This commentary may seem a bit esoteric, but I think it fits in with the tendency to “other” that we’re experiencing in a lot of [right-wing] political discourse these days.
Where I grew up, in Canton, Ohio, we lived about 20 minutes from a large Amish community. As it happens, northeast Ohio has one of the largest Amish populations in the country. Due to that proximity, I was always familiar with stories about the Amish and their ways. While we didn’t see horses and buggies in our area, several families of Mennonites (same roots as the Amish, but less strict) shopped at our local K-Mart. They drove cars, but still wore plain clothes and similar headgear to the Amish.
My family never went down to Amish country, but then, my parents seldom ventured anywhere except the grocery store and hardware store, which is a story in and of itself. Nevertheless, when I got older and hung out with friends, we’d drive down the highway to Amish restaurants, where portions were huge and prices were reasonable. Good home cooking at its best.
Fast forward to today, when my husband and I make regular trips to an Amish area almost due east of Cleveland. We go for cheeses and hard-to-find seasonings and condiments. Major county roads traverse the community, and it’s a constant sight, the buggies clopping along with the cars whizzing by.
Those buggies, with the horses straining to keep up the pace on the uneven berms of hilly highways, always scare me. Accidents are rare, but they do happen, even when the buggy drivers adopt flashing lights and safety triangles. My heart hurts for the poor horses, forced to perform in an environment that not only wasn’t built for them, but is terrifically dangerous.
If you ask anyone familiar with Amish ways, they’ll tell you that, for the most part, the Amish view their animals as tools, simply necessary to their lifestyle. They don’t “feel” for their horses any more than other people empathize with their bicycles, for instance. I’ve seen that lack of humane-ness up close, in the cases of both horses and dogs. In northeast Ohio, there’s a whole Amish subculture that uses puppy mills as a livelihood. Nearby rescue organizations regularly go to the farms to try to get breeders to surrender female dogs for adoption by caring families. I’ve adopted two such dogs, and I—and rescue volunteers—can testify that their lives on the farms were horrendous. Both dogs were terrified of everything, had no idea what grass was, had no clue about stairs, didn’t know what to do in open spaces, and took months to trust me. But this cottage industry is a case of the Amish culture adapting to modern commodity demands without altering their basic way of life. Their income sources may have altered somewhat, but their attitudes are still insular and out-of-step with those of most of the rest of the world..
I’ve read that, although the religious sect does keep to a lifestyle modern society considers primitive, their tenets don’t forbid them from, say, electrifying their barns. The rule is that the community as a whole must vote on whether a given innovation violates their faith’s tenets, and whether it will bring more advantages than disadvantages in the long run. That’s how, for instance, makers of Amish baskets I’ve seen for sale sometimes use an electric or battery-powered tool or two.
But in looking at the historical picture of the Amish, I realized that, for decades, maybe a century, they weren’t really that much different from other people. At one time, almost everyone farmed. Everyone used horses and buggies to get around. Most rural people wore simple, homemade clothes, lived close to the land, kept livestock. While the Amish did keep to themselves more than other people, at that time, theirs was a difference in traditions, not in evolution or progress. In short, they were established on their land long before the highways were bulldozed through, and just kept on as they always had. Late-nineteenth, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century progress has encroached on their culture, in actuality. The rest of the world has radically altered, and they haven’t, very much. They are a constant in a world of change. In their eyes, it’s we outsiders who represent chaos and division, the ones who are out of place. They just continue living as they have for centuries, making small changes here and there, when they must, but essentially, keeping to their faith and their way of doing things. Any genetic complications aside, there’s something to be said for eschewing every latest, greatest, cutting-edge gadget and meme. While I wouldn’t want to join their sect (I’m too addicted to modern conveniences), I can admire the sheer steadfastness of it, in the midst of what seems like everything blowing up all the time. Driving down the highway, carefully passing the buggies, it’s a perspective-altering realization that the Amish were there first. They are the ultimate in othering, but it’s their choice.
Still can't accept the poor treatment of animals.
When I lived in Baltimore, my wife and I would drive north to Amish country near Lancaster, PA. Two things appealed to me. The rolling green countryside and the strong sense of community.
Of course, I know the Amish have their own problems (didn't know about the puppy mills). I've seen documentaries on those who get shunned and "wild" periods for the Amish. But still there's a seductive image of returning to a simpler time when community mattered. Where technology and material goods weren't everything. Sort of like the movie "The Village" or "Witness," the latter being a special favorite of mine.