The Amish, and What We "English" Can Learn

Technology, Education and Work

We’ve seen an increased influx, it seems, of Amish to the area in recent years. And we have employed Amish in the Pure Maple Syrup business; these factors have given me the opportunity to observe more closely how the Amish live and work, and led me to doing some additional research on the Amish. I have started with two books, A History of the Amish: Third Edition, and The Amish, a “Companion to the acclaimed PBS American Experience documentary” two-part series by the same name; the second of the two books is what I’m writing from on this occasion.

Chapter 17: Technology

…the Amish do not categorically condemn technology in Luddite fashion…Nor are they technologically naive. Rather, Amish communities selectively sort out what might help or harm them…More significantly, the Amish modify and adapt technology in creative ways to fit their cultural values and social agenda.

More specifically, “it is the church-community, not the individual, that makes major choices about technology.” The emphasis on church-community is mine; the two are inseparable in the Amish culture.

The telephone was the first item to receive a cool reception in Amish communities, but as cars, tractors, radios, televisions and computers rolled off assembly lines, they too were rejected.

In short, and in my words, any application of technology that weakens the church-community is rejected. “The moral decay of these last days has gone hand in hand with the lifestyle changes made possible by modern technologies. The connection between the two needs to be examined with care.”

Importantly, technology per se is not rejected. The Amish rather conduct experiments to establish whether or not to accept a particular modification or adaptation of a technology.

I am not arguing that we English should copy and paste decisions made by the Amish; even the Amish differ, especially along “affiliation” lines. What I am arguing for is that we should be no less diligent than the Amish with respect to our acceptance of new technological innovations. Simply buying the latest iPhone because it shows up on store shelves is a problem, in my opinion.

You’ve seen me step away from social media, and more recently I stepped back from the use of a “smart phone,” tablets, etc. I made the decision, for myself, that these technologies were doing me more harm than good. Your mileage may vary; I’m simply suggesting that you should make an informed decision, for you, and perhaps your family. Virtually all technology has negative “side effects,” which from manufacturers’ or governments’ points of view might be seen as “features.”

Chapter 14: Education

The story of Amish education offers a compelling demonstration of Amish resistance to key educational trends of the twentieth century…The resistance was so stiff that hundreds of parents were imprisoned.

Until 1950 virtually all Amish parents sent their children to small, rural public schools, where they studied with non-Amish peers and teachers. As long as such public schools were small, under local control, and following a traditional curriculum, Amish parents had no objections.

The first thing that struck me was parents being imprisoned, and more to the point, it was largely the fathers. Where are the men today? How many of us would be willing to go to prison on behalf of our children’s education?

Interesting fact that I was unaware of: “In 1913 about half of American schoolchildren attended a single-teacher school. Fifty years later the portion had tumbled to 1 percent.”

The Amish took exception to three changes in particular, consolidation into large schools, emphasis on completing a high school education, and compulsory attendance laws. Ultimately the cause of the Amish reached the Supreme Court in 1972, “which ruled in Wisconsin v. Yoder that ‘enforcement of the State’s requirement of compulsory formal education after the eighth grade would infringe upon the free exercise of … [Amish] religious beliefs.”

That Supreme Court decision was too little too late, as there had already been an “explosion” of Amish schools, the Amish having taken matters into their own hands. By 2012 there were 55,000 Amish pupils being taught by 3,000 teachers in 2,000 private Amish schools. Those teachers by the way, “are typically young, single Amish women who begin teaching at about eighteen years of age.” Outcomes you ask? Here is an example, with additional detail to be found in the book; “testing of students in Iowa and northern Indiana shows that eighth grade pupils…scored more than one grade level above the national standard on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills.”

Again, the Amish stay true to their cultural and social values, sometimes at very high cost. To them a “higher” education simply means, in part, that you are saying goodbye to more of your children, permanently. It seems to me that we now have a one-track school system, and that track leads to university; anything less and you have been “left behind” in our English culture, if it can still be called a culture.

There is however movement of the English in this regard; put “exodus from u.s. public schools” in any search engine that isn’t google and have a look.

Chapters 15 & 16: Agriculture and Business

The Amish have had a long love affair with the land, even calling farming “a religious tenet” and considering the tilling of soil a divine duty God directed in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:21).

I’m not going to say much about farming, other than that the industrialization of farming has had a similar impact on the Amish and the English; there are a lot fewer of both engaged in farming. Since however, farming was at the core of Amish culture, including their religious beliefs, its industrialization has had more far-reaching effects. In short, if I am Amish and I cannot make a living through farming, it is going to be much more difficult to separate myself and my family from the world; the idea is to be in the world but not of the world. The book delves into several adaptions that Amish have made in their attempts to stay on the land, examples which are both informative and meaningful to me, as I am trying to stay on the land also, but I’ll leave you to investigate those approaches for yourself if you are so inclined. But for those who cannot make a go of it on the land for whatever reason(s), this is where “business” comes into play.

The rise of Amish-owned businesses was a bargain with modernity. The Amish in many areas said in essence, “We will leave the farm, but instead of punching time clocks in outside factories, we will build our own microenterprises where we can control the terms and conditions of our work and pocket the profits of our toil.

In other words, entrepreneurship is their chosen replacement for farming. I am an advocate for English entrepreneurship as well, if for no other reason that punching a clock for someone else is the most highly taxed and inflexible form of employment.

Dominant types of Amish businesses include furniture making, farm equipment manufacturing, and construction firms specializing in residential or commercial buildings, as well as related trades such as roofing, plumbing, and painting. Amish retail stores that sell food, clothing, crafts, hardware, equipment and tools - purchased wholesale from Amish and non-Amish sources - also comprise a sizable segment of business activity.

We’ve seen this first hand. We buy from an Amish bakery, where the “shop” is immediately across the driveway from the house, and only “manned” when work is in progress or a customer arrives. And, we bought all of the roofing for the Farmhouse from an Amish business just to our south. Both of these businesses are less than 5 years old. Please keep in mind that most of these businesses, successful business, are owned and operated by people with at most an eighth grade education; that’s a beauty of entrepreneurship, you don’t need “experience” before starting, and you don’t need a diploma as a door opener.

Some Additional Observations

In no particular order but as they come to mind:

• The Amish have children, quite a few of them

• Amish children add value; they work at home, on the farm, in the home-based businesses, from when they are in the single-digits, age-wise

• The Amish approach to technology saves them a lot of time, and money. Take cars for example; the Amish don’t own cars. So, no car, no gas, no tires, no oil changes, no repairs, no insurance, no car registration annually, no garage, and the list could go on. They can use what I call an Amish-Uber, an Englisher like me who will drive them here or there when that absolutely have to get somewhere. But actually, they seldom go anywhere they can’t get to by buggy.

• They use electricity, mostly for business, but are not connected to the grid

• With no phones, no computers, no tablets, radios, TVs, etc, home is quiet. No distractions.

• When they move onto a new site, the first thing they deal with is the means of production; putting the finishing touches on a house comes later.

• The population of Amish is growing.

• Church happens in their homes or barns; they don’t build brick & mortar churches

• A church-community is roughly 25-35 families, within buggy-distance of each other. In other words it is actual community, hyper-local you might say, spitting distance, able to come to the aid of others in the community at a moments notice.

• Divorce is not sanctioned in the Amish church, though may occur in rare cases. Divorce is seen as reason for excommunication. Separations, however, do occasionally occur among Amish. Amish do not remarry so long as their previous partner is alive.

In Summary

There is a lot more to the book of course, and I highly recommend The Amish. In many respects I think we’ve gone wrong culturally, and as the Amish exemplify, it doesn’t have to be so.