War is a tragic carnival. An adolescent volunteer soldier, later to become a writer, gets exposed to signs of destruction of his own kind, aimed to keep him committed to destroying “the enemy,” rather than creating peace and understanding. He participates in a grandiose social drama where persons dressed in uniforms are expected to act in ways where the opposites of construction and destruction are uncomfortably close to each other. Not only are they close; they are interdependent.
The notion of unity of opposites is a necessary axiom for any cultural-psychological perspective (Boesch 1991; Rudolph 2006). Cultural psychology looks at the operation of signs, semiotic devices, within the mind of the person (Valsiner 2007). Culture is not an external “variable” that has “influences” upon persons. It is an inherent component of the psychological system of each person, as we operate with signs to make our lives meaningful.
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Valsiner, J. (2009). War in Peace: Cultural Regulation of the Construction-Destruction Dynamic. In: de Rivera, J. (eds) Handbook on Building Cultures of Peace. Peace Psychology Book Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09575-2_4
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