I do the same--urge patients to dump the chains and pledge allegiance to the independent pharmacy. At this point, the only way the chains survive is by leveraging insurance contracts to offer "discounts" on prescription fills. Everything else they do is evil.

Most definitely! We can reform our institutions, but without reforming our hearts--tackling irrational phobias--we will remain mired in constraints of our own making. Freeing ourselves from fear requires accountability and courage. Both are in limited supply today.

You might call disavowal of the shadow side "toxic positivity." Think new age, yoga, and all forms of cults. It is impossible to fully appreciate the positive without acknowledging the negative. Only naive fools fail to see this.