Aronson's First Law

Article: The Seattle Times

This is a sad story. But, this is a our tendency. 

Aronson's first law is that people who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy. According to The Social Animal, some situational variables can move a great propotion of us "normal" adults to behave in very unappetizing ways.

This article says that Pfc. Andrew Holmes, a soldier accused of killing an unarmed Afghan man last January, is on a trial. And, he is one of five soldiers alleged to have been involved in the killing of three unarmed Afganis. this case has drawn international media attention because some soldiers took photos of a platoon posing with the corpses. Although the fact that he is involved in this affair is still unclear, taking pictures with the corpses is obviously an abnormal behavior. The soldiers treated corpses as if they were dolls so that guards treated other boys who are prisoners as if they were despicable animals in a Zimbardo's experiment (In fact, I knew the experiment by watching the movie "The Experiment". It is known as "es" in Japan.). That behavior is crazy. If we met a corpse, we would not take a picture posing with it. Immediately we would call the police. I guess that we will have a nightmare for the next few days or few months. I think this is a usual reaction to corpses. However, in Afganistan the soldiers behaved differently from that. This is related to the situation, which is the war between Afganistan and America. How much different we behave in a war from in our usual life is shown by a lot of examples, such as the Holocaust, atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and so on. Thus this article indicates Aronson's first law.