CurrentCommentary
Was AndreaYates possessed by demons?
By James B. Chapin,
National Political Analyst
WASHINGTON, (UPI) -- Was Andrea Yates possessedby demons when she drowned her five children?
In effect, yes.
The debate on Yates' insanity or sanityand the degree of her moral culpability has not been a whit moreadvanced than the same debate would have been six centuries ago.
"Possessed by demons" was theway that 15th-century thinkers explained the inexplicable. Inthe 21st century, we use such medical terms as "postpartumdepression."
But except for the change in language froma supernatural to an allegedly natural cause, from theology tomedicine, these words explain no more and perhaps even a bit lessof reality.
These are words with no clear meaning behindthem. We are no more likely today to be able to judge, beforethe fact, what symptoms might result in such a horrible incidentthan our many centuries removed ancestors might be.
Of course, Yates telegraphed her distressrepeatedly, but murders of the babies by their mothers are quiterare -- and of the millions of mothers who report such symptoms,only a few hundred ever kill their children.
In a way, it's just like terrorist warnings-- over time, there are thousands of unsubstantiated reports ofterror incidents for every one that actually comes to pass.
"False positives" are the baneof investigation and prevention. After the fact, the chain ofevents always seems clear. "How could everyone have ignoredthis?" is the commonplace question.
But, before the fact, there is no way tosort out the few "real cases" from the thousands offalse ones.
And, even after the fact, the search for reasons why the inexplicablehappened soon hits a blank wall.
Humans, of course, are by nature searchers for explanation, andshrugging one's shoulders and saying "we don't know"is not an accepted course of action.
Better then, for most, is the use of wordswhich by themselves seem to hold the power of explanation eventhough in fact they add no information.
Social scientists have shown that peopleon line are more willing to let other people get ahead of themin line as long as they provide the FORM of explanation even withoutcontent. In other words, if one wants to go to the head of a lineat a Xerox machine, they were more willing to let you go aheadif you say: "Can I go ahead of you? I have to copy something,"than if one just asks, "Can I go ahead of you?"
This pattern of "meaningless explanation"is deep-set in human psychology.
But we shouldn't fool ourselves. Sayingthat Andrea Yates suffered from "postpartum depression"or that she was "legally insane" or that "she knew(or didn't know) the difference between right and wrong"doesn't really tell us anything more than saying "she waspossessed by demons" would.
It serves the same psychological purposeof reassurance to those who make such statements, but it showsthat despite many centuries of human progress, the areas in whichwe know little -- or nothing -- about what happened or what todo about it remain disturbingly large.