Toxic Positivity is a kind of Pornography

By:Kevin Kogo

      Photo source :www.wsj.com

Invalidation happens everywhere these days, especially cults of wannabe entrepreneurs who worship at the altar of ‘personal responsibility.’ Ask anyone with a little firsthand experience.

It doesn’t stop there.

We have politicians who grew up on welfare chanting to gut it for everyone else. We have politicians who giggle about dying children. We have ‘news anchors’ who lie for money. No, they don’t speak for everyone. They speak for tens of millions, though, and that’s too many if you ask me.

The anatomy of invalidation

We live in a culture steeped in toxic positivity. Everyone has to perform upbeat, socially acceptable attitudes 24/7. We treat negative emotions as contagious. We don’t let anyone express sadness or vulnerability, because we’re afraid we’ll catch it. We force everyone to find a silver lining. We expect them to tack a happy ending onto every story, even if they have to lie. If they can’t, we invalidate them. We dictate how they should feel, and how they should express themselves.

You’re not allowed to warn people about anything, only to deal with problems after they’ve become impossible to ignore.

Once you’ve experienced invalidation, it’s not hard to spot. You know the feeling. You see the patterns, even if you’ve never considered the exact word ‘invalidation’ as a tactic. Oh, it is.

Abusers rely on invalidation to ensure everyone in their lives continues putting up with their bullshit. It’s become widespread lately, as the supreme leaders of late capitalism look for ways to keep us in our lousy jobs, telling us to smile as they buy up ludicrous amounts of farmland and real estate. Their media machines are hard at work assuring us there’s nothing to worry about. We should celebrate owning nothing. We should stop panicking about new variants of deadly diseases, and just get back to work.

Here’s how invalidation works:

Let’s say you express your emotions to someone who hurt you. In a healthy relationship, they listen. They acknowledge your feelings. Sure, they can disagree. They can defend themselves, or give you context that explains what they did and why. They can even get upset, too.

That’s called being human.

Invalidation does something different.

It doesn’t just respond. It says you’re wrong to feel the way you do. It tells you how you should feel. It tells you how you should express your thoughts and feelings. It also tells you when, and where. It trivializes your experience by comparing it to people who ‘have it worse.’ Sometimes there’s a cursory preface that says, ‘I know you’re angry, but…

The point of invalidation isn’t to have a dialogue, or to get you to see things from their perspective. It’s to make you feel guilty. It’s to make the conversation about your mistakes.

It’s to embarrass you.

It’s to shut you up.

Invalidation praises silent suffering

There’s another key ingredient of emotional invalidation I’ve seen a lot lately, and its praise for silent suffering. You see it in tropes of the ‘strong woman’ who puts up with abuse without complaining.

It’s not just a gender thing.

You see invalidation in political debates now, anytime someone tells you how ‘good’ you’ve got it compared to other groups.

It’s a kind of pornography, really.

In their pure form, stories about overcoming poverty and adversity are supposed to inspire and motivate us. Abusers will cruise around looking for the most extreme examples of triumph.

They’ll kidnap them.

They’ll twist them to a more sadistic purpose, which is shaming anyone who dares to talk about systemic injustice. They’ll show you a guy who runs a marathon with one leg, then ask, ‘What’s your excuse?’ They’ll show you an orphanage in Calcutta and say, ‘They don’t complain.

This kind of invalidation happens on a massive scale in today's culture. It’s used to justify everything from starvation wages to prosperity gospel. The point is to distract and pull the psychological rug out from anyone who tries to speak up about things like inequality.

Invalidation rests on its own logical fallacy, that people who don’t speak out against unfairness or injustice they’re facing because they’re all full of grit and resilience. The truth is, many people don’t speak out against injustice and abuse because they’re just like I used to be. They’re scared. They’ve been conditioned to accept it. Anytime they do speak up, nobody listens to them. They experience shame and embarrassment.

That’s not inspiration, or even tough love.

It’s just cruel.

We live in an abusive society.

This society lets people with power and influence get away with pretending they’re mature and self-aware when they’re not. It cedes space to them, over and over. It lets corrupt politicians and billionaires set the world’s moral agenda. It lets them shame us into silence, because nobody wants to be labeled as ‘negative.’ Nobody wants to be told they’re ‘just complaining.’ Abusive societies want the weak to either get stronger on their own, or suffer in silence. They consider that virtuous. Abusive societies tell you to smile, regardless of how you’re actually feeling.

It’s easy to silence someone by telling them someone else has it worse. It’s even easier to make them feel guilty for expressing criticism or pointing out hypocrisy. You can play whatabout with their emotions until they wish they’d never said anything in the first place.

Invalidation is a highly effective tool for abusers. We live in a society that tends to reward abusive behavior, and then justify it on the back end by saying it’s somehow ‘natural.’ It adores kicking people when they’re down, and punishing the weak.

You don’t respond to abuse with empathy. You don’t sit down with abusers over coffee and listen to their side.

You get rid of them.