Men Behaving Badly
Well, men behaving badly seems to be in the news these days. The Josef Fritzl case in Austria being the foremost example. Here’s a guy who ruled his family with fear and intimidation and complete control, even going so far as to keep his own daughter locked in a dungeon for decades, raping her, and fathering seven children with her. This is a terrible crime by almost all standards, and it is a source of some speculation as to how this could both happen and go undetected so long. I’ve waited a week or more for details to emerge, and I’m sure casting for a made-for-TV movie is already underway, but enough information is now out to comment on this strange case.
First of all, the basics. Josef Fritzl is a classic control freak, he was absolute master of his wife and kids, no dissent was allowed. We’ve all heard about or even known families like that. Mr Fritzl went further though, he built a dungeon and unbeknown to everyone he drugged and imprisoned his 18 year old daughter Elisabeth, and used her as a sex slave for over two decades. She had seven kids by him (her father) and four of them never left the dungeon. One died, and the other three were raised upstairs. Mr Fritzl told people his daughter had joined a cult, and that she had left the babies on their doorstep. The situation was exposed when one of the kids in the cellar, Kerstin, got very sick. When she was bought to the hospital Elisabeth had left a note in her clothes pleading for help. The hospital staff asked questions…and called the police.
Well now. Obviously Mr Fritzl is a very bad man. That being said, the first point is that while this is certainly extreme, it’s just a pathological extreme of the normal range of human behaviour. IE lots of parents try to control their kid’s lives for their own purposes. Would that it were different, but Mr Fritzl is man, not a monster. He’s just a man who took being father and husband to monstrous extremes. I know on one hand that doesn’t seem important or even counter intuitive, but I do think that if we reject Mr Fritzl’s humanity that we lose the chance to understand what drives some to this extreme. For good or for ill the forces that created this situation are echoed to some degree in each of us and in society at large. Or for a warped analogy, if one finds a cancerous tumour in one’s body, it’s neither helpful nor accurate to say “That evil tumour isn’t part of me.” While obviously the tumour must be excised, it can’t hurt to try and figure out what caused it in the first place. Mr Fritzl isn’t a monster, he’s a tumour.
Another point that troubles people is how could the victims let this happen? Both the ones above ground and the ones below ground? Why didn’t his daughter somehow contrive to attack and overpower her captor? She had years to come up with something. And how could the people upstairs, including Mr Fritzl’s wife, not know what was going on? Well, again, it’s all pretty normal psychology. When one is held captive, there are powerful psychological forces that kick in. The Stockholm Syndrome, brainwashing, and cognitive dissonance are good things to read about if one wants to understand why a captive might not resist. And outside of movies, there are few cases of victims resisting their captors in situations like this. Though it’s not all hopeless, there are many cases of victims making a run for it when the opportunity presented itself, as happened here.
As for why didn’t the people upstairs or the neighbours notice? People see only see the outside, and what the Fritzl’s presented to the world appeared normal. Social workers even visited the upstairs kids, and a story about a mother abandoning her kids to be raised by the grandparents would be believable anywhere. People don’t normally suspect that a neighbour or relative has a secret slave chamber under their house, so it’s not something they keep an eye out for. There have been other cases like this. In a nightmarish case in Belgium, the Dutroux case, police even searched a home without finding the secret basement and its prisoners.
Speaking of other cases, there’s another case recently that has at least some parallels with the Fritzl case. Though the media is treating it differently than the Fritzl case, since this cases involve a group of men conspiring to behave badly while using Christianity as a justification for their actions. I am talking of the FLDS case is Texas. The prisons they built for their women and children were more elaborate than Mr Fritzl’s dungeon, but they were prisons all the same. I will expand on this in my next post, the evil that men do is something that concerns us all.
“Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don’t do such a disgraceful thing.”
But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.
Judges 19: 24-26
Part II is here: Men Behaving Badly, Part II.
(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It is not being used for profit, it is central to illustrating he post, its use here in no way interferes with the copyright holder’s commercial use of the image…and it’s a damned interesting image. Credit and copyright: News of the World/The Sun. Imagine being born and raised in such a place? The mind reels. Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.)
Doug's Darkworld 
I agree that it can be seen as an extension of the normal – but I would also say that taking things to that extreme would need a comprehensive lack of morality in ones mind; there must have been a point when Freedom appeared to Fritzl as something of great value – and that feeling surely should have made him wonder about what half his family were going through i.e it would have powerfull pricked his conscience. He KNEW they were enslaved; and most of us of any sort of morality know not to do it.
Yes, a very bad man.
My blog asks some questions of his wife…
James
May 7, 2008 at 1:50 am
I think it’s outrageous you’d ever consider him a bad man. Bad men hit another for no reason, steals, lies, etc. He took her youth, imprisoned her for 24 years, put her through enormous pain physically and mentally…I could see calling him a bad man before he put her underneth the earth, when he raped her and beat her when she was a child. But i do not think anyone should ever consider someone who did what he did to her for 24 years a bad person cause their more then that their so much worse then that. And you calling him that makes me feel like your not realizing the extent of what he did to her, in a way i feel like your not respecting what happened to the full extent.
He’s not a bad man i wouldn’t consider him a ‘man’…I can’t even put a name to what i’d call him but these come close: Monster, Evil, Disgusting, Immoral, Devoid of emotion and life, etc….
Gwynne
June 3, 2011 at 7:46 pm
Sadly, M Fritzl was a human being. I agree that his crime is despicable, but he was, simply, a man.
—Doug
unitedcats
June 6, 2011 at 9:06 pm
No, he wasn’t simply a man, easy for someone else to say,.that he is simply a man ,Ike superman or something, no!!!!
You who are saying this have not been at the hands of this devil, by saying he is only a man deems to justify what terribleness he has inflicted on this girl that what his own daughter. Disgraceful. Don’t speak about what you have not known or experienced. This person was worst kind of evil and was not ever just simply a man. By saying that you degrade further the subject of his abuse and condone what he has done, no one should be born into such terror, no one, never
Fiona
August 8, 2022 at 12:47 pm
This is no way an extension of the normal, nor should it be. What you suffered should never be perceived as normal. Please reach out, I hope you never feel the need. I am sorry deeply sorry if I failed you or let you down, your pain is my pain.Calll forcke whenever you you need ,I will be there.
Trust it, know it , believe it. Please forgive me , I was there, you should been found and rescued, and forgive yourself, your are not to blame. I love so very much,.
Fiona
August 8, 2022 at 1:03 pm
I find cases like this beg a re-examination of the duality inherent in the human species. An extremely complex subject exemplified by the question… why do we never hear of cases where the alpha female commits these acts? Certainly they may be accomplices to these power struggles, but it seems they rarely act as initiators. Is it a function of differing psychology, physiology, or intellect? I wonder how far we have progressed past might means right?
Andrew
May 7, 2008 at 8:01 am
Probably because alpha females arent inherent in our world, are you suggesting that this is about nature and the.alpha male?that is really scary, we are human and not annimal and let’s face it an animal would never have caged a child in this way. Come on even the most stupidest person in the world knows that is bull shit.
This an act of pre meditated evil.even fritzi himself has said as much. Where your compassion and humanity.? Would you yourself like to be locked up for 24 years and raised and degreed in every way and called an experiment?
I am sure I know the answer to that question.
If not, perhaps you would like to be your own experiment ?
Fiona
August 8, 2022 at 1:18 pm
[…] Space Exploration Men Behaving Badly […]
Men Behaving Badly, Part II « Doug’s Darkworld
May 7, 2008 at 12:49 pm
[…] is neither art nor buffoonery, it is a crime precipitated for a lifetime. I hate to summarize it. Another respected blogger also reacts: “Mr Fritzl is a man, not a monster. He’s just a man who took being father and husband to […]
I regret I am healthy (not screaming) « Life’s Elsewhere/Love’s Ragpicker
May 7, 2008 at 2:13 pm
FUCK!hes suck a moster and a sick man !
who the fuck does that seriously rapes
her own daughter and then keeped her locked in a
dungeon for fuckn 24 years
xena
November 22, 2010 at 5:08 pm
me! ;D
Josef Fritzl
November 28, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Are you fucken serious. This isn’t something to joke about. Stop being such an ass, you fucken bitch.
Hara
May 16, 2011 at 10:01 am
I just feel bad for the daughter, who had to stay in that dungeon, and every time he would rape her, she’d cry over and over and over.. it brings me to tears, because somewhere in those 24 years, she lost all hope.
jasmin
July 22, 2012 at 4:03 pm
Seriously!! Obviously she didn’t lose all hope or she would not have been here to tell to the tail.i honestly don’t know how she survived. Probably she had no choice even in this. But I do think that at times she must have been in the depths of despair, I cannot imagine , how could this happen , my dearest child, I held you in heart all this time, your suffering was my suffering.I will never let you suffer again.
It’s not good enough to say never again and put another person’s suffering down to experience. I want to ask the question, where is love?
Fiona
August 8, 2022 at 12:55 pm
[…] few years back I wrote a series on “Men Behaving Badly.” So it occurs to me I should write a companion series about men behaving nobly. It does happen, not […]
Men Behaving Nobly « Doug's Darkworld
April 10, 2012 at 6:07 am