I love altruism. I like the quote that you put out there and the sentiment behind it. But, in the image I have of what's wrong with the world, I see our towns and neighborhoods being inundated with sludge -- pollution both actual and intellectual.
Metaphorically, altruism is like a clean-up crew out there with mops and rags trying to make things right. It can't. The spew just keeps coming. You can clean. You can do your damnedest, and tomorrow the streets are ankle deep in figurative sludge again. All can see the spigots that are dumping darkness down upon us 24/7. They are not concealed. Yet nobody just walks up and closes them.
Until that starts to happen in earnest -- the flip side or the shadow side of altruism, you might say -- all the efforts to do good are largely for nought. At best, they're like bailing water from a sinking ship with teacups (I've got a million of 'em).
[Going even deeper down this figurative rabbit hole ->] There has to be a Zorro to a Padre Felipe, or a Dark Night working on the flip-side of Commissioner Gordon. These fictional stories gain traction because at some level, we all know that good people can't accomplish the goals of altruism by working solely in the light.
I'm old. I'm like the villagers in the dramas I'm alluding-to. I can't do anything, but if some modern incarnation of dark altruism -- some kind of Zorro -- wound up wounded on my doorstep, I would definitely hide them and lie like hell if anybody pounded on my door looking for them.
I wouldn't post about it on facebook either. Now that's some serious commitment to altruism! 
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