Our casual negativity
people will always have something negative to say.' We experience on a daily basis that people, perforce, opine negatively. In fact, this 'casual negativity', a Freudian phrase, is not always ill-intentioned or malignant.
We tend to speak negatively of people and their actions, good or bad. People go to parties.
They devour every item there. Yet, most will tell you with a streak of 'casual negativity' that the food could have been better. 'The paneer in shahi paneer was a tad hard' — though they had had numerous helpings.
This is a collective human tendency; not to admire wholeheartedly. It's said that we're parsimonious with Truth. But we're also stingy with praise.
Criticism is more in vogue than appreciation. Nearly 4,000 years ago, Socrates advised his disciples to ignore people's opinions. Humans often behave condescendingly.
So, they cannot praise wholeheartedly. We're born with this innate trait of speaking negatively even if, in the heart of hearts, we know that our criticism is wrong, unjustified and unfair.
German Nobel laureate Gunter Grass said that our 'casual negativity' is an outcome of our collective mediocrity. Since most of us live a mediocre existence, we want others to be like us: mediocre and pedestrian.
