/lit/ - Literature

This section on the Amish is of interests to the traditionalists and durganites who like to post here
>I am borrowing the word 'frontier' for this chapter, but these are places not so distant nor are they border regions. They are near modern cities. By 'frontiers' I mean areas where Amish people live. The Amish are a strange group. Their mean feature is the rejection of modernization, which is incompatible with advanced and developed science and technology, and they still maintain the traditional lifestyle of the 17th and 18 centuries. This is an interesting historical phenomenon. The modernization of western society has attracted and impacted the whole world, but it has not impacted the Amish people in front of us.

>Not far from Iowa City, about ten minutes by car, there is an Amish residential area called Kalona. With the questions I mentioned above, I came to this place. Just before entering Kalona, you can see 17th and 18th-century style carriages, horse-drawn buggies, and Amish people in black clothes. The highway here is also specially designed, and carriage lines are defined on the sides of the highway. Because Amish people do not accept modern cars, they have to ride a carriage. The relevant government departments took a lot of effort to convince them that the carriage was very dangerous on the highway. They were required to install a striking red sign behind the carriage to remind the drivers to pay attention.

>Over the years, despite the different changes in Amish society, the basic spirit of this group has not changed much. It is strange: why have such a powerful modern civilization failed to influence and transform them? Didn't Western civilization impact many very distant peoples?

>With this question in mind, I interviewed a writer living in Kolona called John M. Zielinski. He wrote a book called The Amish Across America. He replied: "Imagine a person who grew up in such an environment from an early age and received such a strict education from an early age. It is not easy for him to abandon some ideas. Also? Amish have no higher education and are not engaged in modern work skills, their training is hard work. They feel safest here." I think the last sentence is the most fundamental accumulated wisdom of the Amish. "On the other hand, the US Constitution guarantees them this right, and the government cannot force them to change their way of life and religion."