive outcome here, it’s better not to drain cash on marketed hope, and to drop the stress, potential harm, and continued failure of said products, in favour of something which has a chance to actually work.
You see the point from earlier? I’m not attacking the herb, or the person. I’m criticising the false claims and the marketing based on lies, to save you false hope, time and money. Again, a net positive outcome.
Placebo Argument
Placebos are a typical pitfall of toxic positivity in recent times. They're very misunderstood, and this leads to toxic positivity in the form of victims being told to essentially 'wish' themselves better. That you have to have a steadfast positive mindset to beat an illness or it's your fault for not believing or fighting hard enough. This is extremely unhelpful, and frankly a dangerous attitude.
The 'power of the mind' is a myth, and even if it were true, this self-disproves the placebo argument for any particular herb or supplement (as it wouldn't matter what the supplement was if the power of the mind was the key factor).
Let’s say that after debunking the physical claims of said herbs and supplements, we reach the placebo argument, as often happens when still trying to support a weak claim. The Placebo Effect is not a real ‘effect’. By definition, various biases are altering the way you perceive pain or other symptoms, which also just vary on their own over time. Again, it’s clearly better to stop paying the money, lower the risk of taking unregulated supplements, and manage symptoms in a proven way.
Take a long walk outside. Exercise. Do something relaxing and mindful such as reading in a quiet, comfortable room. Make efforts to change your routine, sleep, or general diet (that’s varied nutrition – not eating specific things for specific outcomes).
All of these things have proven benefits plus would still ‘trick’ your mind into placebo biases if you told yourself they would. What’s more, doctors are always telling us this.
Beyond that, these things are also a real net benefit whether your specific condition clears up or not (and if it doesn’t, you need real medical help, not supplements and herbs).
The point is that my realistic, useful, and honest approach was squashed by toxic positivity. I understand it was meant in a positive manner I’m sure, a social way to reinforce someone’s (wrong) claim to save face and be polite, as though being incorrect about something is somehow shameful or a negative thing. It is not.
But can I recall this whole section during a conversation? Absolutely not. Yet I am doing the most positive thing for that person that I can by speaking up. Which is why I found it so frustrating and impossible to sit and take attacks on my character without having a chance to be heard. Unsurprisingly, confirmation bias will often see to it that a Tik Tok stranger has more sway than I do, even to people who know me well.
Conclusions
I hope I’ve been clear, but I will reinforce that positive thinking itself is not a problem, in fact it’s a necessary trait we gain a lot of use from. The main mistake is when it’s weaponised to dismiss reality, preserve a weak claim, or ignore negative possibilities in an unhelpful way. To ignore the negative in the world is sometimes to allow it; and to avoid facing it under the illusion of positivity, disempowers us.
To call intellectual honesty ‘negativity’ where there was none, is a dangerous and toxic path, which may discourage speaking up. Pseudoscience is always lurking nearby, waiting to exploit this attitude.
Thinking realistically is a net positive. Thinking about our own thinking is the way out of said mistakes – not blaming the messengers.
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