I was just cruising around on the customer reviews on Amazon.com of "Amish Grace" by Kraybill, Nolt, and Zercher. Just in case you're wondering, if you're hoping to find a critical review, there's none there. Is there any other social scientist who has achieved the stature and prestige that Kraybill has achieved as an authority in his field with as little critical peer review? I mean, Kraybill's not just some huckster who makes shit up for popular consumption, right? The credibility of science depends on serious peer review, not just writing style and format, but subject.
crickets chirping......
Haven't heard of any independent review of the Nickel Mines school shooting either. Think about this for a minute; there are six people dead, five victims, one perpetrator. Five more were wounded, one of those is greiveously disabled and you're telling me the police are not going to be required to give an account to the public about whether this incident was handled appropriately? More importantly, the public isn't going to demand that this incident is examined by qualified people for lessons learned or flaws in the enacted protocol?
Seems like my homies are getting the short end of the stick here.
No shortage of adulation for them about the forgiveness schtick though. Yea, that's right I said schtick. If they wanted to practice loving their enemy the time to do it would have been to not call the police, but to join the girl who said "shoot me first".
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
TO CRITIQUE, OR NOT
Everybody is a critic, but I think it's inappropriate for the Amish to take a swipe at the non-Amish. Doesn't their faith demand of them to be like "strangers in a foreign land"? Isn't the Amish interpretation of the separate and apart dictum a critique in it's self? So when they act out this double jeopardy scenario, what happens to the integrity of their original commitment to be Amish? What about the irony of their participation in the privileges of a free and open society, when their own culture doesn't condone the kind of criticism from within, that they're directing at the non-Amish?
Their partisan involvement in the 04 election evoked another double jeopardy scenario. Voting wasn't the problem. Allowing themselves to become partisan props was the culprit. My concern is that there isn't any push back from the non-Amish, why aren't they held accountable? If the blogger I linked too would've confronted the Amish carpenter on the spot (why is the guy building high end homes if he thinks it's so terrible, who is the money gruber)? about the issues I raised and reported on the conversation that followed, not only would've he had a story, he would've done the Amish and the non-Amish a service.
Their partisan involvement in the 04 election evoked another double jeopardy scenario. Voting wasn't the problem. Allowing themselves to become partisan props was the culprit. My concern is that there isn't any push back from the non-Amish, why aren't they held accountable? If the blogger I linked too would've confronted the Amish carpenter on the spot (why is the guy building high end homes if he thinks it's so terrible, who is the money gruber)? about the issues I raised and reported on the conversation that followed, not only would've he had a story, he would've done the Amish and the non-Amish a service.
Friday, January 4, 2008
VICIOUS BASTARDS
I've complained about the inhumane tactics used by fundamentalist Christians when they're proselytizing the Amish. The Amish are capable of being every bit as vile when it comes to religious warfare. I recently had a conversation with an acquaintance who left the Amish about forty years ago. He recently attended his brother in law's funeral who was Old Order Amish. The minister doing the service delivered a blistering message damning wayward members and after the service a family member publicly accosted him for his lapsed membership in a demeaning fashion. By any rational assessment my acquaintance is a dedicated, committed Christian, I don't have any sworn testimony, but I bet a lot of folks think he's a fine human being. I could understand if they couldn't refrain from stepping up the vitriol for a heathen like myself, but damn, that shit ain't right!
Monday, December 31, 2007
THUMBING THEIR NOSE
From the New Era
Amish taxis get close look from state PUCIs this more of that indifference? The Amish regulate their own adherants, down to an exact measurement of the size of their hat brim, why can't they be more conscientious about our rules?
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
SOCIAL DELEMMAS
The Amish don't benefit from literature and film in the way the rest of society does because their issues are not examined. Example..... Witness was about the problems of a big city cop. The Amish were just props. Sure, the Amish were portrayed well, but what if Peter Maas' only tried to portray NYC well when he wrote Serpico. I'm not suggesting that there is corruption among the Amish in need of an expose. But that there's a lack of awareness about the consequences of exempting oneself from the evolution of thought that has occurred in western culture as a whole. Their position on tobacco and the havoc created by it, is an example of their inability to resolve a moral dilemma with an intellectual competence equivalent to the contemporary thought, most of us take for granted.
Today's medical science leaves no wiggle room on whether tobacco is a benign substance. The Amish church's failure to define their doctrine to respect that fact is a grotesque error suggestive of centuries old thought. It's the formal position that's important for the argument I'm making, ie; failure of members to conform to church doctrine isn't as damaging as an indefensible doctrine. It's this Dark Age mentality that contributes to the ugly turf wars that frequently plague Amish society. It also leaves Amish adherents vulnerable to proselytizing that is little more than what could be expected from Dark Age barbarians.
As a child I watched my older brother dramatically withdraw from our family, in large part because of an encounter he had with a neighbor, who managed to persuade him of the inferiority of our family's faith and way of life. ( How, "four centuries ago." )The irony is, we were Amish. The same people who are currently revered world wide for how they dealt with a horrible tragedy in one of their schools. And yet, it is very likely my thirteen year old brother was told that if he doesn't reject and Dis-associate from most of what my family was and did, he would burn in hell for all eternity.
Today's medical science leaves no wiggle room on whether tobacco is a benign substance. The Amish church's failure to define their doctrine to respect that fact is a grotesque error suggestive of centuries old thought. It's the formal position that's important for the argument I'm making, ie; failure of members to conform to church doctrine isn't as damaging as an indefensible doctrine. It's this Dark Age mentality that contributes to the ugly turf wars that frequently plague Amish society. It also leaves Amish adherents vulnerable to proselytizing that is little more than what could be expected from Dark Age barbarians.
As a child I watched my older brother dramatically withdraw from our family, in large part because of an encounter he had with a neighbor, who managed to persuade him of the inferiority of our family's faith and way of life. ( How, "four centuries ago." )The irony is, we were Amish. The same people who are currently revered world wide for how they dealt with a horrible tragedy in one of their schools. And yet, it is very likely my thirteen year old brother was told that if he doesn't reject and Dis-associate from most of what my family was and did, he would burn in hell for all eternity.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
INDIFFERENCE
From the Sunday News
The Amish promote an anti citizenship ideology, that's going to hit the fan at some point. Puppy mills are a good example, the reason they're as big of a problem as they are is because the Amish are so defiant of the law and popular sentiment. This indifference and general F U attitude has a way of getting turned back on them. During my sons' junior year in high-school at a school assembly called to celebrate a successful fund-raising event, faculty divided into two teams and competed to guess the most popular responses to survey questions solicited from the student body prior to the event. The third most popular response to the question, "what's the worst thing about Lancaster county?" was "the Amish". When the teams of faculty faltered in guessing the correct response, the students prompted them, shouting from the bleachers "the Amish, the Amish". My sons Amish identity aside, the failure of the faculty and students who organized the event to recognize how inappropriate that response was going to be as a part of the event was bad, but it's not nearly as damning as the fact that an event like that could occur and nobody stepped forward to mitigate it and to clarify that it was not a view school officials wanted to promote. When I called the school to complain the principal denied any wrong doing had occurred.
Amish plow a new field as city landlords
Though Stoltzfus is generally diligent about maintaining his units, housing
inspector supervisor Butch Vega noted, "When we have a problem with him, we have
a problem."
The Amish promote an anti citizenship ideology, that's going to hit the fan at some point. Puppy mills are a good example, the reason they're as big of a problem as they are is because the Amish are so defiant of the law and popular sentiment. This indifference and general F U attitude has a way of getting turned back on them. During my sons' junior year in high-school at a school assembly called to celebrate a successful fund-raising event, faculty divided into two teams and competed to guess the most popular responses to survey questions solicited from the student body prior to the event. The third most popular response to the question, "what's the worst thing about Lancaster county?" was "the Amish". When the teams of faculty faltered in guessing the correct response, the students prompted them, shouting from the bleachers "the Amish, the Amish". My sons Amish identity aside, the failure of the faculty and students who organized the event to recognize how inappropriate that response was going to be as a part of the event was bad, but it's not nearly as damning as the fact that an event like that could occur and nobody stepped forward to mitigate it and to clarify that it was not a view school officials wanted to promote. When I called the school to complain the principal denied any wrong doing had occurred.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
confusion
From the New Era
Why are the Amish trying to influence our judicial system? Either they are separate and apart or they aren't. It's one thing to be generous towards the perpetrator and completely another to advocate on her behalf in a system they have rejected in the first place.
I suggest they stay on the porch or join the system like everyone else.
If they really care about the judicious functioning of our society as it relates to them, why don't they advocate for an independent review of the police response to the Nickel Mines school shooting? Maybe if they fessed up to the sexism that lurks in patriarchal societies, they would find it easier to fight for equality and justice for girls instead of just seeing them as great martyrs. On the other hand it doesn't look like our super evolved non-Amish society sees little Amish girls as anything other than great martyrs.
Mercy for Amish boy's killer
Why are the Amish trying to influence our judicial system? Either they are separate and apart or they aren't. It's one thing to be generous towards the perpetrator and completely another to advocate on her behalf in a system they have rejected in the first place.
I suggest they stay on the porch or join the system like everyone else.
If they really care about the judicious functioning of our society as it relates to them, why don't they advocate for an independent review of the police response to the Nickel Mines school shooting? Maybe if they fessed up to the sexism that lurks in patriarchal societies, they would find it easier to fight for equality and justice for girls instead of just seeing them as great martyrs. On the other hand it doesn't look like our super evolved non-Amish society sees little Amish girls as anything other than great martyrs.
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