Today's Lesson

Life survives by consuming life. Every animal must kill to get the energy to survive. You kill a plant, or you kill an animal. Killing is the most natural thing in the world. Civilization must then bend that impulse into: Thou Shalt Not Kill.

Killing is the ultimate form of dominance. We exert very little control of what happens in this universe, but at the personal level, control of whether someone lives or dies is powerful. It can restore a person’s sense of self and control of circumstances to kill another, however warped that is in civil society.

A mother killing her children may be described as a psychotic break from reality, but isn’t it even more so a break from civilization? A retreat to the war of all against all, where killing becomes the ultimate assertion of control in a life that has spun out of control?

Does the mother deserve mercy? That is a question for your heart. Does civilization require justice in order to maintain its hold against nature? Yes.

Class dismissed.