Episode 236: Amish

To see the show notes and article click HERE

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

spk_1:   0:00
Hello, everybody.

spk_0:   0:01
Hello, everybody. And welcome to the show The big show. The most important quickly came acclaimed podcast that is recorded in our car and we're on the road today. We are. This was a mystery show, except for this is the second attempt to record it. 1st 1 went badly, so I cut it off after three minutes and we're trying it again. So it's no longer a mystery show. She now knows what the subject isso we're gonna talk about. Anyway. We are right now in Southern Iowa area in the heart Amish country. A lot of our Amish neighbors are, uh, living out here

spk_1:   0:40
about due go past an excellent cheese shop.

spk_0:   0:44
Yes. Excellent. Milton, Iowa is no Harmon saying where it is, this is a very, very large Amish community. So why are we talking about the Amish Day? Well, because we want to talk about not just, I mean, the Amish says as a group, but the Amish as and an idea as a lifestyle and how that is the way that they do things we can learn from. So I'm saying we all need toe give up all our modern ing or modern inconveniences, right horses? Well, yeah, I know. There's so much that they do that we could learn from, and I'm trying myself. I'm really trying toe to turn over a new leaf, and so far it's being only partially successful.

spk_1:   1:47
It's kind of windy, yet belief turns one way in turns the other way,

spk_0:   1:51
right? Well, bottom line. We see a lot of what The Amish, too. We see how they make money for their house and by the Amish. I'm using them as a example. Group I'm not. This has nothing to do with their religion. I'm not even really sure. Exactly. You know where religious part fits? It's nothing to do with religion. I'm talking about people who choose to live on alternative lifestyle that is basically acceptable to everybody. I don't think anybody really gets offended by Amish people

spk_1:   2:35
if they do have with him.

spk_0:   2:36
Yeah, that's their problem. And there are parts of the Amish lifestyle that really, really, really translate. Well, prepping. There are parts that don't translate at all to prepping. So let's talk about it. Let's take a look at it.

spk_1:   2:54
One of the things I really see in both the Amish and Mennonite communities is a very strong sense of community and a very good, UM, set of approaches for bringing community together to do the big jobs that are really hard for individual households to manage. They do that very well. Ah, One example of that is Thea Emergency Response Team from the Mennonites in our in our Home county. And it's a whole bunch of Well, OK, it's men in that particular community.

spk_0:   3:34
It is. It isn't, it isn't well, it's Everybody's got.

spk_1:   3:39
The women mostly do the canteen, but that's a big deal. Yeah, keeping people fed is a big deal,

spk_0:   3:46
and they do a lot of things to a lot of stuff. I mean, they really die mean it's

spk_1:   3:51
There are other kinds of community things that the women mostly take care of, and the guys don't write what less visible

spk_0:   3:57
and what the women also do in this in this community. Well, well, the men are out doing the emergency relief. The women do the men's work at home. Yeah, because there's a lot of work farm, get the arm running farms do

spk_1:   4:10
not stop for emergencies. No, they do not stop.

spk_0:   4:13
So whether the women are working every bit as hard as the men. It's just they may not be there.

spk_1:   4:20
Yeah. No. Trust me. I know the hard work of staying at home while the team is out doing things.

spk_0:   4:26
And I will tell you

spk_1:   4:27
in there,

spk_0:   4:28
um, you go right. But one of that, one of the key facets of both the Amish and the Mennonite communities. It's community. It's not just family is the work ethic. There is a serious work ethic, and it all comes down to being part of this tight knit community. I'm not saying there aren't lazy Amish. I'm not saying there aren't lazy Mennonites. But there are not lazy Amish and lazy Mennonites who are in good standing with the community.

spk_1:   5:06
And they also don't seem to have. The attitude of work is somewhere. I hate to go, but I have to go to make some money. And then I get set free to live my real life. Uh,

spk_0:   5:18
just to screw with my life. She just described my life

spk_1:   5:22
for the moment.

spk_0:   5:23
We're working on it. Yeah, we're working on it.

spk_1:   5:28
That's one of the leaves were trying to get turned over here now, isn't it? Yes, That's very much so. That's part of the deal. They do work a whole lot, but it's a whole different variety of tasks, and it's less like feeling chained to what you're doing and doing it. If somebody else is bidding, when there is something that's too big for individuals to do, they will all gather together and help somebody out. But that, that is that there is a sense of mutual obligation. Yeah, whole bunch of people are gonna show up and help you literally do a barn raising. I've worked a barn raisings, and, uh, there's still a lot of that go on out here, but one that other guy's house needs to go up. You're gonna be there helping him out to whether it's convenient or no,

spk_0:   6:22
right. And they will accept. By the way, in case you're curious, they will accept your help if you want. If they're having a barn raising and you want to show up and help them, they will gladly I accept your help in. I'm gonna tell you this is a This is a thing you might want to do because you can learn a lot of skills from what they're doing, and you could help Help a neighbor out. There's always good to help a neighbor out. You know, I'm care who who were out. It's to help a neighbor out is a good thing because we need each other. We are community. Whether we did choose toe to consider ourselves lone wolves or not, this doesn't work. You know, Lone wolves starved to death. You know, people always start all be a lone wolf. Yeah, well, lone wolves don't live in the wild. They die in the wild because they cannot hunt successfully by themselves. Wolves use a wolf pack for hunting. They don't successfully live individual in a lot of only get rabbits, right. They're not foxes. They're too big of an animal. To survive is a little. So we're too big of an animal to survive unless we have specific skills that 99.9% of us don't have.

spk_1:   7:47
That's the core problem in a small household. There aren't enough people to have developed the wide range of skills you need to be able to succeed successfully if you don't have all the support of modern consumerist culture,

spk_0:   8:07
right. And most people haven't developed the infrastructure to survive without everybody else. For example, it's not just about the skills, but if you want to be self sufficient, you have to be able to grow your own food. Okay, but are you? Yeah, this is what I'm talking about. Are you currently growing your own food? Can you do it? Do you have? Do you have the research? Do you have a land available to, um, till up?

spk_1:   8:38
And even if you do, one of the problems is having enough labor at the right times of year to get that much food in the ground and get that much food back out of the ground. Because the most efficient things to grow for food are very seasonal in their production. And that's one of the things a larger community can do is at those particular times of year of planting and harvest. Everybody can put aside all the non essential work not essential for the moment, work and gather together in big groups and get a whole lot of agricultural work done in the short window of time. When it's best to do it. You just don't have that flexibility of manpower. If you are a smaller community like a family individual family,

spk_0:   9:26
right? I like to know. I'm sure on Amish community would not consider themselves a tribe, but they are their tribe. They're all one big tribe. In an interesting part about the tribalism is that they support their own. And it is even though they're very nice and they're very friendly, you should never doubt it is them and an US situation. We who are not part of their community or them where the English, where the others were the outsiders, the Mennonite people, nice as they are, are the same way were them. There's them and there's us. We don't speak the Dutch, although if you want, really, really have some fun with a Mennonite person after they've been walking around after they've been walking around, you're talking in the Dutch and stuff like that just just walked by and pat one on the shoulder and you say, Yeah, it's very good and they're just kind of German. They're the midnight speech and German are actually quite close. If you can speak Germans, you can pretty much tell what they're saying. They just don't have the glue for food. You know those 45 letter long words of the German seem toe

spk_1:   10:51
Pennsylvania Dutch isn't actually Dutch. It's the word Dutch. In that sense is a corruption of deutsche, which is German. Yeah, it's It's if you speak German, you can kind of understand what they're saying. But, man, they would laugh their hind parts off if I tried to talk back to them in my version of German. Not that many German speakers wouldn't laugh at me.

spk_0:   11:13
I got I gotta be honest with you. Your South ST Louis German is not. You know what I'm saying?

spk_1:   11:23
I'm third generation. These things happen.

spk_0:   11:25
Now let's talk. I'm gonna talk about a story her dad told me because I asked him one time his father came over from Germany. So she literally is third generation. Um, and her father Very, very smart man. Very, very intelligent. I asked him, how much chairman do you speak? So I knew he was raised in a German household. Any kind of grinned and said, Well, I could get my face slapped, but other than that began. But didn't your parents speak, speak German? He's absolutely not. Hey, was were the youngest kids. He may have been the youngest youngest of 12 or how many kids? They had a whole bunch of kids, but he was the youngest and he was born in America. And, um, when his parents came over, and I know this is gonna strike a lot of people. Oh, yeah, just the way to do it. But I'm just saying, this is how they did it. When his parents came over, they made the decision that they weren't German anymore. They were Americans, and they decided that they needed to speak English in the household, even though neither one of them spoke it. So they learned how to speak English and made their household an English household. So him, as the youngest, some of his older brothers and sisters could speak German because they hadn't learned how to speak English at. But he never learned it because they did not speak German in the household except for when they were arguing. His parents always argued in German because they could get the right nuances on the digs in Germany. He told me so they would be tearing off about haven't only knows what in German, and, um, he would have no clue what they were talking about. He doesn't have a German name. Some of his older brothers do. But he does not, interestingly, had an Italian name, but he did not have a German name, which this is

spk_1:   13:46
the even changed the pronunciation of their last name.

spk_0:   13:48
Right? The American? Yeah, Anglicized it. So this is part of how things were back in the day when they came over. You gotta realize that came over, you know, around World War one time. And there was a big

spk_1:   14:03
Germans who are the enemy at

spk_0:   14:05
the German step. Time were the enemy, at least in a lot of people's mind.

spk_1:   14:10
Yeah, there were a lot of German Americans in the United States, but nevertheless,

spk_0:   14:14
and his parents were certainly not of there were Bavaria ls. And basically they're part of Germany was taken over by the Bavarians. So

spk_1:   14:27
they weren't terribly. Fund of the Kaiser either. Know,

spk_0:   14:31
as were a lot of Americans German of German descent. They were not particularly fond of the guys.

spk_1:   14:36
There's a reason they left and came to America. Yeah, and it's not because they were the ruling glass in Germany.

spk_0:   14:42
Exactly. So long story short, this is um, we're just shared with you a couple of of things about, you know, the German immigrants. And this is kind of my little aside for the spot. And

spk_1:   14:57
the fact that the Mennonites and the Amish still speak what you'd call Pennsylvania Dutch

spk_0:   15:04
and they teach their Children

spk_1:   15:05
in the household is an indicator of the community. They have a sense of community that doesn't fully overlap with the outside world. Now, I suspect I don't know this, but I suspect there are levels of outsiders, and those of us who live and work with them often are nearer and dearer to their hearts. And those strange people from who knows where they've never met because they certainly deal well with us. And they don't deal with us as if you deal with people in your community with the understanding that you need their good regard to continue to be successful in your community. You can deal with people outside your community in whatever way your basic nature takes you. And that is not always as beneficent. So you can tell when somebody really feels you're an outsider. They're much more likely to try and take you and cheat you. And frankly, that's more common between the Amish and standard Americans than the Mennonites and standard Americans, because the Mennonites arm or integrated into their communities.

spk_0:   16:20
Yes, it's, except for the fact that they will developed their own businesses. And basically, once a Mennonite opens a business, at least in our once they open a business, old Mennonites go to that business. Say, for example, they own a feeds open a feed mill. Well, they stopped going to the other feed mills, and everybody goes to the midnight Female because that's their tribe. And there's nothing wrong with that,

spk_1:   16:51
and it makes perfect sense.

spk_0:   16:52
And that statement is open to everybody, and they, you know, they do a great job this. I know this from experience, but I happen to be friends with some people who opened a Mennonite female. It's not Mennonite feed, Mel. It's It's a feed mill.

spk_1:   17:05
Defeat Mel run by Mennonites and a lot of the men, and I'd switch their business there. But it makes perfect sense because when you do deal with members of a tight community, everybody has a a invested interest in treating other members of community Well, because everybody knows that if you don't treat well with somebody, everybody's going to know it and you're gonna get backlash from it. I think that's one of the reasons they're so much sharp dealing and dishonesty in ah, standard American society today is because the community's air so large there's not that sense of. If I cheat this person, it's gonna come back and bite me,

spk_0:   17:46
right? But if Johan Yoder cheat somebody, everybody in the community knows and he's done. He's done. This is his community, By the way, I do honey order anyone, not cheating. You know, I remember. I'll just go ahead and use Mr Yoder. It's not his name, but I don't want to get into the guy's. Actually, I remember I was part timing because I was a journalist full time in pain. Maybe pavement pay enough to live on. So is part timing at a local farmer, home store or farm and ranch. It's same same type thing. I was part timing, and, uh, at the time people came in and they set up credit Well, Mr Yoder came in with one of his sons. You know, he's going into his own little farm, and he had eight sons, all farming were doing different types of things. And he says, I need to him We need him to set up credit because it's too difficult to keep the writing checks for every, um, single thing you need in, Let's just, um, get

spk_1:   19:08
him in a county

spk_0:   19:09
recount and I will stand behind him and make sure that if for any reason he does not pay, I will pay you. And, as always, if any of my sons are late at any time on their payments, please call me and I will make sure it is taken care of immediately. This was Mr Yoder. Yep, that's how it's done. And everybody know who knows? Mr Yoder knows he wasn't just saying that he meant it. And this is the type of thing that I think as preppers. How does this relate to prepping? Well, we need to find ways to develop tribe. We need to find ways to develop community community. We need to hold your father responsible exactly and find ways to, um trust, but verify we're not asking people to trust. We're asking people to trust but verify use Mr Reagan's brother. Brilliant. A statement there. So that's basically what I had to say on, um, I had to say on the issue

spk_1:   20:41
were more successful as communities, but we need to do it in a way that regulates. Actually, I've got one bit of game theory toe Add the people who model how people interact with each other. That branch of economics is called game theory, and they've had people model a whole bunch of different approaches to it. The most successful one overall that have come up with for how you can act and have all members of the community act to get the most cooperation. And the most success out of the overall community is that you start out trusting and the first time somebody mistreats you, you go to mistrust. So you treat them well. You treat them well. You treat them well until they treat you less than fairly and then you don't trust them again. And then after, if they behave for a very long stretch of time, then you give him another chance and start trusting him again. And you continue trusting him until they misbehave. What this does is first the community is stronger because starting out with trust is more efficient. Been starting out with mistrust. You get better success if people are trusting each other. But it punishes misbehavior, which is important, because otherwise people will absolutely misbehave. And if people do misbehave and get punished, they have a chance to redeem themselves. But it's not immediate, and it's not endless. So you make them earn it for a while before you give them another chance. So game theory basically supports the way these communities have run for until generation. No big surprise there. But sometimes it's nice to come at things from more than one angle and see that there. If you get the same answer for more than one angle, it's more than likely the right answer. Okay, I don't know.

spk_0:   22:50
Okay. Well, there you are. I hope this was at least of interest to you and something. Keep in mind. Thanks for listening.