OPINION:
Whenever a large-scale atrocity is committed, society ought to look beyond the perpetrator’s act and toward his motivation for committing the act, however abhorrent. This should be done with the goal of hopefully learning enough to prevent a future recurrence by another societal monster. Otherwise the great suffering that has been caused is essentially without positive purpose.
According to a relatively new TV documentary I viewed on the subject of how such monsters are created, as a toddler Charles Manson sought to bond with his mother, but to no avail. Instead — among other instances of abandonment — she sold him for a pitcher of beer at a bar.
As politically incorrect as it is to suggest this, especially when the monster in question is male, we need to extensively investigate all of the Manson-type cases for deeper understanding of such troubled, tormented psyches, rather than simply reactively cry out for death-penalty vengeance.
FRANK STERLE JR.
Victoria, British Columbia
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