I didn't know much about Matthews' background until after the verdict - I wonder whether that was a deliberate legal injunction to the press, or just that I don't read the red-top papers.
The question is, how did she get the way she is? Was it her brain biochemistry that failed her from birth or did society and her own upbringing fail her? You might say that nobody "in their right mind" would choose to live the way she did and treat her children the way she did. In many criminal cases it seems that there is no plausible reason for people behaving in the way they do other than simple-mindedness, unhelped and unchecked.
It comes down to the old distinction between madness and evil. One of them excuses a criminal, the other condemns her. We are not in a position to judge her state of mind, although a psychologist somewhere should be, but it surely isn't "normal" by society's standards. I guess she is being (rightly) condemned for that.
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Date: 2008-12-08 01:44 pm (UTC)The question is, how did she get the way she is? Was it her brain biochemistry that failed her from birth or did society and her own upbringing fail her? You might say that nobody "in their right mind" would choose to live the way she did and treat her children the way she did. In many criminal cases it seems that there is no plausible reason for people behaving in the way they do other than simple-mindedness, unhelped and unchecked.
It comes down to the old distinction between madness and evil. One of them excuses a criminal, the other condemns her. We are not in a position to judge her state of mind, although a psychologist somewhere should be, but it surely isn't "normal" by society's standards. I guess she is being (rightly) condemned for that.