Reflections on the Pope's comments on Weapon Manufacturers

Yesterday the Pope made some comments that went along the lines of saying that people involved in the weapons industry cannot be called Christians.  The Pope's comments have had me doing alot of thinking.  This news story has a discussion of his comments that is pretty representative of what you see in the media.

Now granted, sometimes the media mixes up the Pope's words and interprets them how they like, but Zenit does seem to have a similar story so it does seem the Pope is not a huge fan of arms manufacturers. Although after alot of reflection it does look to me like the media put a little spin on the story and may even be sowing unnecessary division and confusion.  Although even that point may be wrong.

 This is an excerpt from the Zenit translation:

"
It makes me think one thing: people, leaders, entrepreneurs that call themselves Christians, and produce arms! This gives some mistrust: they call themselves Christians! “No, no, Father, I don’t produce them, no, no .... I only have my savings, my investments in arms factories.” Ah! And why? “Because the interest is somewhat higher ...” And a double face is also a current coin today: to say something and do another. Hypocrisy ...l But let’s see what happened in the last century: in ’14, ’15, in ’15 in fact. There was that great tragedy in Armenia. So many died. I don’t know the figure: more than a million certainly. But where were the great powers of the time? Were they looking elsewhere? Why? Because they were interested in war: their war! And those that died were persons, second class human beings. Then, in the 30s and 40s the tragedy of the Shoah. The great powers had photographs of the railroad lines that took trains to the concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, to kill the Jews, and also Christians, also the Roma, also homosexuals, to kill them there. But tell me, why didn’t they bomb that? Interest! And shortly after, almost contemporaneously, were the lager in Russia: Stalin ... How many Christians suffered, were killed! The great powers divided Europe among themselves as a cake. So many years had to pass before arriving at “certain” freedom. It’s that hypocrisy of speaking of peace and producing arms, and even selling arms to this one who is at war with that one, and to that one who is at war with this one!
"

So based on this it looks a little like the Pope is speaking of stopping arms manufacturing in one breath and then wondering why the Allies did not bomb some train tracks in the next breath.  It looks like incoherent logic if not hypocritical.  The statement seems to offend logic.  What follows is my personal thoughts on the matter based on some speculation and limited experience.  

I am reminded of the situation in which the tough-minded person unintentionally hurts the feelings of the empathetic, sensitive person.  It is not that the tough-minded person is trying to be malicious, it is just that the tough-minded person has inherently different values that the empathetic person.  Most likely no matter how hard they try, the tough minded person will never really understand the sensitive empathetic person at a level that they can participate in their empathy.  They can probably appreciate it on an intellectual level, but their participation will probably always be limited and they will never really understand some of the finer nuances of emotions and just plain being agreeable.  It is simply written into their nature.  I think this scene from Terminator 2 really captures the idea.   





My personal observation is that the opposite phenom an also happens.  Sometimes people who are empathetic and sensitive will use logic in ways that are simply incoherent.  They are what I have decided to start refering to as "logically offensive."  For instance some people make statements that are obviously self-contradictory, or in other cases clearly do not take into account the full nuances of the situation.  They tend to make statements that are idealized and impractical.  I now realize that such people may not intend to be logically offensive. My experience is that in the event that the logical offensive is pointed out to such people they feel embarrassed.  They understand on some level that what they said does not make logical sense but their empathy and sensitivity is preventing them from embracing the logic.  This may sound a bit like a rant, but recent findings in neuroscience suggest this is not impossible.  Just recently for instance it was found the rational people have different brains that empathetic people.  

This news story talks about it.

"Emotional brains 'physically different' from rational ones"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150618104153.htm 

There is also some research suggesting that we cannot think empathetically and rationally at the same time. 

"Empathy represses analytic thought, and vice versa: Brain physiology limits simultaneous use of both networks"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121030161416.htm 

Anyways, Pope Francis comes off to me as a very empathetic person.  Sometimes this is a great strength.  There is a reason he tends to have high approval ratings.  However, I am guessing there are times when he speaks "off-the-cuff,"  and not everything he says is logically consistent.  I think this was one of those times.  If you take his statements to their logical conclusion it would require him to disarm the Swiss guard.  He would essentially be condemning every military/police force on earth because they all are in some sense "investors," in weapons.  It would also be a hypocritical statement because as many people have pointed out you cannot bomb a railroad without the help of some arms manufacturers.  As I read through the whole homily, and as I reflect on it some more, I do not think this is what he was getting at.  I think what he is really against is war-profiteers.  To be honest if this is what is at the heart of what he is saying I can point out some possible advantages.   Much as there are concerns with how health care and pharmaceuticals are doled-out by large, for-profit companies, similar questions could be asked with regards to how force is applied throughout the world.  

There is no doubt that war profiteering has caused major problems in the past.  All you have to do is look at the problems with fake bomb detection equipment in Iraq, the rise of mercenary companies picking up significant government contracts while occasionally operating in a dubious fashion, and contractors who installed faulty wiring in military bases that ended up killing soldiers.  Based on my observations of how defense contractors operate I would seriously question if the for-profit model produces effective results.  What I have seen happen is that contractors often resist building equipment that can operate in conjunction with other equipment produced by other for-profit companies.  The reason being that each company has this vision that if they stubbornly stick to their guns they will be able to grow into a massive company that supplies all varieties of devices to the government.  This is a little ridiculous in my opinion and counter-productive.  It may be possible for government acquisition to fix this problem.  Although there is a potential for problems here as well.  It is not unheard of for government acquisition persons to take on lucrative jobs with defense contractors when their military service is over.  I can see how this might have both overall benefits as well as downfalls.  

My understanding is that there are some limits on the size of profits that can be extracted from government contracts, but I am still left wondering.  The problem is complicated by the fact that oftentimes commercially available equipment is needed.  For instance computers and trucks.  You can't ask companies to make these good with out a profit.  I am left wondering though what would happen if equipment that only has a military purpose was restricted in such a way that profits could not be extracted from them and the salaries of the employees of these business units were limited.  I can actually think of a bunch of problems with this plan.  The most obvious is providing incentive for good executives to do this work.  This is especially critical in times of war.   This could be a problem but to be honest there are some really hard-working government employees out there who I tend to thing would do the work because it is in the interest of the greater good.  In light of the bigger picture I may be dreaming.  Regardless, I can see reasons why we might take Pope Francis' challenging words on arms manufacturers as a signal that we should re-think how we pay for equipment and services associated with employing armed force.  I am not saying I have a solution but there is no reason to believe a solution better than what we currently use does not exist.  

Although I may be totally wrong.  Pope Francis may just want us all to disarm.  It seems a bit impractical to me, but you never know.  Pope Francis is a tough one to figure out sometimes.