It is surprising and perhaps amusing how much space Patrick Deneen devotes to the Amish in his recent book, Why Liberalism Failed. It is an unusually concise work (around 200 pages) considering that it delves into the unusually weighty topic of government systems. I did not expect to find several pages about that rural, isolated ethnicity into which I was born, and yet Deneen highlights them multiple times.
For two reasons, I think. First, the Amish promote strong culture and Deneen sees “thick” cultural practices as the best antidote to the negative aspects of liberalism. I have no critique to offer on that front; arguably no other people group in the modern West have more collective habits and distinctive practices than the Amish, in everything from their music to their clothing to their marriage ceremonies.
Second, Deneen points to the Amish as having an exemplary understanding of the limits of what humans may and may not engage in. And this is where I might beg to differ, not because I have a vendetta, I hope, but because it does not match my experience as someone from an Amish background.
But first let me just say that I get it. I can see that for an academic looking on, the Amish, in their refusal to avoid certain technologies, would appear that they arrived at their position through deep philosophical wrestling, that everything is done in the interest of community flourishing.
Indeed, it is tragic that so few other people acknowledged the impossibility of the living standards promised by the Industrial Revolution–the god-like and limitless consumption of everything from transportation to fast fashion to commercialized entertainment to decadent and calorie-laden diets. And if the whole world had gone Amish in the 1850s, we almost certainly would not be staring in panic at the existential threat that is human-caused climate change.
I feel grateful and a little proud that the modern West has the case study of the Amish to compare notes with, and Deneen is right to do so. For him, the Amish stand in contrast to both major political parties in America, both of whom he considers liberals because they both fail to acknowledge limits. According to Deneen, Republicans often rape the earth’s natural resources and refuse even to entertain the idea of setting limits on the free market, while Democrats increasingly deny the limits and God-ordained order in matters of human sexuality and the body.
Yet in the end, it is clear that Deneen writes as someone who has not actually lived among the Amish. He is a detached academic who is surveying the Amish in purely platonic terms. (Not to mention that he thinks, quite erroneously, that all Amish are forced into Rumspringa and thus all of them make an informed choice when they stay in the culture.) In my experience, which is limited and fallibly interpreted, far too many Amish and conservative Mennonites hold a death-grip on their rules for less noble reasons. Very often, it is a worldview borne not out of human flourishing, but a refusal to grow and be challenged. In short, two factors are at play:
- They are afraid.
- Arrogance has blurred their vision.
First, regarding fear, it is not uncommon for Plain Anabaptist groups, i.e. the Amish and traditional Mennonites, to communicate to their members that they will suffer eternal damnation if they leave the community. Depending on the specific community, this is done explicitly (you will go to hell if you leave) or implicitly (your relational status with us will change fundamentally if you leave). And if you don’t go off the rails, such is the dominant message, your children almost certainly will. The slippery-slope fallacy features heavily in the continuance of Amish culture.
Second, perhaps through no fault of their own, Plain Anabaptists have had their egos stroked over multiple generations: you are so hardworking; you have such quiet, well-behaved children; you are financially self-reliant. And that is all true. However, the problem is that almost nobody within the Amish communities is writing reflectively about the Amish experience. Most thoughtful analysis of the Amish comes externally from academics like Deneen, and as a result there is a dearth of critical analysis of the dysfunction among the Amish. And dysfunction is not unique to the Amish. But like all of us, they are only human, so things are bound to get messy. Unfortunately, repeatedly denying that messiness can only lead to toxicity.
Again, I am in full agreement with Deneen’s decision to include the Amish in his discussion on the shortcomings of liberal democracy. But although he includes a token disclaimer to clarify that he is not necessarily promoting the Amish lifestyle, he should have painted a more realistic picture. The fear-based and sectarian aspects of the Amish are antithetical to human flourishing.
Global poverty would not have decreased anywhere nearly as dramatically as it did had everyone sat around quibbling about dress patterns and acceptable colours for houses. The average life-expectancy would not have increased two-fold if unyielding leaders around the world had forbidden their young people from attending college.
Here then, is what I wish Deneen had acknowledged, at least briefly: not only that the unmoored parts of liberalism could take a lesson from the Amish, who are rooted in simple and sustainable rhythms of soil and local community, but also that the Amish, by learning from the better aspects of liberalism, could become people who reflect, ask questions, and validate the humanity of all individuals.
Liberalism did fail. But prior to WWI, it was winning. Monarchies and religious systems of meaning were winding down, and liberalism appeared to be the obvious successor. When something that appears promising and positive suddenly goes off the rails, the natural question is, what happened? I would trace it back to the first war and the Bolshevik revolution. If they Russians hadn’t let themselves be tricked and had been better led in the first place, we wouldn’t be where we are – and where we are is someone in England who criticises the British military in Iraq falls foul of one of the endless illegal speech statutes, and gets a conviction, and if he’s lucky suspended sentence. USA is still hanging in there, but the writing is on the wall. Japan maybe. The transition from monarchy and traditional Christianity to liberalism was going smoothly until 1914 – liberalism kept up in USA until well after WWII.
I do not see Old Order Amish as a religious group really. I see them as a functional ethnic group. And apart from being a high commitment group, and the familial connections, I don’t really see them having much in common with many of their modernised car driving descendants. Beachy Amish look to me like Evangelical fundamentalist protestants just with way more stability and not willing to please the crowd on the divorce thing as they’re not reliant on the crowd’s tithes. The Amish I found sincere and pleasant, and not preoccupied with religion. Some of the car driving groups it seemed very different, it was a bit like some Southern Baptist preacher secretly taking way too much meth had somehow gotten into the ear of these Amish people’s teenage children and given them lots of weird, weird ideas. Now usually it didn’t spoil the person and they were also lovely, because the Amish familial tradition swamped the weird, weird ideas the methhead Southern Baptist had gleefully spread into the impressionable mind. But when the weird ideas dominated, yeah, no need to go see the Amish to see what it did to the person, just pick nearest fundamentalist power preacher.
Thing with the Amish is not only how intensely communally supportive it is, and it’s equal first with many others clearly, but also the absence of malice towards outgroups. From what I’ve seen of close-knit groups, that’s actually rare. The thing is, if you accept and enjoy the protection of the state, but don’t contribute to the forceful preservation of the state, well uh, yeah, we’ve got a little problem now.