Look Who's Talking (continued)

I couldn't help thinking it was awfully complicated to have a phone you used only for calling back - from a booth in a meadow. Why not make life easier and just put one in the house?

"What would that lead to?" another Amish man asked me. "We don't want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a telephone. It's not just how you use the technology that concerns us. We're also concerned about what kind of person you become when you use it."

Far from knee-jerk technophobes, these are very adaptive techno-selectives who devise remarkable technologies that fit within their self-imposed limits.
The Amish are famously shy. Their commitment to "plain" living is most obvious in their unadorned clothing - Old Order Amish even eschew buttons, requiring humble hooks instead. Any sign of individuality is cause for concern. Until fairly recently, Amish teachers would reprimand the student who raised his or her hand as being too individualistic. Calling attention to oneself, or being "prideful," is one of the cardinal Amish worries. Having your name or photo in the papers, even talking to the press, is almost a sin.

Like most modern Americans, I assume individuality is not only a fundamental value, but a goal in life, an art form. The garish technicolor shirts and hand-painted shoes I usually wear sometimes startle business audiences who show up for my speaking engagements. My reasoning: If I think for myself, why not dress for myself? Dye technology has given us all these colors, so let's use 'em! Still, I didn't want to make my idiosyncrasies the focus of my visit to Amish country. So I bought a plain blue work shirt, dark blue gabardine pants, and brown shoes. I hadn't traveled so drably in many years.

Amos runs a factory of sorts in the vicinity of three memorably named Pennsylvania towns: Bird-in-Hand, Paradise, and Intercourse. The sun was setting as I drove slowly down his unpaved driveway. I found myself inside a tableau that must have looked almost exactly the same 200 years ago. Several men and young boys in identical black trousers, suspenders, and straw hats were operating horse-drawn equipment in the fields beyond. One of Amos's grandsons pointed me to a plain wooden building beside the barn.

The aroma of cows gave way to the pungent smell of diesel fuel and wood chips as I entered the workshop. The whine of a wood-milling machine made it futile to talk. This was not the serene place the words "Amish woodshop" conjure up. My host finished cutting a 12-foot-long plank before we greeted each other. He then lit a kerosene lamp in the small office next to his workshop and invited me in. The office had no modern technology in it, but railroad posters were tacked on the walls, and wooden locomotive models sat on the shelves.

Amos had sawdust and hydraulic fluid in his beard. His blue-gray eyes fastened on me as he bounced back his own questions in reply to my queries. He had received the same eighth-grade education that all Amish youth are given, but it was obvious that Amos did some outside reading. When I asked him to describe his sense of community, he started out, "Hmm, how do you pronounce s-c-e-n-a-r-i-o?"

Amos runs a successful business crafting wooden furniture, which he sells throughout Pennsylvania and beyond - primarily to the "English" (the Amish term for non-Amish). It's a trade more and more Amish are getting into. Inside Amos's home there are no telephones, radios, televisions, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, or other electrical appliances. In his shop, routers, mills, and sanders are powered by specially adapted hydraulic mechanisms connected to a diesel engine located near a large open door, exhausting outside the building.

This was a good case study in Amish reasoning: Far from knee-jerk technophobes, these are very adaptive techno-selectives who devise remarkable technologies that fit within their self-imposed limits. The price of good farmland and the number of Amish families are both increasing so rapidly that in recent decades they have adopted nonagricultural enterprises for livelihood - woodworking, construction, light factory work. This, in turn, has forced the Amish to adopt technologies that can enhance their productivity. And the interface with the English brings its own set of demands: When the State of Pennsylvania refused to certify Amish-produced milk unless it was stirred mechanically and refrigerated according to state health codes, the Amish installed stirring machines and refrigeration - operated by batteries or propane gas.
 

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