It just goes to show you that it’s impossible to function without a phone today.
It’s a rusted metal chamber, nearly 8 feet tall. The door is padlocked. Trees surround it, with no houses in sight. It looks like an old bomb shelter.
Inside is a telephone. Built by several nearby Mennonite families, the oil tank-turned-phone booth connects them to the rest of the world — sort of.
Called “community phones,” they are the latest example of how the groups in Maryland and elsewhere have been cutting deals with technology for the past century.
It’s nice to see that the Amish have been able to deal with the need for a telephone as elegantly as they have, without completely compromising their principles.
I don’t know how I picked quickly but i did and he went on to take the rest of our orders. He gave
These phone booths have existed since i was a kid… some 20 years now.
Today i see many Amish “compromising their principles” and carrying a cell phone… Seeing them talk on one with flashing LEDs in the buggy is especially humorous.
Lancaster PA
Growing up in rural north western PA, we had frequent encounters with the amish. There are at least two places that I know of where there is a payphone on at the 4 corners of a dirt road intersection. No street light, no filling station, just a pay phone on the corner with nothing but Amish farms as far as the eye can see.
The issue here is that those old pay phones are being closed down by the phone companies and the Amish are putting up their own “phone booths” to address the need.
Isn’t one of their principles, not to use technology?
#4, no, it’s to not use technology just because it’s there, and to only let technology invade your life or community to the degree that is absolutely necessary to function in the world.
I visited an Amish cabinet maker years ago. His workshop was full of modern pneumatic power tools driven by a gasoline powered compressor. Their choices are subtle at times.
Okay I’m lost, don’t they ban electricity because it’s satanic? And phone lines use electricity to transmit info?
There’s so many “My own way Jesus” christians that it’s confusing…
From a personal life perspective, the Amish guidelines concerning technology and life seem to be something that we should all take a look at.
This is a great example: the telephone. We are way to much of a slave to that device. It rings, we answer, day or night, no matter what we are doing at the time. It takes priority over everything. But it shouldn’t, since the call coming in is rarely really important.
One feature I would love to see is a phone scheduler tied to caller ID. From 9 AM to 5 PM any phone call makes the phone ring… it’s working hours. But outside of those hours only specific caller ID’s make the phone ring, everything else goes to voicemail.
Is there a way to put a web browser on a timer, so it only works during certain hours? It would really help compulsive people like me to stay away from wandering around mindlessly on the internet for hours just out of boredom.
Actually, it isn’t as odd as you think. The Plain folk are not opposed to technology (hence pneumatic drills), rather, they first ask what effect the technology will have on their society. Something that strengthens the community is accepted, that which tears it down does not.
For phones, since Amish moved from PA to other states, the issue becomes how to keept he overall community connected. Hence, community phones are accepted. But they are not convenient, to discourage casual use.
There ‘s a book that discusses this in greater detail (the riddle of the amish), that explains how power tools, using taxiis, rumspringa, etc.
The real irony is, how often have we embraced a technology w/o ever once asking what it may do to our lives, or to our communities. The interstate that runs through my former hometown divides the city, and and neighborhoods were destroyed, almost immediately. So who is really behind the times–those who adopt blindly, or those who adopt slowly (too slowly)?
Was it here that we had an article on how the Amish and Mennonites are negotiating pre-paid hospital care for their people? Directly with the hospitals.
These groups do their best to keep their lives as simple as possible, yet fulfilling.
Imagine my surprise when I was around 10 y/o and we were visiting family in Eastern Ohio. We went to Cedar Lake, the huge amusment park on Lake Erie…..and there were whole groups of Mennonite teenagers waiting in line to ride some of the scariest thrill rides they had.
I’m a “mainstream” Mennonite and we don’t have those rules…. but I do admire some of them. (I’m repeating some of what Jay said in #9)
As I understand it, they are not purely anti-technology. Instead, they are deliberate about how technology affects their lifestyle, values and, above all, family life.
For example, they aren’t anti-energy but they don’t want to be “on the grid,” which they feel would forever link them to secular society. I understand and respect this. Sometimes my inner-Kaczynski makes me dream about living off-the-grid. That could be really sweet.
As for phones, the Mennonites/Amish aren’t against phones. They are against having them in the home because of their intrusion factor.
Who can argue that point? Phones ARE very intrusive. So, for a long time they’ve allowed phones out of the house, in the factory, etc. I’ve heard it is pretty common to see somebody sitting in filed on a fruit box talking on a phone.
Again, this is a position I admire. Do I as an individual have the right to reject technology? How about my family and culture? Yes!
Just because some industry SAYS I need a new gizmoe, I have the right to decide for myself. This also goes for schooling, diet, entertainment, transportation, commerce, personal identifidation, homes, etc etc.
Oh, one more comment:
We need a whole lot more phone booths in public places and on public transportation. Not payphones, but sound isolation booths for cell phone use.
So, we can say,. “Hey idiot! Take your shouting to the phone booth!”
The racket created by cell phones is reaching the intolerable.
“The racket created by cell phones is reaching the intolerable.”
I think that’s something we can all agree on…
#12, Greg, The racket created by cell phones is reaching the intolerable.
amen to that. Fantastic idea. To pay, the cell phone companies could install very small transmitters / receivers inside the isolation booths to aid in the connectivity.
As far as the Amish go, their embracement of technology is most often based on the will of their Bishop. I understand that the biggest reason for an Amish farmer to sell his property is so he can move away from a Bishop he doesn’t agree with to a Bishop more amiable to his beliefs.
HAHAHAHAHA !!! Take that Weird Al … they HAVE paid the phone bill lin 300 years !!
I’m considering joining an Amish community just to get away from batteries. Rechargebles, disposables, things you have to plug in, shake, crank or be left in sunlight longer than George Hamilton all suck. That goes double for cell phones, because they have batteries, calling plans and seem to magically bestow the vocabulary of Al Swearingen onto ordinary people walking through a grocery store. I guess they need to supply little pamphlets with the phones with a list of places like Toys R Us, where you shouldn’t yell coc%$*$ker into the phone loud enough to drown out the Muzak.