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Notes -
You mean the same narrative that tells us that
We live in a culture that systemically oppresses everyone who is not a white heterosexual male
Literally any person around us can be a hidden hateful bigot and we must be eternally vigilant to every word and action in case they slip and reveal themselves, and we can not let slide any offensive word, even if they were said by accident and without intent to offend, because it is worse than physical violence
Academic campuses and pretty much all major companies are permeated by rape culture and any woman can be - and often are - sexually assaulted at any moment there
Police are prowling all major cities looking for non-white people to kill for no reason at all
We are destroying our environment and the only way to avoid it is either massive depopulation or massive drop in the quality of life
At least half of the country are insane illiterate bigots who dream about murdering and enslaving anybody who does not look like them, and instituting a fascist dictatorship
We cannot ever show our faces in public ever again for the fear of dying in horrible agony
Convincing people to kill themselves is a viable solution to the problem of rationing medical care (and maybe other resource problems too) - this is only in some countries, but wait a bit
You can't eat a steak without feeling very guilty and you better learn to eat mealworms and crickets instead
Everything that exists around us was stolen from somebody, built by racists or enslaved people and every child that is born is born into the original sin and owes huge sums for that just for the fact of their birth into a wrong race
Internet is brimming with "misinformation" and only strict government-guided censorship can give us hope for the democracy to survive
That doesn't sound like a message of unrelenting positivity to me...
I agree with your post, but I also see where the OP is coming from.
I think it's mostly a process of infantilization. Corporations, states, media etc. behave towards the plebs more and more as if they were children. So yes, that means sometimes they will be extremely positive (you're a good kid!) and other times they will try to scare you (they're coming from you! you need our protection) or reprimand you (how dare you say that foo-ism, you disgusting bar-ist).
So I see OP as referring to the coddling, "nice" face that they adopt for well-behaved kids, which they (Cathedral people, not OP) probably would like to be the only face they have to adopt, because in their ideal world likely every pleb is a good child.
And it's not only about art styles, it's also about the language used and the patronizing, condescending or "overly cute" tone. For example, see the peppering of emojis in every online communication by many companies, states etc. Does anyone really need a finger pointing down to understand that "this image" refers, in fact, to the image shown below a post? To see the country flag after the name of the country? To see a snowflake after reading the word "winter"? (oh, babby understandy now, you mean time when it snowwy, thankies mommy!!) Etc.
An interesting exercise is to compare current textbooks to old textbooks. It's very salient in programming books. Most old programming books address the reader as if he were an intelligent, mature, adult person, even if they use jokes and puns sometimes; they show respect for the reader. Many current programming books try extremely hard to be "cute" and address the reader as a dumb, fragile baby. For example, compare Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs to Learn You Some Erlang for Great Good!. SICP is not dry at all, in fact it's quite friendly and full of jokes and puns. But it clearly respects the reader and expects him to be mature and intelligent. The second one is written as a children's book, but meant for adults. This may be an extreme example, but the trend is definitely there.
The thing is, it seems that many people like to be addressed as children. Maybe because it "absolves" you from responsibility, thinking and anything else but "wanting" and "not wanting", being happy, sad or angry? I don't know.
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That's what certain parts of the media are portraying, but notice the point that each of these is usually couched against some 'valid' target of ire, so there's always an outgroup to blame for the problem.
And the positivity tends to come from the general corporate/commercial messaging around a topic which simply frames any and every possible situation in the lightest way possible.
Let me zero in on a couple:
This is often couched as "guess what! You can make an easy impact against climate change JUST by eating bugs!" as a positive, progressive viewpoint.
There's a recent development of, again, framing this whole things as a positive in the marketing!!! This is what I mean! Rather than viewing the end of a human life as a generally tragic, possibly grim affair that should be viewed as a negative (discounting the afterlife). look at that fucking commercial portraying it as a beautiful event!
When did we hit the point where euthanasia was couched as a 'beautiful' thing rather than the ugly (sometimes) necessity that we try to avoid?
And likewise, can you find any corporation outside of the news media that allows any level of honesty, critique, or possible offense of any particular group in their corporate messaging?
If the group offended is not "woke people", then yes, easily. E.g. I have seen corporation sponsor "family friendly drag queen shows" (and publicly brag about it) - I'm pretty sure it is offensive to many people. It's just not the people that the Right Thinking People would care about offending.
But you don't see them sponsoring a Family Friendly Drag Queen show and depicting opponents to such a show as bigots.
Basically, they refuse to acknowledge that there's any negative side to it, and don't aim criticisms at any group. It's not their intent to offend, and part of that is to make it as annoyingly positive as possible.
Oh yes they do. Maybe not with drag queen shows (I can't say as I haven't witnessed specific communications to that effect) but certainly with other things. Example: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2021/03/31/georgia-election-law-delta-ceo-calls-new-voting-rules-unacceptable/4823216001/
I think it's pretty offensive for anyone who supported the law (2/3 of voters by some polls) but somehow Delta - and many other companies - do not care. They think they are too big to fail anyway, so offending somebody who does not hold the power (and these aren't consumers anymore in the American system, not for a long time - it's those who control government budgets and subsidies) is completely fine.
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Seems to me that OP was talking about art, or at least about art suitable for mass consumption, not public discourse.
Can art stay "unrelentingly positive" if all other culture is steeped in negativity? We're not living in an environment where the art can (or wants to) stay away from politics and cultural context.
Yes! There are multiple different things. these are not particularly negative. They suck, despite being "positive".
This is not art, this is grift.
It's a grift of unrelenting positivity. here, here's some unpolitical, "positive" art. stable diffusion 1 is a much better artist than this quirky person
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