Katia N’s Reviews > The History of Emotions: A Very Short Introduction > Status Update

At the end of this book, I’ve come across a quotation apparently from a Marx’s essay I’ve never heard before:

“The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living”.

It has immediately reminded me of another one:

“History is a nightmare I am trying to awake”.

I now wonder did Joyce read Marx…

The history of emotions all around!

Living under a government that is actively trying to maximize happiness and minimize anxiety might not be a recipe for, well, happiness. The pressure of expectation on our children to achieve and display happiness through their lives might also be a source of anxiety rather than happiness;some fear that messages by charities promoting resilience,mindfulness,a growth mindset, amount 2 a kind of ‘toxic positivity’.

Emotions are frequently social performances, involving multiple learned non-verbal elements, whether the state of feeling is authentically represented by them or not. Indeed, we may not even know for sure ourselves whether our performances are wholly authentic or if we have perhaps unconsciously hammed things up a bit for our audience of loved ones or colleagues.