Amish wisdom
From Uncle Wendell’s latest:
Since his return, Andy has lived his story and his family’s in that place for sixty years. The place as it was when he returned is no more. It is now, to him, a strange country with a familiar story surviving in it. Port William’s fatal mistake was its failure to value itself at the rate of its affection for itself. Gradually, it had learned to value itself as outsiders—as the nation–valued it: as a “no-where place,” a place at the end of the wrong direction. So far as Andy has learned, the Old Order Amish, alone in all the country, have had the wisdom–the divine wisdom, it may be—to give to their own communities a value always primary and preserved by themselves.
Kingsnorth also talks about taking the Amish as your lodestones. We have a few significant Amish settlements around here; seeing them around and buying their goods is not unusual. It is a bit surprising how far they travel in their buggies to sell their goods; the idea of them as purely settled, never venturing far outside their community, is not quite reality around here. (It brings to mind Kingsnorth’s lament about smartphones on Mt. Athos.)
But it bears repeating–and is crucial as we imagine some future beyond the current situation–that the Amish have developed the essential insight that the adoption of technology must be aligned with the maintenance of their community. Each community is different in what it allows, and the decision is ultimately up to the bishop. In every decision, however, the preservation of the community is paramount.
The market economy, built as it is on dissatisfaction, will inevitably destroy every community.
How will all of this turn out. Is it the ending of a world? Or will something like the old “normal” return in a few years? I don’t know and I don’t think anyone does. In the meantime, I’m going to work on gratitude and satisfaction with what is at hand.
