The Coldest Heart

                I expected to see a lot more to do with the brain in this chapter. Maybe it wasn’t expectation per se, but more I physically wanted some specifics in regards to what was happening within Leon’s brain to cause him to commit the crime that he had. The situation altogether is wildly unfortunate. His mother who lacked the capacities to raise an infant on her own, who unintentionally neglected Leon, started the process of Leon not having empathy. It strikes me as odd that Leon’s father either didn’t know about this, or  did nothing to try to remedy the situation. Furthermore if her extended family knew Maria had difficulties in raising a baby, and helped with the first one, would they not have tried to discourage her from a second one? But I suppose that isn’t really their place.

                I found myself questioning the responsibility of Leon as Dr.Perry went through his story. I admire that Dr.Perry looked so thoroughly into such a gruesome situation, even after Leon continued to change the story to put himself farther and farther away from the blame. Dr.Perry mulled through Leon’s upbringing, his schooling, the fact that he was drunk when he committed the crime…the fact that his own brother turned him in. I guess I also wanted a better reason for what happened. But the fact stands: if the girls had invited him to the apartment to fool around, it was wildly unlikely considering they were 12 and 13, while he was 16. He was intoxicated which may have inhibited his impulse control, but none the less was illegal for a 16 year old, and is not a valid excuse for anyone else’s poor behavior. He was neglected as a baby, yet had not experienced plenty worse neglect and abuse as many others had who have not committed these crimes.

                Dr. Perry describes the “Butterfly Effect” and “Snowball effect”. He suggests that the snowball effect is innately already in our minds, and that once Leon started to do wrong, he just kept going wrong. Leon kept making tiny choices that negatively impacted him, until they got so big that they weren’t tiny choices anymore. It is also curious to me that Leon grew up to know how to manipulate his surroundings, yet even though he knew so much about what people wanted or how to get what he wanted, he never actually truly understood it in terms of empathy. It was just this basic knowledge to him. He reminds me of one of the boys at my past work that eventually had to be transferred to a higher security center due to his aggressive behavior, lack of empathy, and repeated offenses. In undergraduate classes my professors would always say you would know a child with conduct disorder and budding antisocial personality disorder pretty quickly. That was one of two kiddos that qualified that I had interacted with. However in both cases, their histories were very traumatic and more ongoing that Leon’s. It’s astonishing how just like in the case of Virginia, such early childhood experiences can have such a large impact on the future.