POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY YVONNE ROBERTS IN THE GUARDIAN
Ms Roberts misses the point, almost entirely.
Yes, many people are capable of hideous acts, but they are only capable under extraordinary circumstances such as vicious war.
But even in war, many refuse to revert to beasts.
Fritzl clearly is a form of psychopath, a condition that affects perhaps one-percent of any population.
I say this, not just because he sexually assaulted his daughter (and reports now say also his grandchild), a behavior that is far more common than many imagine, but because of his comfortable ability to reduce her to a thing under his complete 24-hour-a-day control, having no other purpose in her existence but to satisfy his demands.
Arguments which treat all people as though they are the same are false, much as the view of Christianity that all people are the same and equally require God's grace.
People are not the same. They vary in thousands of ways from having mental illnesses and intelligence to feeling pain and seeing colors differently.
We are a species after all on which nature conducts endless experiments, constantly producing new varieties which may or may not survive and contribute dominant traits.
