Julie Reshe: THE HAPPY DEAD. TOXIC POSITIVITY

[@shelkit]

I am only halfway through this talk and already feel a juxtaposed sense of relief!

[@digetic]

Might Toxic Positivity have it's counterpart in Palliative Negatiity?

[@paulilott2478]

Isn’t an obvious retort to Schopenhauer, Dylan Thomas’s ‘Rage rage against the dying of the light’. Thomas, himself a death driven, self sabotaging alcoholic, was acutely aware of the creative human potential and continued to write sublime poetry even as he hurtled towards the abyss. Dialectically, isn’t an embrace of negativity going to open itself up to some kind of positivity.

[@jean-michelkampara]

Really interesting point. Reshe is speaking here in the context of neoliberal capitalism and appropriates Schopenhauer to this context. Positivity, the will to life, becomes utility. I would say that Schopenhauer and Dylan Thomas both critique this logic of utility (what use is dying old man of the poem?), though from two different perspectives. These are not necessarily mutually excluding retorts of each other, nor united under some dialectical sublation.

[@celestialteapot309]

Zazen is climbing into a coffin