According to reference sources, “Peter Pan syndrome describes one’s inability to believe they are of an older age and/or to engage in behavior usually associated with adulthood. The term comes from the fictional children’s character Peter Pan, who never ages. While it is more commonly attributed to men, it can affect women as well.”
And there we have the main malady of the modern left. You’ve seen them in the street rioting. Twenty year-olds acting like petulant toddlers, gray ponytail types trying to relive their gloried late 60s radical youth, all done in an effort not to grow up and face the challenges of adulthood. Which leads directly to their politics.
I had given this a bit of thought but it didn’t really come into clear focus until I recently spoke to my cousin Jennifer who resides in New York City. A sharp lass with good standards of etiquette, as we of Colombian heritage tend to possess, she told me how horrified she has been watching the rude, narcissistic, and spoiled behavior of the various leftists who infect the streets of the Big Rotten Apple. To advocate for socialism, anarchy, and against law and order, Jennifer relates how they scream obscenities at passersby, vandalize private property, and generally behave as violent and misanthropic 7th graders. But then I thought, not every 7th grader.
You remember a certain type of kid from junior high? A loner, seemingly bitter for no reason. When not being a suckup they were sullen and brooding. They made decent grades, as their social lives were lacking because they had limited interpersonal skills. Deep within, you could tell these kids had imaginary enemies that one day they would try to revenge themselves upon. What had the world done to them to put this massive chip on their 7th grade shoulders? Nothing, except not give in to their every petulant want and desire.
Now, these kids have grown up a small bit and found their emotional comrades in Antifa. Their inner bitterness, immaturity, and self-loathing have found ready company in the ranks of the left. The left has always preyed on these lost children, turning their tortured psyches into a hatred for others and for authority figures who supposedly were responsible for their sorry emotional state. But it really isn’t the police, or the Republicans, or Trump, or anyone else who is responsible for the bile they spew at their own country. It is they themselves, and those on the left who use them as pawns for their own dark twisted political ends, who hold they key to their own misfortunes.
However, self-awareness is not a noted attribute of youth or the left. So they will continue to roam the streets burning, looting, and vandalizing. For them, it’s a kind if psychotic catharsis. For the rest of us, it’s just childish destruction.
David Kamioner is a veteran of service with NATO forces, US Army Intelligence, and the First Infantry Division, David Kamioner is a graduate of the University of Maryland’s European Division and spent over twenty years as a political consultant, college instructor, non-profit director, and corporate PR director.