The Amish Effect
lancasteronline.com
lancasteronline.com
It's important to know that the Amish community is extremely conservative. In general, it does not have the protections that most Americans have put in place for their children (working conditions, etc.). Women in general are also very poorly treated, and lack many of the rights that we as Americans believe they should enjoy (like being equal to their male counterparts).
The response by the community to anyone who disagrees is expulsion.
http://fourhourworkweek.com/2008/07/15/escaping-the-amish-pa... http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/3348
While it could be true that "those values are very dearly held by those people" you are not counting those who grew up Amish and left (or were expelled) because the values were not dearly held.
Speaking of my own experience growing up Anabaptist, I witnessed misogyny (women were not allowed to teach men) and a forced social cohesion that bordered on cult-like (people had to vow to follow very serious rules, including never to visit any other denomination, and pledge themselves to the denomination, and if they committed a "sin unto death" they were excommunicated from the community with no chance for reconciliation).
I can say with confidence that although there were some aspects of my religious upbringing that I appreciated, overall it was a bad religion that did not bring the best out of people.
First of all, no one is expelled for disagreeing. And Amish regularly leave with no issues nor problems, making that decision before adult baptism. We know lots of people who do that. They still happily and friendly live next to and interact with Amish.
The problem (shunning) tends to come if Amish leave after baptism but I have yet to hear anyone expelled for disagreeing on issues.
As for children working condition protection, what do you think Amish children / teenagers do? They primarily do lots of household chores, certainly more than regular American kids but they do it with their parents and their siblings. Amish are not focused on making lots of money and they tend to do things at home so it's far unlike factory farms or third world factories one might imagine.
As for woman being poorly treated, it's quite rare for anyone, man or woman, to be poorly treated, attacked, demeaned, etc. among the Lancaster Amish from what I have seen and heard. I think what you are getting at its restriction of typical American freedoms. But the same goes for Amish men. Going out for beers with your buddies, getting a girlfriend on the side, building a corporate career, doing a YC tech startup, hanging out on a boat / yachet, etc. are all no goes for men. It's certainly not for everyone.
I would encourage you to check it out, it's less than 3 hours away from NYC and it's quite an experience. You might be surprised about how happy and fulfilled the Amish in Lancaster are.
Net/net, the article perpetuates a generally positive impression of Amish life because Amish in Lancaster generally have a positive / fulfilling life.
Lancaster is practically cosmopolitan compared to the Amish of Ohio and Western NY. So they are less restrictive than Amish of other areas. In general they have always been kind people in all of my interactions.
That being said, I do think that children have a false choice when they are offered to go live in the outside community. They have an 8th grade education. They might be able to get very manual labor jobs, but are most likely incapable of getting a college degree, without a lot of support. And chores are one thing, but when we talk about a lot of the other work on a farm we aren't looking at just cleaning up your room. Focusing on children alone, I think that community is one which does not even give their children an option of existing in the real world, without a ton of struggle.
I am one as well, and let me tell you: It's hard to be angry at them when you've had a full Brown Breakfast with Scrapple, creamed chipped beef, eggs, bacon, sausage and pancakes. OMG, heaven.
You could say the same of trailer park kids.
I wouldn't expect Amish adults to know how to live in a non-Amish way, how do you expect them to teach that to their children?
If they had all the things you expect people to have, they wouldn't be called Amish, they'd be your neighbours.
You talk with judgement if Amish life is a negative thing. It's how some people live. Let's not dislodge them from it.
How would you like to be told your way of life is enabled by a government that plunders resources overseas, in a nation that was built on the back of slavery and robbing of natives? Not very nice, is it? It's how you live and you like to live how you like to live. Same with the Amish.
> You could say the same of trailer park kids.
Yes, but you would have a hard time finding an article fetishizing the idyllic, back-to-basics, cultural lifestyle of trailer parks. People generally recognize those conditions are crappy.
> You talk with judgement if Amish life is a negative thing. It's how some people live. Let's not dislodge them from it.
It is a negative thing. Yes, I'm sure some Amish are happy, and that's fine for them. But those who aren't, don't have a real choice to leave.
> How would you like to be told your way of life is enabled by a government that plunders resources overseas, in a nation that was built on the back of slavery and robbing of natives? Not very nice, is it? It's how you live and you like to live how you like to live.
I am working to change my government, and if I were capable I'd work to change the Amish community. Injustice perpetrated by my government doesn't make injustice perpetrated by the Amish community okay.
That's fine for you. But other people trying to change your way of life, they are called extremists.
Trying to change how other people live will only cause suffering. Look at the millions of displaced in Iraq, Syria, Libya, where the West attempted regime change because of injustice (as they claim).
Injustice perpetrated by the Amish community should be left up to members of Amish community to change.
Saying that is bad doesn't mean I'm an extremist.
I'm not suggesting we go into Amish communities and overthrow their leaders. I'm just saying I don't think we should fetishize or support their way of life, which is harmful to many who live in it, and we should provide support for people seeking to leave the Amish community.
Also, I've seen Amish craftsmanship of barns and lofts and things on occasion, and have been impressed, and clients I've talked to had nothing but good to say about their carpentry work.
The guy had no electricity, but did have a small PDA with a solar charger - many years before that became common and PDAs morphed into phones. He ran his whole business off of that, and what was in his head.
We ended up buying a bedroom set manufactured in NC after this occurred. During the purchase, we mentioned that we were surprised to find decent quality in the brand we purchased, since the quality had been much lower last time we looked. The salesman related that this was the 1st batch being made in the US again, after an offshore experiment.
To use a stereotype in a positive fashion, he, like most Amish and conservative Mennonites I've dealt with, takes a lot of pride in his work and charges very little relative to other businesses.
When they needed to send a fax they'd nip over to the (ironically) software company/IT services company next door (a deal that was struck with the judicious application of baked goods).
They where nice people to work for but it seemed very strange to running a warehouse on paper in the late 90's.
Awesome people, bit of a strange worldview but friendly to a young kid working agency shifts.
Do a thought exercise and reverse roles. Imagine you live in a highly conservative rural community and you wanted to make a negative documentary about the modern american lifestyle. There would be no shortage of truthful material to make us seem totally depraved.
Often I find my Amish neighbors are more accepting of us and our strange lifestyle and we are of theirs.
This has happened across religions and across countries.
There have been significant problems with the Catholic church (because they're so large) either ignoring the abuse coming from nuns, or thinking that telling a priest to stop and moving him to a different town would help. That caused significant levels of harm to the survivors, and to the rest of society (in paying the costs associated with completed and attempted suicide, with drug and alcohol addiction, with mental health treatment, with reduced economic activity).
It's not just Christianity though. The Beth Din courts used by some Jewish people and the sharia courts used by some Muslim people have often told abuse survivors not to go to the police to report abuse. That covers child sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, but it also covers domestic abuse and domestic violence.
Here's one UK tv programme about rabbis: http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/rabbi-urges-alleged-...
So, while we don't know if abuse is worse in these communities we do know that the reaction to abuse is often totally inadequate.
As a general principle any organisation that has any contact with children needs to have in place robust child safeguarding processes.
It's a bit disturbing to see how weak this concept is in the US (and how it's sometimes really poorly done (eg lengthy interventions for people who allow their children to walk home from school)).
For tech companies: What do you do if a 14 year old discloses on your service that they're being abused at home? What if they say they're 11 and disclose they're being abused at home? What if an adult discloses that they're abusing their child? It might not be your role to report these to the relevant authorities (do you even know who those are) but you might want to have a single simple page on your website that describes your company's processes and requirements for interacting with law enforcement. (Something like "We don't cooperate with law enforcement under any circumstances. You'll need to take us through court" or "if you're the correct law enforcement agency and send us validly formed legal documents to example@example.com we can release this {list} information".) Users of your site who see the disclosures can then include your requirements in their reports to law enforcement.
I hadn't thought much about the Amish in many years until I spent significant time in Chautauqua this year. I was surprised. Much of the land that had been abandoned as worthless, has been bought by the Amish and made productive again.
I'm surprised by this. I associate "Amish" with inbred luddites who abuse their children. I'm not saying "inbred" as a cheap insult. From the Wikipedia article on the Amish:
> Since almost all Amish descend from about 200 18th-century founders, genetic disorders that come out due to inbreeding exist in more isolated districts (an example of the founder effect). Some of these disorders are quite rare, or unique, and are serious enough to increase the mortality rate among Amish children. The Amish are aware of the advantages of exogamy, but for religious reasons only marry within their communities. The majority of Amish accept these as "Gottes Wille" (God's will); they reject use of preventive genetic tests prior to marriage and genetic testing of unborn children to discover genetic disorders.
Also, the very last point:
> 12. Amish employees in Amish businesses are exempt from mainstream companies’ Social Security, health insurance and pension mandates. Though that keeps costs down, the impact is often exaggerated, Amish business owners say.
Talk about burying the lede! I had no idea Amish businesses had such huge tax breaks.
"inbred" seems to have a factual basis, that's fair.
"luddite" in this context is an unnecessarily loaded term that suggests an ignorance of history. (I.E., the luddites [1] were not simplistically anti-technology, they were anti-"the crown suddenly taking away the common land and giving it to rich capitalists to enrich themselves with industry while displacing us as laborers, and then blaming us for being against progress", ie, "Enclosure.') [2]
"abuse their children" requires proof. Is there evidence the amish abuse their children at a rate higher than the rest of society, and/or other cultural enclaves such as tight-nit immigrant groups?
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Rebels-Against-The-Future-Industrial/d... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
My impression was that the luddites were a movement against machines which let the factory workers replace high paying skilled jobs with low paying unskilled jobs.
EDIT: Ah, I see your comment below now, that's fair, I guess I should have used better citations.
In short -- in the period before enclosure, many of the people who became the luddites were allowed to work common land for their own benefit despite not owning it themselves. This was a major source of sustenance for them.
After enclosure, they were deprived of this. The factory owners exploited enclosure to get land to build their factories on. So it wasn't just automation replacing workers, it was also depriving them of a resource (common land) they previous depended on via privatization.
The enclosure wiki article doesn't mention Luddites. The only thing I could guess at is that this process seems to have driven peasants into the cities to become workers in factories. But i thought the luddites were skilled if not educated upper middle class workers(like UAW autoworkers used to be) not peneniless peasants. Although I suppose some of them might have been employed as apprentices and developed the needed skills.
> Is there evidence the amish abuse their children at a rate higher than the rest of society…
Where to start? The Amish stance on corporal punishment of children is well-known. "Spare the rod, spoil the child" (as Proverbs 13:24 is commonly misquoted) applies. Hitting children is common in Amish households and schools. Sources on this range from atheist neighbors[1], to friends of the Amish[2], to books that praise the Amish[3]. And speaking of Amish schools: They end at the 8th grade. People like to think that Amish teenagers have a choice about leaving the community, but what choice do they have when their prospects in modern life are so limited by their lack of education?
To frame it more concretely: If you had a neighbor who denied their children cold drinks or air conditioning on hot days, who hit them for questioning religion, and who took them out of high school so they could do work, is there any doubt that you would call child protective services? It flabbergasts me that the Amish get a pass here.
> …and/or other cultural enclaves such as tight-nit immigrant groups?
This is moving the goalposts. It doesn't matter whether other groups also abuse their children. "But FLDS groups abuse their kids too!" is not an excuse that our society tolerates. In fact, with the FLDS, we sent in SWAT teams and arrested the church leaders. Sadly, the Amish seem to be grandfathered in.
The child abuse is the issue that gets the biggest rise out of me, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other ways in which the Amish needlessly inflict suffering on each other. Due to their piety, Amish positions on topics such as birth control, homosexuality, and the rights of women shouldn't surprise you.
1. http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/09/wha...
2. http://amishamerica.com/how-do-amish-discipline-children/
3. Amish Roots: A Treasury of History, Wisdom, and Lore p. 111, section titled "Disobedient Children"
I live in the Amish community referenced in this article and I have never seen nor heard of any corporal punishment nor child abuse. Indeed, I have never heard any Amish person even yell, scold or argue with anyone. Because of that, I am pretty sure such issues are rare in this area.
"People like to think that Amish teenagers have a choice about leaving the community, but what choice do they have when their prospects in modern life are so limited by their lack of education?"
Most Americans, Amish or not, do not become software developers, bankers, accountants, etc. Lots of Amish leave. For example, two doors down from my house there is an elderly Amish couple. All of their children are non-Amish but still support, visit, help, interact with their parents. Not surprisingly, most ex-Amish do not pursue fields requiring advanced education but tend to do very well in more blue core businesses where their work ethic, integrity and significant youth experience working at home can be turned into a solid career.
Are you part of the community, or just live in the area? Because if the latter, it's hardly surprising; socially conservative people rarely handle their family matters in public.
Do you have some evidence of systematic Amish child abuse beyond your stereotype of "socially conservative people rarely handle their family matters in public"?
Child abuse exists in the world, among tech founders, politicians, Amish, atheists, etc. I am simply saying, based on direct interaction and knowledge that it is most certainly uncommon in Lancaster Amish.
- an anecdote from a "very rural part of Ohio" where the Amish "lived in grinding poverty". I have no experience with Ohio Amish so I cannot comment but what they describe is nothing like Lancaster Amish (the article referenced here and my comments on). - an entry from Amish America talks about spankings, which is a practice statistics show most American parents do https://www.google.com/search?q=percentage+americans+spank+c... From what I have seen of the Amish, I think it is significantly less than the average American.
If you think it is child abuse to not let your children go to high school or to deprive them of the 'real' world, that is a different story.
We need to be careful with this. A lot of problems happen when strong conclusions like this are drawn about a people group without actually interacting with actual people. Wikipedia facts are likely correct to some degree (like a stereotype?), but to make sweeping generalizations about all individuals involved is usually not helpful.
As to their way of life ... well, they're people, not a theme park exhibit of bucolic pacifism, and people are inherently messy and complex. None of the Amish sects support personal fulfillment and self-actualization, certainly, and the social penalties for transgression are steep. Even worse, the insular and passive nature of the communities end up giving support to those who physically and emotionally abuse their families, even if they're a very small number within the larger Amish society.
If so, you are quite wrong. This article on Amish hackers is enlightening: http://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/
I've seen the Amish hackers post before, and I always thought it perfectly demonstrated the Amish's schizophrenic relationship with technology. They won't use the electrical grid because they don't want to be tied to the rest of the world. OK, so where do they get the diesel to run their generators? They certainly don't extract and refine their own petroleum products. Many use compressed air to avoid electricity, but who provides them with pressure vessels and braided metal lines for these devices? Who makes their CNC mills and software to operate them? Etcetera.
They need the outside world to maintain their standard of living. They just have an extra step or two of indirection compared to most of us.
I don't think most Amish view the issue of being tied to the outside world or not as a binary thing. It's a matter of how tied they wish to be. Using diesel and using electricity from the grid both tie one to the outside world, but not to the same degree.
With diesel you have many possible suppliers so if you have a problem with one you can switch to another. You can stockpile it so you can go for a long time without outside contact if you need to.
With electricity from the grid you generally only have one supplier. When the grid goes down you are down. You have to physically connect to the grid, and have equipment owned by the power company on or near your property, such to visits from the power company.
All in all, going on the grid entwines you much more with the outside world than does using diesel.
That is countered by them not taking / getting Social Security payments, government insurance, benefits, public schooling, etc.
Kevin Kelly has written about the Amish: http://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/
To get back on the topic: writing this got me thinking that, maybe in a 100 years from now, the Amish will be the turn-to lisp/fortran/c/cobol? consultants :)
EDIT: typos
> A popular view exists by which the period is institutionalized as a rite of passage, and the usual behavioral restrictions are relaxed, so that Amish youth can acquire some experience and knowledge of the non-Amish world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa
"Devil's Playground" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0293088/
Their business seems to be less fragile towards outside influence and fashionable ideas which turn out to be nonsense half a year later. Ironically, they seem to benefit from the growing demand for niche and regional products outside their world.
Having said that, hope that Amish doesn't become the new Hipster lifestyle for the next 1-2 years now :D
Excuse my ignorance, but doesn't this violate the ban on modern technology?
Instead, they evaluate every single piece of technology before deciding to use it, to see if it will disrupt their culture and way of life. For instance, many Amish communities decided the utility of telephones was a good thing when they were first invented. Then they found that they encouraged gossip and other things they saw as culturally negative. So many Amish communities instituted a communal phone booth in the center of the village -- if you need the utility of a phone call, you have it, but without the personal temptation that comes with a personal phone.
Also there are many variants of the Amish, especially if you include the broader Anabaptist and Mennonite communities, each with their own rules.
For instance did you know some Amish communities allowed personal automobile ownership? They are not around any more because personal automobiles made it very easy for them to disburse and their communities died.
You could say that the Amish culture that survives to this day in a recognizably Amish form has been shaped by natural selection of a sort -- a test of whether the techs they choose perpetuate their community, or lead to assimilation.
(I don't have the specific citations for all this on me at the moment, but it's from what I've read in many articles and books about the Amish I've read over the years)
disperse
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/09/02/217...
I learned a few things that surprised me enough that I ended up Googling for proof:
- Some Amish communities allow electricity (limited, off-grid)[1]. What is allowed and isn't allowed can vary quite a bit, but only the teenagers can own cars[2].
- Amish throw the craziest parties; drugs, booze, you-name-it[2]. See "Devil's Playground (2002)", much of it shot in the community that my friend served.
- If your view of "eating healthy" rejects conventional pesticides, Amish != Organic. My friend, who previous ran an organic farm, said that the community she worked with was obsessed with yields and used an appalling amount of chemical pesticides and fertilizers[3]. In that community, there were no organic farms (though they exist). Every conventional practice that didn't break community rules was used, including with meat products, resulting in the worst of centuries old farming practices mixed with modern chemistry. GMOs are also allowed if that's something that concerns you.[4]
- Amish share some practices with Christianity, such as sex before marriage being forbidden, but some Amish communities encourage "Bed Courtship" (Bed Date or "Bundling"), where as part of courtship, two people share a bed ("Bundling" because they're bundled separately so they can become closer by ... talking). If my conservative parents had caught me sharing a bed with someone I was dating ... I don't even know what they would have done.[5]
My favorite part was the description of Amish kitchen cupboards: Filled to the teeth with Velveeta and gelatin[6] and they use it everywhere.
[1] http://www.discoverlancaster.com/towns-and-heritage/amish-co...
[2] And many own really nice ones ... during Rumspringa. My friend's children were not allowed to hang out with Amish teenagers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa
[3] http://amishamerica.com/do-amish-use-pesticides/ http://modernfarmer.com/2014/11/amish-mennonite-farmers-poll...
[4] http://www.biofortified.org/2013/10/amish-gmos/
[5] Here's an article explaining "why" it's allowed: http://www.sacred-texts.com/ame/amish/am07.htm
[6] I had heard of the gelatin thing, but not about Velveeta. Hearing descriptions about some of the meals made me ill. The attraction to Velveeta is shelf-stability. http://www.amishreader.com/2015/03/12/the-truth-about-authen...
Not surprising since they are Christians.