I haven't bothered to write anything about the Casey Anthony trial to this point for the same reason I didn't bother to put a "Sociopath alert" in front of her name above: because the truth is so glaringly obvious.
Anthony's sociopathy is as plain as her guilt, and one clearly led to the other. Whether or not the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Casey murdered her daughter is debatable. (I think they did, but the defense's contention that the DA proved only that she was an uncaring mother has some merit.) In any case, common sense tells us that Anthony is guilty.
Perhaps some members of the jury simply couldn't believe that any mother could do that to her own daughter. Perhaps they couldn't believe that such a sensitive-looking young woman so prone to tears could be such a monster. If any of this was part of their thinking, they simply don't understand sociopathy.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of Anthony in the future. Maybe she, like OJ, will try to make some money by writing a book along the lines of "If I Did It." Maybe she can get appearance fees from bars or nightclubs. (Freak shows are a longstanding American tradition.)
Anthony will undoubtedly do her best to continue to party. You have to wonder what it will be like for the men who go to bed with her in the future. Will they have trouble performing, knowing her to be the monster that she is? Or will the knowledge of her notoriety provide an extra frisson? OJ had no problem attracting women after his acquittal; but men are less susceptible to hybristophilia than women.
The worst victimizers were almost always victims themselves as children; this is what psychologists refer to as "the cycle of abuse." Every now and then when I hear about a child horribly abused and then killed, it occurs to me that the child would probably have grown up to be a sociopath anyway.
No child deserves Caylee Anthony's fate. And it's possible that somehow, against all odds, she would have grown up to be a decent human being. We'll never know.
But one has to wonder how many potential murderers, even serial killers, have been stopped in their tracks that way. The world would certainly have been a better place without Casey Anthony.
In his statement to the press after the verdict Jose Baez, Anthony's lawyer, struck a properly somber note when he said, "There are no winners in this case."
The only problem was, he was not being truthful. He himself is the big winner, as he well knows. I'm guessing his hourly rate just doubled -- as it should.
Posts
6 comments:
John, I predict that her parents will file for divorce within 2 years, and that she will implode (suicide, jail, rehab or the like) within 5 years. I, too, imagine that the jury couldn't conceive of a parent being so horrific. Her attorney did a masterful job picking that jury. I can't believe the verdict.
Good prediction. And I would add that the prosecution probably got a little overconfident since the truth seemed so obvious.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/apnewsbreak-1st-time-casey-anthony-speaks-case-061758113.html
Casey is still 100% grade A sociopath.
From the story that is linked above.
She admits that she lied to police: about being employed at Universal Studios; about leaving Caylee with a baby-sitter; about telling two people, both of them imaginary, that Caylee was missing; about receiving a phone call from Caylee the day before she was reported missing.
"Even if I would've told them everything that I told to the psychologist, I hate to say this but I firmly believe I would have been in the same place. Because cops believe other cops. Cops tend to victimize the victims. I understand now ... I see why I was treated the way I was even had I been completely truthful."
GT --
Yeah, I saw a similar article about how she'd broken her silence. No question, a sociopath.
My favorite line in the article yo linked was:
"Caylee would be 12 right now. And would be a total badass" [said Anthony.]
The thing is, she's right; a girl whose only influence is her sociopathic mother is almost certainly going to turn out to be a sociopath herself, and Caylee probably WOULD have been a badass.
Interesting to read the comments after the article, too, they're unanimous in their condemnation of her.
John:
I hope for Caylee's sake her grandmother would have provided a positive female role model. Caylee's grandmother was the one that reported her missing when the mother (Casey) kept making excuses about her daughters location. I could envision that Caylee would have grown up looking for a mothers love but never finding it.
On to a more specific point that I have been thinking about for awhile. If sociopaths are created, which I think in the vast majority of cases they are, what keeps the sociopathic population at 3%. It seems that it would start to snowball after awhile; like a virus. A sociopathic father or Mother could create several sociopath offspring and so on and so on... Would love to hear your thoughts
GT --
That's a very good question. And I agree that sociopaths are for the most part a result of environment, so I completely agree with the premise of your question.
The answer has to be that human beings' natural state is not sociopathy, and that only a special set of extreme circumstances can foster it. Those circumstances would be to only have parents who are sociopaths (i.e., having one parents who is not a sociopath could prevent it), or to have no parents at all (as in, orphaned at an early age). I also think that part of the answer lies in the very strong maternal instinct that mothers usually have toward their children: unless that instinct is somehow abused and twisted at an early age, it will come out, i.e., it's possible for orphaned girls to feel loving and protective toward their children even if they themselves did not experience love as children. We see that throughout the animal kingdom, especially with mammals; the maternal instinct is very strong. Another part of the answer is probably that those females -- like Casey Anthony -- who do not feel that instinct are less likely to have children to live to reproductive age themselves, which is what happened to Caylee Anthony. And you wouldn't even have to have a murderous mother for that to happen; just an uncaring, not particularly concerned one.
This is such a good question I may turn it into a post.
Post a Comment