i've actually seen a lot of this lately. i wasn't able to find the article i read yesterday, but the gist is that americas youth are being pushed to mediate genuine feelings with pharmaceuticals. things like breaking up with a significant other, personal loss, death of a loved one or any other occasion that warrants genuine grief and sorrow are now seen as abnormal. parents of college students urge them to seek counseling and prozac to "deal with their problems" when those same problems used to be dealt with by a brief period of indulgence, some personal reflection and a period of solitude. instead we are pushed to be "happy" to be "positive" to smile on the outside until it creeps into our insides. i think we've forgotten how to FEEL. that feeling bad is just as valid and imperative as feeling good. somewhere we've started to short circuit the full range of human emotion, and we've begun to legislate a culture of stepford kids. all this talk of happy, productive citizens likely has the opposite effect- how can ANYONE live up to this inflated cultural ideal we've created? our sense of failure is heightened, and the cycle starts over.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 06:26 pm (UTC)instead we are pushed to be "happy" to be "positive" to smile on the outside until it creeps into our insides. i think we've forgotten how to FEEL. that feeling bad is just as valid and imperative as feeling good. somewhere we've started to short circuit the full range of human emotion, and we've begun to legislate a culture of stepford kids. all this talk of happy, productive citizens likely has the opposite effect- how can ANYONE live up to this inflated cultural ideal we've created? our sense of failure is heightened, and the cycle starts over.