This kind of event makes many people angry and other people sad. My heart aches when I think of how terrified those children must been, how they probably struggled to stay above water for a few moments before watching the light of the world fade as they sank into the watery darkness. It is wrong on so many levels. We gather together as humans and recognize the wrongness.

It is tempting to apply the word Evil to such and act, to the perpetrator of the act. It is tempting to ascribe motives to a Deity for allowing the act. It is tempting to hate in the face of such actions. I find myself unable to find a place inside me that can in anyway understand her actions but I don�t have the ability to join others in the condemnation. I condemn her actions, I want to see her removed from society so that she can not harm another innocent soul but I can not simplify her into the black and white order so popular with the majority.

This woman is damaged, perhaps irreparably. She can never be trusted no matter what she does in the future because the consequences of misplaced trust are too high but I would like to see her receive more than punishment. She is insane by definition of her actions no matter how the system chooses to label her for the purposes of �justice�. We, as a society, in order to salve the wound created by the reality of the torturous deaths of these three delicate little people seek to punish, to hate, to put to rest our horror by locking it away and forgetting about it the way we have in the past. �How could this happen?� we say. �What was she thinking?� �How is it she came to have three children to toss away?� �What can we do to make things right?�

Some will look to a greater plan; they will lay their horror and sadness at the feet of their God. Others will want to punish, strike out, hating in response to their pain. Still others, like me, will chalk it up to �shit happens� because that is part of the spectrum that is the human species. From my perspective there is no good or evil there is enlightened and damaged. Chance and Darwin�s theories play their part in this drama. Hurricanes don�t form to punish sinners, its nature silly. People don�t get lead astray by �the devil� they are more or less damaged, more animal less enlightened creature.

Recently I watched a show that highlighted the �human� qualities of animals. Anthropomorphizing animals is not new, but I find it strange that we don�t recognize more of the animal in humans. While it is tempting to ascribe a label (evil) to a person, to call such acts �without reason� the reality is there is always a reason. Every action has a motive (physics applies to the human dynamic as surly as it does to all other forces) and I have found that most motives are firmly grounded in the human animal nature not in its enlightened nature. Animals are given a free pass when it comes to hideous behavior because �they don�t know any better�, �they are innocent and simply trying to survive�. But I think survival of the fittest plays a larger role in our societal and cultural interaction than we would like to admit. We are and forever will be more animalistic than enlightened. This is why humans can not get beyond war as a solution to conflict.

Even many acts recognized as �good� are driven by instinct. People don�t think when they run into a burning building to save a child they are responding to an instinct grounded in survival of the species, protection of the young. Hero�s when interviewed will often admit that they didn�t think about what they were doing they just did it.

This leads me back to the human who lacks that instinct, the one who will �eat her own young�. While it seems beyond comprehension it is important not to focus your righteous indignation on the other victim. She is broken, she is damaged and she deserves pity and treatment, permenently separated from society of course.

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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