Useful Notes / Amish

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The Amish are a unique people, almost as well-described as a monastic order as a denomination. They are often featured in fiction because their seemingly idyllic lifestyle attracts Wish Fulfillment.

The Amish are a Christian denomination, originally a subsect of the Mennonites who were in turn a subsect of the Anabaptists.^note Or "re-baptizers," because they re-baptized adult converts who had been baptized as infants in the Catholic church or in very early Protestant churches that still practiced infant baptism. Children born into the Amish tradition then and now are not baptized as infants, but only when they make their own profession of faith. The name "Amish" refers to Jakab Ammann their founder. The original Amish were ethnic Germans and to this day they mostly speak a variety of Rhenish/Palatinate West Central German, usually called Pennsylvania German, as their first language, though a small community in Indiana speaks Alemannic Swiss German instead, though communities in North America will speak English as well as that is needed for talking to "The English" (their catch-all term for outsiders, regardless of ethnicity). They generally use an archaic form of Standard High German (Hochdeitsch in Pennsylvania German) for church services. They call themselves "Plain Folk" because of the studied plainness of their lifestyle.

The Amish left Germany in the 18th century when Europe was not really a good place for a small and pacifistic sect to live. They settled in what would become the United States at the invite of William Penn, and to this day Pennsylvania is the center of their culture; there are Amish communities scattered all over the Keystone State, though the largest is centered in Lancaster County (with some extensions into neighboring Lebanon and Berks Counties). (This is largely because that part of Pennsylvania has ludicrously rich soil for crops—the richest in the United States outside the Mississippi Valley—making building an agrarian community that much easier.) There are also large populations in Ohio and Indiana. By now, there are almost no Amish in Europe. While there are Amish communities in Canada and a small few in Latin America, over 98% of them live in the US.

Amish beliefs emphasize nonviolence, humility, and community. Their famously deliberate archaism reflects that. New innovations are suspiciously examined as to whether they would harm this, and though their criteria for deciding can seem opaque to outsiders, they tend to have explanations that make sense to them. For instance, cars are almost universally eschewed, as their speed encourages their owners to go far from home, while the horse and buggy limits how far you can go. Similarly, buying electricity from the public grid encourages dependence on and creates a physical link from your house or business to the outside world, and is therefore forbidden, but having a solar panel on your house or shop and using that to power items in the home does not, and might be permitted, depending on the community. (Also, leasing part of your land to the local electric utility to put up a power pole is pretty much universally OK—the Amish do not frown upon taking business opportunities that require nothing of you other than losing a few dozen square feet of farmland.) The Amish also do not make a big fuss when their hands are forced; certain communities have allowed their members to buy farm insurance (historically forbidden as being too much like gambling) when the banks started insisting on it as a condition for taking out a mortgage, or to allow members to hook themselves up to the public sewer system where required by law (fairly common in Pennsylvania). Indeed, in Pennsylvania, newly-built Amish homes all have a connection to the public electric grid, which is required by state law (on the theory that the house might later be sold to an "English" family—which is true enough); the family just never turns the service on.

Church organization is minimal, and instead of holding services in a Church building, they rotate between the houses—or sometimes barns—of congregants. They bury their dead on the family farm, not in centralized cemeteries. Also worth noting is that for all their reputation as severe Christians, they mostly do not hold severe views on what might be called "simple vices" like alcohol and tobacco; most communities are fine with intoxicants. (A major exception is the "New Order" Amish of Indiana and Ohio, which split in the 1960s because they wanted less stringency on technology and more stringency on clean living.) On the alcohol specifically, it's important to remember that the Amish are a German ethnoreligious group, and German culture and beer (and wine, to a lesser extent) historically go hand in hand. As for the tobacco—the Lancaster community grows tobacco,^note It's mostly used in cheap cigars so they'd be pretty hypocritical to decry consuming it. The Amish also historically had links to the large Pennsylvania industry in rye whiskey, mainly as suppliers of rye, though presumably they bought some whiskey too.

Amish are usually thought of as farmers. But they are also known for their fine crafts, which sell at gift shops. In recent times, their image has been made famous and slightly commercialized, and cookbooks, antiques, and other Macguffins connected to their culture sell well.

See Space Amish for where writers take an Amish-like community and transplant it to a more fantastic environment.

Tropes Commonly Associated with the Amish in Fiction:

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: There are many jokes about Amish electricians not existing, but in truth, they actually do exist, they simply won’t install electric wiring in their own buildings if they can do without it.
• Arcadia: That is their image.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: At least the faces of Amish women on the covers of romance novels seem to indicate it.
• Christian Fiction: Novels about the Amish, especially romances, are common in Christian fiction. However, the Amish rarely write fiction about themselves and these novels are mostly written by non-Amish, evangelical Christians. As such, they often get various cultural and theological details wrong.
• Christianity Is Catholic: An Amish variant. When you see the Amish in media, they will almost always be Old Order Amish rather than any of the other sects. There is variability. Some have rules allowing flower-print dresses, others prohibit that decadence.
• Fate Worse than Death: The ultimate punishment among Amish is "Shunning" (silent treatment) by the whole village. For someone brought up in such a community-based culture, being cast out and ignored by said community can turn into this trope. The Values Dissonance involved in the shunning process often gets a lot of attention in fiction and public consciousness, to the point that shunning tends to be the next thing an outsider knows about the Amish after "they don't use electricity."
• Hair as Cultural Identity:
  • Amish men allow their beards to grow upon getting married. They believe they must have full beards because God wants them to and it would be a sin to shave them. They invert 'Stache of Duty by shaving their mustaches as a declaration of pacifism—though they weirdly end up having a very similar facial hairstyle to Salafi Muslims (who hold that the Prophet sported a long beard and no mustache), some of whom are surprisingly similar to the Amish in being pacific, archaic, and politically quietist and some of whom are, um, literal terrorists. Amish women and girls also believe that hair is sacred and represents a devotion to God.
  • The Bergholz Community became famous in 2011 for attacking other Amish communities by shaving their beards and cutting their hair. The act was so severe that the perpetrators were convicted of committing a federal hate crime when they were taken to court.
• Initiation Ceremony: Rumspringa^note German for "running around"; it is more accurately translated as "jumping around". is the rite of passage into adulthood. In it, Amish youth are given the choice to be baptized (the Amish, like other Anabaptists, don’t practice infant baptism), which about evenly-split Amish youth until a few decades ago, but which now over 90% accept. The popular idea that it gives Amish youth free rein to disregard their community’s norms is not correct, although some young people do rebel. It is also supposed to be a time for socializing with other Amish youth and starting to date a person of the opposite sex, and thus their parents would rather they not be rulebreakers.
• Ludd Was Right: Zig-Zagged. Almost all media portrayals of the Amish portray them as completely shunning anything more advanced than a pulley. Despite media portrayals, it's not unusual to see Amish using cell phones for business purposes or riding in (but not owning or driving) motor vehicles, and motorized tractors and other farm equipment are quite common. The Amish are not opposed to technology purely for its own sake. Their philosophy stresses self-reliance; so any technology that relies too heavily upon the outside world (i.e., electrical appliances that depend upon the municipal power grid) are not acceptable. In a similar vein, they do not pay into, or accept payments from, the Social Security Administration.
• Manly Facial Hair: One common (though not truly universal) practice among Amish men is not shaving, with the belief being that men were created by God to grow beards, and that shaving them off would be a sin, especially after marriage. The Bergholz Clan became infamous in 2011 where — after being widely condemned by the Amish community for their unusual and draconian standards — several members broke into the homes of former members or Amish critics to shave off their beards, which resulted in those involved being charged with federal hate crimes.
• The Missionary: Averted for the Old Order Amish. They frown on evangelism for fostering a Holier Than Thou attitude. New Order Amish do not have these reservations.
• Rail Enthusiast: The Amish are huge fans of Amtrak for long-distance travel, as they don't drive and they generally view flying as an unnecessary luxury (barring a medical emergency) and the epitome of "English" worldliness.
• Romance Novel: Romance novels set in Amish communities are highly popular, especially among evangelical Christian women, as they take place in an exotic culture that is still Christian and American.
• Schizo Tech: Each Amish community decides independently what is and isn't allowed. It should be noted that it's not necessarily the technology they shun, but rather the electricity from (and dependence on) the outside world. Most Amish sects are fine with using batteries or producing electricity with in-house diesel generators or solar panels.
  • Even the strictest communities will go to modern hospitals when necessary and allow vital medical equipment into their homes, such as an oxygen tank or CPAP machine, since preserving a life takes priority over following every rule to the letter. If it requires electricity, they'll find a way. In fact, they take a dim view of religious sects that would rather let people die of treatable illnesses than make full use of modern medicine, considering that the height of arrogance.
  • If they own a telephone, it'll be for practical rather than social reasons and are often set up in a way so that they can receive calls but not send them, or only to and from certain numbers (like 911), or they are placed in a location that doesn't make them convenient to use, like the basement or an outbuilding. The idea is that someone may be tempted to just call their friends and family all the time instead of visiting them, or waste time gossiping that could be used for other, more important tasks. Placing the phone in an inconvenient location and/or restricting its use removes that temptation.
  • Horse buggies are often equipped with electric lights and reflectors similar to modern automobiles for safety reasons. The focus is on their practicality rather than vanity.
  • Some larger Amish businesses may have a telephone, an internet-connected computer to keep track of inventory and orders, electric refrigeration for food, and possibly a credit card reader for customers, but these things would be kept in the actual business place, not in someone's home, and only used for business purposes. (Good places to see these are the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia and the Central Market in Lancaster, where members of the Lancaster Amish community sell their wares.)
  • In very recent years, some Amish groups have begun to embrace electric bicycles. They're much faster than horses and buggies, and can be charged completely off-grid via solar panels.