07-08-2011, 08:54 AM
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0...cnn-topics I was reading this article about how Josef Fritzl, an Austrian man who for twenty-four years kept his daughter locked in his basement, where he repeatedly raped and even breeded with her, is now claiming, backed by a psychiatrist's report, that his behaviour stems from an abusive childhood. It made me think: are we more sympathetic (not forgiving) towards monsters - serial killers, rapists etc. - whose evil can be traced to some past trauma like parental abuse?
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges." - Gene Wolfe