During times of war or great conflict within society, there is often a disagreement as to the priority of guns or butter. Guns are defined as those resources that are outer-directed at resolving the crisis, such as destructive weapons or munitions, while butter is defined as those sorts of consumer goods that are internally directed at the well-being of people on the home front. It is typically thought that focusing efforts on the conflict and on the outside is best, although there are cases where the ability of a nation to endure warfare has been greatly hindered by the imbalance of resources focused at a war where the home front has completely collapsed under the threat of war, such as the Confederacy in 1865 or Germany in 1918, where even competently led military efforts simply cannot succeed. There are also times, like Paraguay in the War of the Triple Alliance [1], where there are not enough resources for either guns or butter to be taken care of, leading to a demographic collapse in a given population, with critical losses in military strength (Paraguay, for example, lost about 90% or so its male population due to the horrors of its war against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay).
Guns and butter are typically viewed as being in tension or contradiction with each other. Money spent on the well-being or morale of citizens is typically viewed as being resources that cannot be spent for resolving a conflict or directing one’s attentions outside. Likewise, it is viewed (unsurprisingly) that money spent on munitions or military matters is generally not money that is going to be spent on making people’s lives better or more comfortable. It is clear that there are expenditures in both guns and butter that are clearly ones that do not have any particular ability to work in the other realm, and there are clearly limits to resources that force choices for where food and metal and money and factory space are to go. Are there any ways that this apparent dilemma between guns and butter can be resolved in ways that aid both internal and external goals even given rather serious resource limitations?
This has relevance for areas outside of military history, although this is an area of some personal interest and expertise [2]. One example should suffice. I am a member of a church that has as a dual mandate in its mission statement preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to the world and preparing a people for leadership in that kingdom [3]. We might say, with fairness, that the first aspect of this mission is outer-directed, towards evangelism, and the second aspect of this mission is inner-directed, towards the well-being and capability of people. Is there a way for these two missions to be harmonized so that both of them can be met through the same efforts, which makes it easier to determine coherent strategies to fulfill that mission statement. Admittedly, I write these things as an outsider, but as a thought experiment and as a modest proposal [3] this can be considered as part of a series of unsolicited and possibly unwanted but hopefully at least somewhat helpful advice.
The first step into harmonizing the two parts of the mission statement is to realize that both of them are not simply outer or inner directed. Preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God comes with the goal of inviting people to participate in the Church of God here on earth. Preaching out has the goal of bringing people in, and success in this endeavor requires that there be something compelling and worthwhile to participate in. A message about the family of God, after all, leads one to naturally want to experience that family in a practical sense, and requires brethren who view us like family and act with love and respect. Paying attention to the state of the church family, in other words, is an important aspect of success in evangelism. Likewise, preparing people for leadership in the Kingdom of God can have practical benefits in evangelism and an outer-directed focus here and now. Developing the gifts and talents of people can help provide the many hands that make a burden light on the shoulders of others and on the pocketbook, and that free up resources. Here, as long as there are coherent efforts, each of these aspects can help the other half of the mission.
This past weekend [4] there was a fair bit of talk from Mr. Walker (and others, I should note) about the need for people to step up to handle the tasks that have fallen on only a few people. Of course, most of the people who were there are people who I can attest to personally as being extremely involved already. Those people who are not involved, for whatever reasons, did not find themselves there. There are times, though, where efforts spent on interior matters can serve the benefits of outer-directedness, while efforts on the outside can, at times, provide the resources to fix internal matters. The trick is being able to see our efforts as being part of a larger picture, and to be aware of the goals and vision that we have when we undertake efforts, to see that what we think of as being separate can often be connected, and that improving ourselves can help us to improve the world around us, and indeed help to create a better future of which we are an honored part.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/05/10/the-three-partitions-of-luxembourg/
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/weep-weep-grey-bird-weep/
[2] See, for example:
[3] See, for example:
http://www.ucg.org/booklet/united-church-god/
http://www.ucg.org/sermon/preaching-gospel-preparing-people/
[4] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/08/18/a-review-of-the-2014-oregon-mens-weekend/
Edge Induced Cohesion 