A Third Way: What We Can Learn From the Amish Approach to Tech

Author and New Journalism pioneer Tom Wolfe dismissed fears about the technological developments of the mid-twentieth century, opining that it’s only English Lit. intellectuals “and Krishna groovies who try to despise the machine in America.” Wolfe represented the sentiments of technophiles everywhere, expressed with a roll of the eyes at nostalgic oldsters who shake their fists at smart phones like their parents did at programmable VCRs. But is it out-of-touch alarmism to contend that technology is not in fact value-neutral but carries with it a power and point of view that shapes its users?

In our highly technological society, there are supposedly only two approaches to innovation: enthusiastic adoption or reactionary Ludditism. Implicit in such a binary is the notion that what is old is necessarily bad and what is new is inherently good.

I get the appeal of the binary. Despite our efforts to regulate technology, our 12-year-old has managed to stumble upon and seek out things we would much rather she not even know about at her age. Why are marketers and cultural radicals so keen to tell our child that she’s only valuable as a sexual object, that she was born in the wrong body, or that political violence is the only way to solve our world’s problems? At least once a week, her parents fantasize about buying a solitary cabin and living off grid where our kids will be “safe” from the destructive ideologies and images that predominate on the world wide web.

The innovations we embrace should help to aim us toward our ultimate goals for not only personal but social development.

But is that parental fantasy based on naivety? The prophets of progress note that conservative technophobes have always anathematized technology now embraced as morally neutral and even beneficial. If we now realize how ridiculous it was to wring our hands over mechanical looms, printing presses, tractors, and electric lights, perhaps we’re being just as ridiculous in our fears over social media, smart phones, and Artificial Intelligence. Isn’t it time to put to bed our paranoia about anything new or different?

If we’re applying the simple binary of “technology good” or “technology bad,” the technologists would have a strong point here. Certainly not all developments have been a net negative—even those which initially sparked a strong backlash. But there’s an equal danger that we might credulously embrace any innovation just because it’s new and shiny—and do so to our own detriment. When young Russian revolutionaries overthrew the Tsars, they couldn’t imagine that the exciting, new ideas about progress they had imbibed from Karl Marx would lead to catastrophic oppression that the previous order was incapable of. When the sexual revolution looked to subvert old-fashioned and patriarchal ideas about sex, its advocates didn’t suspect that they were bringing about new ways to objectify, commodify, and dehumanize women. More to the point, weapons of mass destruction threaten our future more than traditional weapons of war ever could, and we are beginning to count the cost of the development of plastics and wondering if the convenience was worth the costs in human and environmental health.

Learning from the Amish

Thomas Sowell cuts through the two extremes here: “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” If we are to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, we must follow his advice. The dangers of both credulous embrace and reactionary rejection of new technology raise the need for a third way. And despite their caricature as eschewers of all innovation, Amish communities approach technology in precisely the way Sowell suggests.

In his 2021 book What the Amish Teach Us: Plain Living in a Busy World, Donald B. Kraybill clears up common misconceptions about the Amish and praises the thoughtfulness of their approach. He noticed that:

they rejected some aspects of modern life and accepted others. For example, they rejected radios, television, high school, church buildings, and salaried ministers but accepted small electronic calculators and artificial insemination of cows. And more recently, many churches, but not all, accepted gas grills, state-of-the-art birding equipment, LED lights on buggies, and battery-powered hand tools.

Why this inconsistency? Because the Amish don’t reject modernity wholesale but are instead in an ongoing process of “negotiating with modernity.” Sometimes this looks like, for instance, choosing not to own a car. Kraybill clarifies that “the taboo on owning motor vehicles aims to promote local horse-drawn travel to preserve a close-knit, face-to-face Amish community.” Cars certainly make long distance travel easy; but if you want to maintain a tight, local community whose values are shared and passed on to younger generations, they make it a little too easy. You gain something by owning a car, but you lose something also. Instead of condemning all technology, the Amish “selectively use, adapt, and create technology to serve the needs of their community”—and that might mean choosing to hire out a neighbor’s car when longer distance travel is necessary.

The Amish don’t see smart phones, television, or cars as inherently sinful. Instead, it's a question of wisdom: will this technology serve our highest goals for ourselves and our communities, or will it in some significant way compromise them? Amish communities disagree amongst themselves about how to assess these tradeoffs, and they almost certainly make some errors in judgment due to over-sanctifying tradition. Nevertheless, modernists should model the intentionality of their approach even if we don’t reach all of their conclusions. It is wise to question the value of innovations; to allow for a period of discernment as we decide whether they are compatible with our goals for living and thriving in the world.

For the Amish, it's a question of wisdom: will this technology serve our highest goals for ourselves and our communities, or will it in some significant way compromise them? 

However, the Amish approach requires a significant adjustment in an individuated society. Individuals and families can try to disconnect from unhelpful technology, but living out this decision consistently may require living with others who are on the same team.

Intentional Tech Use Requires Community

A similar observation has also been made by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who gives more moderate suggestions for limiting technology for children in his book, The Anxious Generation. These suggestions include not allowing smartphones before high school, forbidding social media before 16, and facilitating more unsupervised free play outdoors.

These rules sound great, but how can I enforce them when my neighbors don’t? If I don’t give my daughter a smartphone or let her access social media, but I do let her walk to the park or attend a public or private school, what is to stop her from coming into regular contact with other kids who do have access to these things?

This is where Haidt’s fourth suggestion comes into play: phone-free schools. In other words, these suggestions are not just for individual families but are meant to be “community norms.” They require parents to coordinate with each other and with local institutions to delay the use of these innovations until children have had time to develop healthy social behaviors and a stronger sense of personal identity and self-esteem. On this point Haidt agrees with the Amish: individuals and families can try to disconnect from unhelpful technology, but living out this decision consistently may require a community. 

But do modern individualists have the willpower or force of habit to overcome our preference for atomization?

A Third Way Forward

It seems the Amish have something to teach us here as well. If we want to pursue a solution with the best trade-offs, then we ought to be turning our attention to building strong, in-person communities. This doesn’t mean we must dispense with the political individualism of freedom from coercive violence, but it does require that we re-examine our culture’s insistence on individualism in the sense of individuation or atomization.

We are both individuals and social animals. The innovations we embrace should help to aim us toward our ultimate goals for not only personal but also social development. Practically, this means being intentional about overcoming our uneasiness with social attachment so that we may build communities and networks that will help us to live out a conscientiously third way of being in the world.

Cody Cook is the author of The Pocket Anabaptist and a regular contributor at The Libertarian Christian Institute. He lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his wife and three children.

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