Two Mentalities that are the Same

In relation to the prior post, I have some comments to add that I made over at Vox Nova in response to a critique of the post. Here are my comments:

The relationship between non-violence and legitimate self-defense is a difficult one involving a very fine line. However, the connection between condoms and weapons still stands on a different level that I think the post is trying to bring out. I think a quote from Solicitudo Rei Socialis might make this clearer. In paragraph 22, JPII writes:

It is this abnormal situation, the result of a war and of an exaggerated concern for security which deadens the impulse toward united cooperation by all for the common good of the human race, to the detriment especially of peaceful peoples who are impeded from their rightful access to the goods meant for all.

The pope goes on to talk about the problems of neocolonialism and military expenditure. The point though is made by his comment concerning the 'exaggerated concern for security.' The mass production of weapons is almost entirely manufactured upon this discourse. As are condoms. Rather than a discourse of love and cooperation and solidarity, which NFP attempts to enact, condoms serve as a means, by covering the male organ, of turning it into a weapon with no consequences. Such are weapons treated in our country as well. They are weapons with no consequences. Why do consequences not count, for example in Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Because the discourse that manufactured them already had created a safety mechanism for the protest of consequences, namely, safety. If we want to be safe, we must use weapons. So the story goes, and it is the same discourse used for condoms. Rather than creating a discourse of love, we live in a discourse of safety employed to the benefit of neocolonialism and imperialism. We continue to hear it almost daily from George Bush. In this way the 'contraceptive mentality' (in Evangelium Vitae) is not far at all from the 'weapons mentality' (in Solicitudo).

Markel, SJ