Negative thinking is generally an individual behaviour but sometimes we find a group or an entire community turning negative. Negativity can express itself in several ways. It can be anger and hate, depression and withdrawal, or jealousy of the incompetent against merit.

Human history is full of tyrannical wars conducted by invading hordes, who followed the negative passions of hate and greed. Equally numerous have been the angry movements for freedom conducted by a suffering people. For centuries, negative feelings of surrender dominated human behaviour. Many times in history not only individuals but entire groups of slaves and slave girls lived for generations in depression and withdrawal.

We can call it the negative behaviour of surrender because it negated their creative urge for freedom, although it is equally true that they had hardly any choice.

Unfortunately, many of us justify our negativity as a relative term: what appears as negative to you may not be negative in my view. We can easily justify our behaviour as positive or condemn our opponent’s conduct as negative on the basis of our subjective view. Subjectivity is a fact of life among animals; but it is a failing, even a tragedy in human society. It is a failing when an individual or society sinks into depression because it results in giving up our positive role, leaving an easy and extra space to those who may not have deserved it. It is a tragedy when our subjectivity kills our sense of justice and empathy.

In most cases, the source of subjectivity lies in ignorance. We can decorate our own chest easily when we are unaware of the universal standards of merit. We have seen this negative pride among our so-called religious scholars who aggressively believe they are the best of mankind; that allows them to condemn minorities and religious communities that are different than them.

Similar ‘innocence’ boosts negative self-esteem of our young Pakistanis when they boast of their brilliance and merit that has yielded no result over decades.

The other day a youthful friend who had negatively read some of my writings called on my phone. He did not hesitate to tell me that people like me from the older generation of Pakistan cannot understand the brilliance of our youthful Pakistanis, that these new Pakistanis think and speak in algorithms far beyond our comprehension.

How is such ignorant pride negative? It is negative insofar as it bars one’s ability to grow and change with objective reality because one’s vision is seriously blocked by pride based on ignorance. We do not admit the failure of our pretentions when they occur because we are ignorant of the simple truth that claims must be tested by the results they yield.

The worst form of negativity is aggressive subjectivity. It breeds narcissism, the most damaging form of negative personality disorder. In simple language it means abnormal self-love.

There are different stages of narcissism, ranging from the amusing vanity of a pretty girl or of a pampered child to the crushing arrogance of a dictator. A poet or a writer, in a society that hates art, may sink into self-damaging withdrawal and dope, but his narcissistic isolation may not be as widely destructive as the ravaging insensitivity of a boss, a religious despot or a CEO.

Their narcissism is known as pathological narcissism in modern psychology because of its compounded negativity: (1) pathological narcissists are parasites that expand and tighten their suffocating grip as far as they can, (2) they neither grow in merit nor let others grow, (3) they have strong belief that while they deserve to exercise all the powers and rights, others do not deserve these, (4) they are so obsessed with their own ‘greatness’ that they cannot see any virtue or merit in others, (5) they crush disagreement and its expression with hate for all forms of transparency, (6) but above all their pathology can grow contagious if they hold their sway for long.

An entire society can turn into narcissists of varying levels of sickness. Such society then degenerates into a monolith behaving like a lunatic in self-righteous fury, isolated from mankind.

Every society has pathological narcissists in positions of power. But most of the vibrant societies overcome negative impact of this pathology through practices that can be defined as corrective negativity: noisy freedom of opinion, stripping forms of openness and merciless rule of law that chastens and humbles. These are also negative in the sense that they negate the power of destructive negativity.

The freedom of opinion and expression can get noisy, causing deep confusions in certain times of crisis. Stripping openness can hurt individual privacy or undermine national secrets. Merciless rule of law can sometimes cause unnecessary distraction and waste of time in lengthy legal procedures. But these negative practices are to society like antibodies are to a living organism. We can see this happening right now in the United States with all their painful negativity.

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Perils of negativity outnumber its promises. In most of the cases negative thinking and behaviour is wasteful even if it is justified. Only calculated negativity that aims to achieve positive goals can empower the individual or society. Freedom movements and angry protests against injustice are expressions of positive negativity. But these endeavours bear positive fruit only when they are pursued with reason.

Slave revolts failed for centuries till humanity matured enough to debunk it. Anger, paranoia and depression can cause only pain for the individual or society. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness came as their right only to those who showed their leaders their will to follow the path of reason and creativity.