Last
week I told you how I went on holiday to rural Indiana and the mind-boggling
first impressions of the town of Warsaw with its Trump bumper stickers and school
playground used as a somewhat heavy-handed anti-abortion protest.
But
even though I can’t imagine something like that existing in the UK, it was not
representative of the town, which was full of lovely, friendly people who loved
our accents and made us welcome.
Though
of course they might just have liked us because we were in the company of our
unaborted child.
That
one Catholic school did not represent the state, even if it made a helluva
first impression. A very different impression of Indiana comes from its large
Amish community. We went to visit Amish Acres, Historic Farm and Heritage Centre
to see how these often-mocked people really live.
To
be honest, I am one of the people who has mocked them (though affectionately). Back in the 90s on the BBC2 show, Fist of Fun,
we did a sketch about a group who liked the Amish style, but disliked not being
able to use more recent technology. So they set up their own branch whose cut
off point was 1981 (arguing it was only after that date that really modern
things began to be invented). It was obviously an excuse to do lots of mildly
cheap bits of nostalgia comedy about Kerplunk and space hoppers, but it also
made a good point about the arbitrary nature of deciding what counted as
“modern” and what was “traditional”.
In
reality the Amish do struggle with working out what is old and new and how to
interact with the modern world. Bicycles used to be forbidden, but now they are
allowed (because they are not that modern now?) and some Amish businesses
require a phone, but they tend to locate them in an inconvenient place on the
edge of their farm so they are difficult and troublesome to use.
What’s
really fascinating is to to see a community existing in a country that likes to
think of itself as a melting pot, who refuse to melt in. It’s like a foreign
country within a foreign country. It makes you realise that rather than other
people being strange, we’re all strange. We just accept our own way of life as
normal, not realising how crazy we seem to outsiders. Let’s face of it, we all
adhere to some past laws and traditions, even if those rules were written for people living in very different
circumstances.
The
Amish have stayed mostly true to their forebears against all the temptations of
the modern world. They don’t have buttons (except occasionally) or moustaches
because their ancestors in Germany were persecuted by men with big brass
buttons and extravagant moustaches. It seems odd to blame the buttons and the
moustaches, but then people seem to let moustaches take the blame for loads of
stuff as I discussed in my stand up show “Hitler Moustache”.
The
Amish don’t have insurance because they see that as a form of gambling and
anything that happens is God’s will. Which to the rest of us seems crazy. But
if something bad happens, the Amish come together and rebuild burned barns or
earn money for medical procedures via bake sales. How the Amish must laugh at our
lack of community.
Humans generally like a list of rules that they have
to abide by, regardless of how the world has changed (Second Amendment anyone?).
The Amish aren’t hurting anyone else with their decision to stick to rigid
ancient laws. Which is a rarity.
I really enjoyed historian
Kate Williams (@KateWilliamsme) “live”
tweeting the events of the Great Fire of London. It really brought home the
scale, the loss and how surprisingly long the fire burned. I started to
question whether it might still be going. It would certainly explain why London
traffic is so bad. I am going to bury my parmesan in my garden just in case. If
you don’t get the reference, read Kate’s timeline!
