ndmonaghan.bsky.social
Agriculturalist 🥦 Plant nerd 🌷 Global citizen 🤝 | Mizzou Center for Agroforestry graduate | he/him | I write about landscapes, food, and related topics @ ndmonaghan.substack.com
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A bit of a non-sequitur, but I'm a little surprised they need to say "city in Nebraska."
Is knowledge of Omaha not a given for coastal readers?
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Yeah, because no regime is free from violent resistance. But the historical reality is these regimes were taken down by the will of the people, not the barrel of a gun
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Ferdinand Marcos, Pinochet, and the Portuguese junta were all taken down with largely nonviolent action
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This has to be a manga
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Would that pass reconciliation?
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In lieu of the 'move fast and break things' attitude, the Amish have, as put by sociologist Donald Kraybill, an outlook of 'move slow, be careful.' We could all take a page from their book.
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And most importantly, we should instill, individually and collectively, specific virtues to shape the integration of technology into our lives.
Some examples could include impacts on mental, emotional, and spiritual health, or user participation in decisions and widespread ownership of platforms.
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Instead of either letting a new technology completely take over or rejecting it outright, we think critically about what domains it could serve while restricting its influence in others.
Instead of taking a new product or service at face value, we should evaluate how it will impact our lives.
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Now, the Amish prioritize religious values and the communal order in guiding this process, which I don't vibe with and am not promoting. However, their mechanisms, processes, and overall ethos have a lot of value in guiding our personal and societal approach to technology.
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This points to a spectral approach. Some technologies may be appropriate in a business, but not in the home or schools. One may be allowed to lease a machine or use taxi services, but can't own these items. Again, the values define how an innovation is integrated into the community.
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Electricity is another example. The grid is viewed as creating an unneeded dependence on wider society and a conduit for "corrupting" influences coming into the home. However, other forms of power, like compressed air, can be used in shops and on farms since they're more constrained.
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Cars are another example. Vehicles are seen as ruining the cohesion of communities and breaking up the tightly woven rhythm of life, work, worship, recreation, and care that a close geography engenders. Higher mobility would threaten this highly valued status quo.
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Phones are never allowed in the home, but one may be installed in a central location or outside of a business to support commerce.
The question always asked is, "Does this new technology threaten our community's harmony?" This mechanism determines whether the innovation undermines Amish values.
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The Amish have three broad responses when presented with a new technology: rejection, acceptance, and adaptation. Some advancements, like modern eyeglasses, have been widely adopted with little opposition. Others, like the telephone, were integrated with more restrictions.
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illinois is poland and the us federal government is the ussr
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My heart goes out to all of my colleagues who are doing the hard work of getting trees in the ground despite these setbacks 💚
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I hang around some urbanists, and I cringe at how little folks trying to do seed bombing know about their local environments 🙃