The Amish are thriving in the twenty-first century despite their rejection of many contemporary values. From a meager band of 5,000 in 1900, they have blossomed to more than 180,000. Indeed, they are doubling about every twenty years. How do a tradition-laden people manage to flourish in a postmodern era? That enchanting riddle inspires this story. Apart from the big puzzle of Amish survival, smaller Amish riddles baffle us as well. Why, for example, do the Amish freely ride in cars but refuse to drive them? And why, pray tell, are tractors used at the barn but not in the field? Moreover, why would God smile on rollerblades but not on bicycles?
When the Amish look at contemporary society, they are equally perplexed by the riddles of “progress.” Why, they wonder, do civilized people deposit their aging parents in retirement centers, isolated from children and grandchildren? Why do professionals move around the country in pursuit of jobs, leaving family and neighbors behind? And, why do suburbanites sit on riding mowers to cut their lawns and then go to a fitness center for exercise? Each culture, to be sure, has its own set of riddles.
This book initiates a conversation between the riddles on both sides of the cultural fence. Such a dialogue not only explores the riddles of Amish culture but also prods us to ponder the puzzles of our own society. In this sense, the following pages are both a venture in cultural analysis, that is, an attempt to understand the dynamics of Amish society, and an exercise in social criticism—a reflective critique of contemporary culture. I hope these conversations across the cultural fence will help us understand both the Amish and ourselves in new and better ways.
Social scientists seek to maintain an objective, neutral stance when they analyze human societies. Yet social analysis always involves interpretation and judgment. In many ways it resembles storytelling. Creating a narrative from interviews and historical documents involves selection, omission, interpretation, emphasis, and embellishment. Stories have limits; certain fragments must be snipped. Some episodes are enriched by the yarn teller to underscore a theme or the teller’s special interest. And stories, of course, have a slant. They are told from a perspective—a particular vantage point.
The setting for this story is Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, home of the oldest surviving Amish settlement in the world. In addition to its age, the Lancaster Amish community holds several other distinctions. It is the world’s most densely populated Amish settlement, hosting the largest group of Amish who share similar religious practices. Moreover, it rests on the fringe of the urban sprawl in the eastern megalopolis—a region undergoing rapid suburbanization. These factors make Lancaster County an ideal setting to explore the Amish encounter with mainstream culture in the twenty-first century. The details of Amish practice vary from settlement to settlement across North America, but the basic values described in this book are widely shared in other Amish communities as well. In general, the Lancaster Amish tend to use more advanced technology than their ethnic cousins in some of the other North American settlements.
I have chosen to tell the Amish story for several reasons. First, it is a fascinating tale of a traditional people navigating their way through the swirling rapids of modern life. The outcome of their journey over the last century was perilous at every turn. This book introduces the basic features of Amish culture and charts their intriguing voyage in the context of the larger society in recent years.
Second, Amish culture is easily misunderstood. Despite inordinate publicity, misunderstandings of Amish life abound. We applaud them for caring for their elderly but are bewildered by their rejection of telephones in their homes. We will discover that many of their perplexing puzzles are reasonable solutions to the problems faced by a traditional group in the throes of social change. Putting the puzzles together will also help us solve the larger riddle of how they manage to thrive in a postmodern age.
Third, the Amish story clarifies the contemporary story—our story—in a new way. Venturing across the fence that separates the two cultures allows us to glance back and see our own society from a different angle. In the same way that learning a foreign language teaches us the grammar of our native tongue, so an excursion into Amish society informs us about our own culture. In short, exploring the Amish story enables us to understand our own story better.
And indeed, we have much to learn from the Amish and the wisdom in their reservoir of experience. They remind us that there are other ways to organize social life. They have coped with progress in radically different ways than has the broader society. And in the process, they have distilled some insights that can enlighten those of us swimming in the mainstream of contemporary culture.
This book is a comprehensive revision and updating of the first edition, published in 1989. The Amish community has changed in many ways over the fifteen years since the fieldwork was done for the first edition. I have gathered new information on nearly nine hundred people and have updated all the demographic and historical data. The text has been lightly reorganized and carefully rewritten, line for line, word by word. Chapter 6 is a new chapter that explores the ways in which Amish society creates social capital to address individual needs and the broader welfare of their community. The research methods and data sources for the investigation are described in Appendix A.
Although this book provides an introduction to Amish culture, it is not a comprehensive study of Amish life. I have focused on those aspects of Amish society that are particularly relevant to solving the riddle of their growth and success. Topics such as courtship, weddings, funerals, foods, crafts, health, and medicine are treated lightly or not at all. Sources in the Select References will aid those who want to pursue such topics in depth.
Finally, a word on writing style. As much as possible, I have dispensed with technical sociological jargon. In some instances, I have used German words that are basic to understanding Amish culture and I discuss some theoretical and technical issues in the Notes. Because they speak a German dialect, the Amish typically refer to non-Amish people as English. However, for stylistic consistency and clarity, I have used the terms outsiders, non-Amish, and Moderns to refer to those of us living on the contemporary side of the cultural gap.
The term Modern begs for clarification. In many ways the larger society is moving toward what many observers are calling a postmodern era. However, the exact distinction between modern and postmodern social organization is still emerging because these changes reflect long-term shifts in values and patterns of social life. Despite the movement toward a postmodern era, the Amish struggle has focused on issues prompted by modernity—individualism, formal education, industrialization, and mass media. Thus, I use the word Moderns as a broad label to refer to non-Amish people who have been shaped by contemporary culture. I also use the term modern to refer to contemporary forms of culture and social organization in American society.
Modernity, of course, means ‘the state of being modern.’ I use the term modernity in two ways throughout the text: to describe the historic changes produced by the Age of Enlightenment, and as a descriptor of contemporary society. I use these slippery terms, not in opposition to postmodern, but as a convenient label for contemporary culture and society, and I trust that their meaning will be clear in the context of their use.