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Thursday, October 30, 2014

In HBO’s ‘Olive Kitteridge,’ the power of negative thinking

She seems like such an unpleasant and perplexing person, Olive Kitteridge, until you start to recognize yourself in her.


Or maybe you don’t.


American culture, after all, has spent considerable time and money promoting a positive attitude in all things, as if good cheer can solve any problem. Cancer can be willed away by enough pink ribbons. Football games can be won by banishing negative thoughts and asking for divine intervention. Celebrities speak candidly of ways they’ve learned to shun “negativity.” Bad news is buffed to a shine, vanquished by yoga and kale smoothies and daily affirmation. The chipperest among us envision and achieve success, reserving special pity for the cynics, the cranks, the doubters. There was a time when such realists got dinged on our report cards for what was termed “an attitude problem”; now they simply call us “haters.”


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