An Amish publication contends that “the free use of it [the car] will lead us to where we don’t want to go” and then reiterates how the car pulls families apart, increases the temptation to travel into cities, and detaches families from their local churches. It concludes, “Cities are designed for cars, time is marked by them, and men are known and judged by the automobiles they drive.”18
All affiliations forbid baptized members from owning or operating a motor vehicle and from obtaining a driver’s license for personal use. In more progressive communities, unbaptized young men may own a car during Rumspringa, but they must sell it upon joining the church. A handful of settlements at one time permitted baptized members to obtain licenses if they had to drive trucks for their English employers, but such cases are very rare.19
With a few exceptions such as forklifts in shops, self-propelled power implements (harvesters, combines, riding mowers, and garden tractors) are also taboo for fear they might eventually justify car driving or car ownership. Nevertheless, in another example of the distinction between use and ownership, many affiliations permit members to ride in hired vehicles owned and operated by non-Amish people. Some business owners hire English drivers with vehicles on a regular basis or employ them on work crews, to provide labor as well as daily transportation for the business. Long-distance travel by bus, train, or hired vans is part of the life of most Amish communities. Although the most conservative groups permit traveling by public bus or train, their members may ride in private cars only if no public transportation is available.
Shunning the car has helped to preserve the social fabric of local congregations, which is crucial to the success of Amish society. Horse-drawn transportation tethers Amish people to rural areas and grounds their social interaction in their church-community, which in turn reinforces their home-centered way of life.
Unplugged?
One Amish authority declares that electricity and the car are the two technologies that wreaked the greatest havoc on rural life in the twentieth century. The writer explains that “the unlimited use of electric current puts a world of power and convenience at our fingertips that is not good for us. This is especially true of household appliances.” He then argues that “push button electric lighting and central heat disperse family throughout the house in evenings instead of encouraging togetherness and communication.”20
As electrification reached into rural areas in the 1920s and 1930s, Amish communities independently and gradually decided not to tap into the public grid. Like the telephone, the grid was a direct connection to the outside world. Moreover, the early uses of electricity were more applicable to homes than to farming operations, so church leaders considered electricity unnecessary and were leery that conveniences and appliances would eventually follow. The advent of radio in the 1920s was an early warning of how electricity could bring worldly ideas directly into the home, and the rapid introduction of television into American living rooms in the 1950s (see fig. 17.1) underscored for the Amish the wisdom of the taboo on electricity. Putting the grid off-limits effectively buffered them from the avalanche of gadgets that spilled into American life in the twentieth century: radios, televisions, vacuum cleaners, air conditioners, electric lights, dishwashers, and much more.
No Amish communities, however, ban electricity entirely. The Amish had been tapping 12-volt direct current from batteries before 120-volt alternating current became available from public utility wires. The distinction between battery and grid current gelled in the course of the last century and continues to shape Amish choices and patterns of innovation. Even the most traditional churches use battery-powered flashlights, and many affiliations permit battery power for small lights, fans, shavers, and toys in their homes, for lights on their buggies, and for other applications. The long-standing preference for batteries took a surprising twist in the late twentieth century when American manufacturers produced a flood of battery-powered tools for home and shop. Progressive Amish groups welcomed these new tools because they fit within traditional guidelines and boosted manufacturing productivity.
FIGURE 17.1. Rise of Household Communication Technology in the United States, 1900–2000. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of The United States: 2003, No. HS-42.
Some people in more lenient communities also invert 12-volt electricity from batteries into 120-volt current in order to operate cash registers, copy machines, word processors, light bulbs, coffeemakers, and fans. Nevertheless, the multitude of electrical gadgets and entertainment devices in mainstream society are simply absent from Amish homes.
The emergence of Amish manufacturing shops in the 1970s and 1980s presented a new challenge: Could large equipment be powered without electricity? With the traditional method—the only one permitted by conservative groups—saws, sanders, and drills are powered by a belt spun by an engine. In higher groups, however, Amish mechanics have created alternative energy sources by using diesel engines to operate pumps and compress air (pneumatic) and oil (hydraulic) for power, as shown in figure 17.2. Nowadays, Amish technicians remove the electric motors from tools such as saws, sanders, and metal cutters and replace them with either air or oil motors. The compressed air and pressurized oil are distributed by hoses or pipes to a wide array of equipment. Compressed air is used in some communities to pump water, power sewing machines, and operate old-style wringer washers and high-speed spinners to wash and dry clothing. This so-called “Amish electricity” has boosted productivity in shops and added convenience to some homes. Amish technicians have also created circuit boards, with air and 12-volt electric switches, to control repetitive movements (that mimic computers) in machines.
This office copier uses direct current from a 12-volt battery (left), which is transformed by the inverter (above the battery) into 120-volt alternating current that operates the machine. A propane canister on rollers (upper right) provides fuel for a portable gas light. Doyle Yoder
A curious thing happened in the early years of the twenty-first century: many Amish people joined the environmental movement and began tapping into “God’s Grid.” They found that solar power, with its direct tie to nature and no wires to the outside world, fit perfectly with their values. Amish entrepreneurs started constructing, selling, and installing solar technology for Amish and non-Amish customers alike. The story actually began in the 1980s when some Amish farmers used solar chargers to electrify cattle fences. Later, the Amish began using solar panels on the rooftops of carriage sheds to charge the batteries that powered buggy lights. Solar power is now used in many communities to charge batteries for reading lamps, fans, copy machines, sewing machines, light bulbs, word processors, and water pumps. Solar-generated electricity is also used to power tiny drill presses, solder guns, and other small electrical tools.
FIGURE 17.2. Power Sources Provided by a Diesel Engine
Amish solar installations are typically small-scale rather than full-size systems that power an entire home. Nevertheless, one solar shop owner who sells to English clients explained with great enthusiasm how a sizable solar panel can provide all the energy needed for the lights, small appliances, and even the refrigerator and washer in a home. The electricity from the solar panel flows into a battery pack, then to an inverter for conversion to 120 volt, and then to an electric wire distribution system throughout the house. On a cloudy day a small gasoline engine runs an electric generator for backup. Solar power offers, in short, the possibility of full electrification for an Amish house. For some Amish elders, that notion conjures up a frightening scenario leading to video games, big screen televisions, computers, and the Internet—all the things that they have sought to avoid. Yet Amish use of solar power will likely continue to grow, and change-minded churches will need to strike a balance between acceptable uses and those that could link them directly to mass culture.
Amish technicians remove the electric motors from many machines and install pneumatic (pressurized air) or hydraulic (pressurized oil) motors. This “Amish electric
ity” enables manufacturing operations to function without public grid electricity. Doyle Yoder
Negotiating Change
An Amish author writing about the inventions of the last century says, “We have decided their potential for harm outweighs their benefit, and have taken measures to restrict their availability to us.”21 The Amish have tried to tame technology or at least keep what they consider its most pernicious effects at bay. Their technology choices baffle outsiders, who find the lines the Amish draw to be contradictory and inconsistent. However, from an Amish perspective, technology decisions are ways of coping with worldly forces that threaten the integrity of their community.
New technology enters the Amish community when early adopters begin experimenting with outside devices—installing a propane refrigerator, a fax machine, or an inverter to run a word processor on 120-volt electricity. Their experiments typically result in one of these five outcomes within the community:
1. Swift rejection with little discussion and consideration
2. Limited use over several months or years and eventual rejection
3. Creeping use as well as dissent and gradual acceptance by default
4. Growing use with little dissent and rapid acceptance
5. Modification to make the technology fit the moral order
Because acceptance of a particular technology typically happens gradually by default, communities rarely take specific action to adopt a new item. Formal decisions usually involve rejection. With more than two thousand church districts, each having the authority to accept or reject an innovation, there are a multitude of possible outcomes for any one technology, and liberal churches typically allow innovations that more traditional groups never even consider.
Decisions about technology may pertain to just one church district or to an entire affiliation. In any case, decisions emerge within a dynamic matrix of sociocultural forces, and a single factor will rarely explain a particular outcome. Some of the pertinent regulators include the following:
1. Economic Impact. New technologies related to “making a living” are more acceptable than those involving pleasure, convenience, or leisure. Thus, a motor on a hay mower in the field is more acceptable than one on a lawn mower.
2. Visibility. Invisible changes are more acceptable than visible ones. Using fiberglass in the construction of buggies is easier to introduce than changing the external color of the carriage itself.
3. Relation to the Ordnung. New items that overturn existing Ordnung are more difficult than those that are free from previous rules or that can be grafted on to present regulations. Because it is new technology, accepting a string trimmer may be easier than accepting a push power mower that has been forbidden for forty years.
4. Symbolic Ties. Changes unrelated to key emblems of ethnic identity—horse, buggy, and dress—are more acceptable than ones that threaten sacred symbols. Likewise, changes linked to negative, “worldly” markers are less acceptable than those without such ties. A word processor with a small screen, for example, would likely be more acceptable than a computer with a large monitor resembling a television.
5. External Connections. Technologies that open avenues of influence from mainstream culture and outsiders are less acceptable than those that do not.
None of these factors operates in isolation. Practical matters or internal church politics may also shape decisions, but these five factors silently inform the collective decision making. Change becomes especially controversial when both positive and negative forces intersect. The use of the Internet is contentious because, although it involves making a living, it also blends work and leisure and offers a direct connection to the outside world. Moreover, the willingness of one group to innovate may impede change in another group that wishes to distinguish itself as more conservative. One group’s adoption of LED lights, for example, may harden another community’s resolve against them.
The response to some new technologies involves mild rejection followed by negotiations that may stretch over a decade and end in various compromises—telephones not in the house but outside, tractors not in the field but at the barn, electricity tapped from batteries but not the public grid, car ownership forbidden but riding in vehicles allowed, and so on. These negotiated adaptations may appear odd to outsiders, but seen through Amish lenses, they are sincere attempts to harness the power of technology for good purposes while curbing its ill effects. An Amish leader, cringing at his neighbor’s charge that practices such as riding in cars are inconsistent and even hypocritical, argues that “limiting or restricting something … is the very essence of a disciplined life. It can be the hallmark of prudence, wisdom, and responsibility.” Table salt, he notes, must be used in moderation: too much can kill.22
The Amish Default: Go Slow, Be Careful
When a corporation announces a new smartphone, consumers line up early to snatch up the new product. The modern assumption is “newer is better, faster, and cool.” Technology is often consumed without consideration for its longer term impact on the human community. The Amish default response, in contrast, is “go slow, be careful, and check with the community.” The Amish in general are late adopters—sometimes decades later—if they adopt at all. More often they are adapters who tinker with the technology.23
One Amish writer summarizes their view this way: “Plain people do not oppose all new ideas and practices. There is a need to choose only those that will be of genuine benefit, and to reject those that break down the values we uphold. This would apply to modern appliances and household gadgets, many of which have the potential to change our family- and community-oriented way of life in ways we may not realize until the damage has been done.”24
This strategic, rational, forward-looking analysis challenges the myth that the Amish are backward, naive, old-fashioned Luddites. Instead, they show a remarkable sensitivity to the cost-benefit impact of technology on human relationships, families, and communities. Few if any of them have read about technology’s embedded bias—that it changes human perceptions and behavior—but they sense it intuitively.25
The influence and interconnectedness of their community and their religion has made it possible for the Amish to restrain technology. In their struggle with technology, the Amish make an assumption that rankles modern values: individuals are not wise enough to make private choices about technology. Individuals, the Amish contend, need guidance and direction from a community to make wise choices. Any success they have had in restraining technology is due to this collective effort.
But not just any community will do. Theirs is a religiously grounded one, which means that technological regulations decided by the church are invested with considerable moral clout. In other words, technological practices are seen not just as human customs but as ones that carry divine legitimacy. Despite this blessing of heaven, Amish people would readily agree that some choices create new problems, and many would concede that their use of technology may at times be inconsistent. Nevertheless, they remain engaged in a communal discourse about technology’s impact on their collective life. Surely, that is more than many other people can say.
The Amish saga poses interesting questions about the ability of humans to restrain technology—to assure that technology serves people and not vice versa. Keeping the telephone outside the house symbolizes the community’s control over it while permitting limited access without intrusions into family life. Such arrangements are an attempt to master technology without becoming enslaved to it. Although the Amish have successfully tamed some of the technological achievements of solid modernity for more than a century—the car, electricity, tractors, and computers—their future success remains uncertain in the fluid context of liquid modernity. Resisting the ephemeral and ubiquitous nature of technology in a wireless cyber world will surely test the fiber of their religious convictions, as will the world of health care, to which we turn next.
CHAPTER 18
HEALTH AND HEALING
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&nbs
p; “Are you the biggest loser?” Liz Allgyer asked readers of Die Botschaft in March 2008. Allgyer, an Amish woman living east of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was sponsoring a weight loss group for Amish women in her area because she was sure that “in the midst of [autumn] weddings and holidays” people had overeaten, perhaps gaining “five to twelve pounds.” When she talks with her friends, Allgyer noted, “the topic of weight loss always comes up.” So for twelve weeks the challenge was on to “weigh-in” and “get healthy.”
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The Cultural Context
Amish views of health and healing reveal a fascinating interchange between a traditional culture and modern values, as shown in the story above. Liz Allgyer borrowed ideas from well-known self-help programs in wider society—including the name of a then-popular NBC reality show—even as she tailored her comments to Amish readers aware of the frequent feasting during Lancaster’s fall wedding season. When it comes to personal health and medical care, Amish culture often mixes rural American customs and mainstream techniques. The Amish discourse about health care shows sharp divides between Amish affiliations and reveals how some groups have accommodated to modernity while others have not.
The Amish bring a distinctive cultural outlook to their conversation with medicine. Their naturalistic worldview places primacy on the will of God, and some of their practices reflect early twentieth-century rural traditions. Those who attend Amish schools may study “health” from an Old Order textbook that emphasizes God’s role in creating and sustaining the world. Only the few Amish students who attend public schools study science in a systematic fashion, and because Amish youth leave school after the eighth grade, they often have only rudimentary knowledge of nature, disease, and the human body.
The Amish Page 41