How can we explain the phenomenon of frightened, frantic snowflake children who are freaking out in protest over Donald Trump’s victory?  The easy answer is, they are reacting to wicked lies spread previously by the MSM in a cynical attempt to sway the election.  This is true but doesn’t tell the whole story.

Look back almost three generations to 1960.  In that year, the album The Wonderful World of Sam Cooke was released.  Its chart-topping single gave voice to a mindset that has metastasized to infect today’s youth and has grown stronger over time.  For younger AT readers, the lyrics go like this:

Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book,
Don't know much about the French I took
But I do know that I love you,
And I know that if you love me, too,
What a wonderful world this would be

Voilà!  A culturally popular mirror and template for lazy know-nothings.  A toe-tapping safe haven that actually made listeners feel good about their intellectual shortcomings and even feel superior to those with more knowledge, more drive, and less dopamine.  Seven years later, the Beatles cut right to the chase with their megahit, "All You Need is Love."  The Beatles' version took a deeper hold, benefiting from their musical genius, their better studio technology, and the softening effect psychedelic drugs had on many listeners.

Subsequent generations now swallow these messages hook, line, and sinker.  They can't fathom another life course or purpose beyond love and blanket acceptance of all warm things.  Nor can they understand anyone who sees the need to look past love or altruistic pipe dreams for the meaning of life.  In the same way a virus fools the body into relaxing its defenses by employing a deceptive coating, these and many other songs and pop culture messages functioned like wolves in sheep's clothing.  Banal but brightly wrapped messages infected the brains of a vast number of listeners who were happy to cleave to easy pabulum instead of taking the harder path of thinking, comparing, analyzing, and processing reality.  It has been a relatively fast skip from love to tolerance to altruism to insistence on altruism...and now enforced political correctness used as a cudgel against those deemed not sufficiently "loving, compassionate and altruistic."

In her excellent book Pathological Altruism, Barbara Oakley successfully exposes this expanding cultural virus.  At $54.90 on Amazon, the book has yet to rise to best seller status, and that’s a shame.

The benefits of altruism and empathy are obvious. These qualities are so highly regarded and embedded in both secular and religious societies that it seems almost heretical to suggest they can cause harm. Like most good things, however, altruism can be distorted or taken to an unhealthy extreme. …Pathologies of empathy, for example, may trigger depression as well as the burnout seen in healthcare professionals. ... Hyperempathy - an excess of concern for what others think and how they feel -- helps explain popular but poorly defined concepts such as codependency. In fact, pathological altruism, in the form of an unhealthy focus on others to the detriment of one's own needs, may underpin some personality disorders. Pathologies of altruism and empathy not only underlie health issues, but also a disparate slew of humankind's most troubled features, including genocide, suicide bombing, self-righteous political partisanship, and ineffective philanthropic and social programs that ultimately worsen the situations they are meant to aid. …Each chapter's approach points to one disturbing truth: what we value so much, the altruistic "good" side of human nature, can also have a dark side that we ignore at our peril.

Western society has come to this: hordes of tragically incapable, intolerant young people who are fragile, emotional, irrational, and yet sure that their altruistic beliefs are the only path forward toward some undefinable Nirvana.  We can only hope that President-Elect Trump holds firm to the principles of liberty, reason, and personal responsibility.  If so, it will be a tough transition for many of the crybabies, some of whom will most likely either crack or emigrate.  But some will come through the other side as better humans and better citizens, much like metamorphosed young Marines graduating boot camp and making their parents proud with a newfound physique, sense of discipline, and respect.

Mr. Trump, please hang tough and give those squishy perpetual adolescents a fighting chance to grow up.  It’s their last chance and America’s last chance.  The sixties are a long way in the rearview mirror.  It’s time to cinch up and get back to those history, biology, and science books.

Loren can be reached for comment at loren@twopare.com.