Four Fascinating Things About the Amish

Photo by Debra Heaphy (2012)

 

The Old Order Amish [1] are a strange people; Christian traditionalists of Swiss-German origin, they are closely related to the Mennonites with whom they have shared Anabaptist roots in the so-called Radical Reformation of the 16th-century. 

 

For a variety of reasons, many Amish left Europe in the early 1700s for the New World and ended up in Pennsylvania, where they were free to practice their religion and breed (six or seven children still being the norm even now when infant mortality rates have significantly decreased).  

 

They are probably best known for their asceticism and resistance to the modern world and its technological innovations - including what Catweazle called elec-trickery - which they regard as disruptive of a humble lifestyle [2]. 

 

Anyway, here are four things (in no particular order) about the Amish which I find particularly intriguing ...

 

 

1. Amish Children Play With Faceless Dolls

 

Many children - even in non-Amish communities - play with rag dolls. But only Amish children get to play with faceless rag dolls ... 

 

Indeed, one suspects that a lot of non-Amish children (and parents) would find a faceless doll a little creepy; an unworldly inhabitant of the Uncanny Valley. But as someone who hates identity, loves anonymity, and has written extensively on the politics of (losing) the face and becoming-imperceptible [click here and here, for example], I'm fascinated by these soft-bodied objects of American folk art. 

 

Ironically, however, whereas for the Amish these dolls comply with the biblical injunction against graven images and symbolise that God makes no distinction between human beings - we are all his children and all equal in his eyes - for a Deleuzian, such as myself, there could be nothing more anti-Christian than a faceless figure ...  

 

Also ironic is the fact that these simple rag dolls have become highly collectable and authentic antique figures can sell for over a $1000. Naturally, this has led to the manufacture of fake dolls intended to deceive the unwary. 

 

It might also be noted that as commercial tourism has increased over the years, some Amish communities have made faceless dolls for sale in souvenir shops - a development that both surprises and disappoints. For whilst I accept that even the Amish have to make a buck, this commodification of their own culture (and childhood) seems a bit questionable ...      

 

 

2: The Amish Don't Care About Having Good Teeth and a Nice Smile

 

Although some Amish families opt for modern dental care and practice good oral hygiene, many still prefer the old way - i.e., to yank teeth out at the earliest opportunity and make do with dentures. 

 

Not only is extraction the cheaper option - and the Amish reject medical insurance as they do all other forms of financial cover - but some regard it as the option more in keeping with their values (they fear that caring for their teeth will quickly lead to other forms of personal vanity).  

 

Being British, I suppose I'm in no position to knock others for bad teeth - and besides, it's quite a punk thing to not care about having rotten gnashers; how d'you think Johnny got his name?    

 

 

3: The Amish Hate Buttons (Koumpounophobia)

 

The Amish are famous for their plain and simple (some might say minimalist) style of dress: men wear solid coloured shirts, broad-rimmed hats, and plain suits; women wear calf-length dresses in muted colours, along with bonnets and aprons. 

 

The aim is to fit in and look like everyone else; not to express individuality or draw attention to the body. For to take pride in one's appearance is regarded as sinful by the Amish and one of the things that there is fierce disagreement over within their world is the question of fastenings. 

 

Those within the more orthodox Old Order disdain the use of buttons, which are seen as far too flashy and veering dangerously away from the functional towards the ornamental. Instead, they advocate the use of hook and eye fastenings to secure their clothing (or, if needs must, metal snaps). Only the more progressive Mennonites have fancy buttons on their garments ...    

 

The irony here is that whilst they say they don't care about appearance or fashion, the Amish obviously care about even the smallest detail of their dress in a manner which is almost fetishistic. In trying so hard to make themselves look inconspicuous, they succeed only in making themselves more noticeable. 

 

 

4: Teenage Rampage: The Amish Have a Word For It ...

One might assume that Amish parents would be particularly strict with their adolescent offspring. And, by the standards of the English (i.e. the outside world), they are. 

 

But, having said that, they do cut teenagers some slack, allowing behaviour which would almost certainly result in the shunning of an adult. They even have a term for this period of tolerated nonconformity: Rumspringa - a Pennsylvanian German term that means running around, or jumping about, though it should be noted that not all Amish youth choose to rebel against established norms and customs. 

 

Rumspringa is also the time for romance and finding a potential spouse. Boys get to ride around in a small courting-buggy and girls get to paint their yard-gate blue, indicating that they are of marriageable age and affable.      

 

At the end of this de facto rite of passage - and it must be stressed that adolescents are not formally given permission to go wild and still remain under the authority of their parents - a youth must decide whether they wish to be baptised into the Amish church or leave the community; something which would be a major decision to make at any age, let alone sixteen [3].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The term Amish was originally used as an insult or term of disgrace [Schandename] for followers of Jakob Amman who, unhappy with the way things were going within his local church of Anabaptists, decided to break away in 1693. 

      Then, in the latter part of the 19th-century the Amish divided into a hardcore Old Order and a more progressive new group known as the Amish Mennonites. The latter were less concerned about retaining traditional culture at all costs and had no objection to members adapting to the modern world. When most people think of the Amish, they are usually thinking - as I am here - of the Old Order.      

 

[2] Demut (humility) is a key concept for the Amish; one which is founded upon a rejection of Hochmut (self-regard or arrogance). 

      Another important idea is that of Gelassenheit, which we might translate into English as calmness or serenity, but which within the Anabaptist tradition of Christian mysticism also implies a passive submission to the will of God and an acceptance of the way things are; a letting-be, if you want it in more Heideggerian terms (and, of course, Heidegger borrowed this concept of Gelassenheit and absorbed it into his own later thinking). 

      For the Amish, Gelassenheit also entails a yielding of the present to the traditions of the past; their way of life is the antithesis of the modern world's aggressive individualism and obsession with newness and progress. In this way, the Amish are profoundly un-American.      

 

[3] The vast majority - between 85 and 90% - of Amish teenagers do in fact choose to be baptised and remain within their community, so clearly the parents are doing something right and the lifestyle offered has a strong appeal for those reared within it. For those interested in knowing more about this topic, see Tom Shachtman's Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish, (North Point Press, 2006) and/or Richard A. Stevick's book, Growing up Amish: The Teenage Years, (John Hopkins University Press, 2007). See also the documentary dir. Lucy Walker entitled The Devil's Playground (2002): click here to watch an early-stage fundraising reel (there was no official trailer made for the film).

 

Bonus: an amusing clip from episode 3 of Kevin Eldon's BBC Two sketch show - It's Kevin - featuring the Amish Sex Pistols making a mug of an Amish Bill Grundy: click here. The episode aired on 31 March 2013. To watch the sketch alongside the original interview with Johnny Rotten and friends from December 1976: click here.     

 

 

What Big Teeth You Have: Notes on D. H. Lawrence and Dental Morphology

The kind of woman D. H. Lawence dreams of ...
Emmanuelle Vaugier as Madison in the hit 
American TV series Supernatural [S2/E17] 

I.

If you ask your dentist about teeth, they'll probably bore on about the different types (incisors, canines, and molars), what their function is (to cut, tear, and crush items of food), where they're located (upper and lower jaws), what they're made of (enamel, dentin, cementum, and pulp) and why it's important for our health and wellbeing to take care of our teeth and gums (prone as they are to decay and disease). 

Perhaps, if they really know their stuff, your dentist might even give you an insight into the evolutionary history of hominid teeth and their changing morphology. But mostly they'll just want you to upgrade your dental plan or agree to another series of X-rays.  

II.

Ask D. H. Lawrence about teeth, however, and you'll get a very different kind of answer. For although Lawrence wasn't a dentist - he's primarily remembered today (if at all) as a novelist and poet - he did have a fascination with teeth as the instruments of our sensual will.

What does that mean?

It means that their development is controlled from the two great sensual centres below the diaphragm; particularly the voluntary centre: "The growth and the life of the teeth depends almost entirely on the lumbar ganglion."

I don't know if that's true or not and don't really care. What interests me more - and what does have basis in scientific fact - is Lawrence's claim that the mouths of modern human beings have become smaller than those of their primal ancestors:

"For many ages we have been suppressing the [...] sensual will [... and] converting ourselves into ideal creatures, all spiritually conscious, and active dynamically only on one plane, the upper, spiritual plane. Our mouth has contracted, our teeth have become soft and unquickened."

Worse, they give us trouble all the time and many people end up having to wear false teeth - a sure sign for Lawrence of an individual who is "spirit-rotten and idea-rotten". In other words, dentures indicate degeneracy.

Perhaps not surprisingly to those who are familiar with his work, Lawrence also relates his dental philosophy to his thinking on race and ethnicity; it is white people who have no room in their little pinched mouths for the healthy teeth possessed by negroes.

The dark-skinned races have wisely resisted the urge to forfeit their flashing sensual power and submit to the self-conscious love-ideal. Lawrence envies them their strong, resistant teeth - as he does their fullness of lips and thickness of nose; these things being indicative to him of the sensual-sympathetic mode of consciousness and the primary centre from which an individual or a people live.

Lawrence being Lawrence, however, he doesn't stop here. Ultimately, even black people don't quite have the gnashers he lycanthropically fantasises: "Where [...] are the sharp and vivid teeth of the wolf, keen to defend and devour?"

Only if we possessed the large teeth of predators - including 2" fangs - would men and women find happiness, says Lawrence.

See: D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 99-100.