Dr Barbara Fredrickson 'Love - a new lens on the science of thriving' at Young Minds 2012 

Omg yes! Just realized this. I’m so excited to teach this now.

It's actually not entirely true that you need negative opposites to recognise the particular qualities of something or imagine the absence of them based on comparison with other things. All you need to do is to be able to make qualitative distinctions based on whatever you observe. I don't need to be on the verge of starvation to appreciate a meal. I never have been. I just need to be a wee bit peckish. And really I don't even need that. I am perfectly capable of enjoying food for the simply pleasure of taste and texture. If life was nothing but a selection of meals I would not need to know the state of starvation in order to appreciate different kinds of food. One day I might be up for fish, another day a cake is all that will do. The human sensorium is not one of uniformity of experience, it is richly varied and full of nuance. You don't need to be beaten with a stick to appreciate love and care either . In fact love has specific physical effects that nourishes your body whether you even sense it or not. Positive and negative in the context of Fredrickson is one that has "well-being" or "homeostasis" as it's obvious frame of reference. This fundamentally is a body-perspective, not a philosophical discussion. It is about what is conducive to survival and flourishing in an evolutionary and neurophysiological perspective. That said I would agree that a general emphasis only on the power of the individual to generate positive moments is irresponsible when it comes to the levels of societies or work environments. Positivity, Fredrickson would agree, is also situated, which is to say intersubjective and influenced by circumstances and social structures. To put the individual as the core engine of the greater movements of society and it's products in terms of happiness or the lack thereof is single-minded and naive.