Toxic positivity has become a cultural system in America, says historian and professor Kate Bowler.
She traces how optimism became an emotional mandate in American life: a belief that bright sides and silver linings can solve anything. But when positivity refuses pain, it stops being hopeful and becomes denial.
Drawing on personal experience and cultural analysis, Bowler reveals how forced optimism erases nuance, stigmatizes grief, and leaves us unprepared for the parts of life that don’t resolve. Some things aren’t meant to be mastered — they just hurt. Naming that, she argues, is the first step toward something more honest, and more human.
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