Killers are Just People

As we are talking in class about war, it made me start to realize how easy it is to forget that soldiers aren't just a mass group of destruction. Every soldier, or warrior is an individual, a person, who was born and raised on planet Earth, just like you and I. When thinking about this, it makes war almost scarier than it already is. Not only is war groups of people fighting groups of people. War is a 20 year old man who was born in Ohio, raised by a mother with 3 other siblings. He would have gone to school, and maybe college, and then became a soldier. He wasn't born for the sole purpose of fighting, and even if that had been the case, he would still be just a man. Of course, I wouldn't classify soldiers as killers in the same sense I would a murderer.

(I do want to note that I have huge respect for soldiers and what they do for our country, I don't want anyone to take away from this that I do not. The idea behind this analysis came from thinking about war, and the way soldiers are lumped into one category, but the analysis itself is more based on who we would classify as "bad" people, and the way they are dehumanized by being thought of as just a mass of people.)

Though this does certainly apply to soldiers, it also applies to people who does cruel or "evil" things in the world, they are all still people. We as a society like to think that people who do bad things are killers and nothing more, but that's just not true. Take a classic example, Hitler. When we think of Hitler, we think of one of the most evil men to ever live. But did you know that Hitler used to paint? Here are some of his paintings. He also had a family, and a life outside of the killer we tell ourselves he is. Yes, Hitler was a horrible, cruel tyrant, who killed countless numbers of people, but he was also a man. That is something we try not to think about. It really does put a new twisted spin on things doesn't it? That the monsters in our lives aren't just monsters, but also people, with imaginations, dreams, hopes, lives.

We could, of course, rationalize it that they were mentally unstable, or ill in some way, and in some cases that is true. But not everyone falls under these circumstances. There's actually a lot of interesting (and freaky) research on normal people doing awful things. Take for instance this study, called The Stanford Prison Experiment. In it, a group of students were assigned to be either a police officer or a prisoner, and live that role. Within hours, they turned on one another, acting irrationally and to the extreme. Keep in mind, these were just normal kids, but when put into these circumstances, they turned into monsters. Killers are just people put into certain circumstances. Sometimes mental health plays a part, or poverty, or family abuse, there are many factors that could play into it. But overall, they are just people, like you and me. And if that's not terrifying, I don't know what is.