Bookmark1995
Banned
Very interesting. I'm curious what the UASR thinks of the Amish in general.
Was there supposed to be a footnote here?
Yes.
Very interesting. I'm curious what the UASR thinks of the Amish in general.
Was there supposed to be a footnote here?
Very interesting. I'm curious what the UASR thinks of the Amish in general.
When the war ended, the Amish were divided between those who had managed to maintain neutrality, those who remained neutral, and those who had served the Reds.
Good stuff! Seems like this line may have been a mistake though - they're divided between neutrals, neutrals, and reds?
I do think the treatment of Plain Folk by the Reds will be markedly less bad than implied here. There are certainly going to be some stark cases. But fundamentally while the Reds will not have much respect or admiration for religious pacifism as such, I think there will be a recognition that these people are not major participants in the capitalist system.
Anyway from the smatterings of popular culture knowledge I have of Amish, Mennonites and other Plain Folks, they wouldn't, on their own initiative, take an active opposition to the Revolution. The same principles isolating them from the general Red Turn also isolate them from (as far as I know) close engagement with US politics and I would think their business affairs, massive though they might be in dollar evaluations made by "English" mainstream authorities, are kept localized and in their personal hands on their land. I suppose they have banked reserves, possibly kept in hard gold or the like, possibly conventional bank accounts. But by and large accrual of exchange value will be cashed out in concrete improvements of an acceptably "plain" nature such as more land acquisition, or simply hoarded. Money "hoarded" in banks is of course a contribution to the capitalist system and mobilized for exploitive investment by third parties...but when the rebels take over the banks, at a stroke it is now instead mobilized under general democratic control, so no quarrel there unless of course they are grossly expropriated--still I think the vanishing of paper wealth like mist would be philosophically accepted as definitely nothing to get violent about if their material control of their plain lives remains in their hands.
There is a general trope that religion and the left are mortal and natural enemies and God knows there are causes for that belief to have currency, reinforced vigorously by both sides; the religious reactionary is generally also a political reactionary, and the radical is often a militant atheist, a libertine on principle (offset by the cult of revolutionary discipline), iconoclastic by inclination and when "spiritual" generally in a heterodox way Jesus of Nazareth or the presumptive saints of the Book of Acts might recognize kinship with but the Scribes and Pharisees and clerics of the Great and Good in society generally revile as perhaps worse than atheists.
So if there is to be bloodshed and bad blood between Red America and these quaint elements of our cultural quilt, I think it must come from sustained Red animosity. Should we expect that?
Let me be clear I am not suggesting that the Plain People are saints on Earth. In fact one might well guess such a traditional and closed set of societies could turn into quite a hellhole for some people, women especially. One set of leads worth following up on and reflecting is the story of Torah Bontrager who is interviewed in that link but speaks quite articulately on her own behalf as an activist. She is an example of a person who has turned away from the society as it is, but what her views would be on the possibility that perhaps it could remain viable if the victims of the pervasive training in submission and obedience she speaks of were to be repeatedly offered opportunities to consider other views instead of being "protected" from them. Would the communities simply dissolve into one Red mass stew?
One of the popular culture notions spread around modern America at large is about "rumspringa," is that the "Amish" (not clear how much this is either confined to that particular set versus overlapping into other Anabaptist separatist communities, and it is clear that it is not permitted in all Amish communities) permit their youth a period of time to observe and experiment with the outside world, and judge for themselves whether they wish to be baptized (as Anabaptists, they do not hold with infant baptism and expect baptism to be a free choice by a responsible adult) and thus come under the full authority of their communal "Ordnung" or withdraw. Some accounts I have previously seen express this an institution designed to give them all a fair chance---but one thing that was ambiguous to me, and remains so after reading the Wiki article, is whether similar liberty is granted young women as to young men. Are women expected to agree to the rules without the same honest freedom their spouses had, on the theory that she is a helpmeet and covered by his authority anyway, or can a girl expect similar latitude? In any case this Wiki article suggests the notion it is an institution meant to give a fair choice is a mistaken superficial expression, and that "springing around" is just their cultural acceptance of the wildness and rebelliousness of adolescence. As I dimly understand Anabaptist theology, individual freedom and responsibility (in the consuming matter of accepting the rule of Christ and thus in the view of these communities, their collective order) is very central and compelling. But the idea seems to be that kids, in the course of running wild, will in fact go where they really ought not and try things they should not ideally. Because they have not yet taken baptism and settled as adults in the community, the full responsibility to conform to norms is suspended.
Against this we have Ms Bontrager's accounts of how she was manipulated via a culture of strict obedience and submission into suffering massive abuse--we may speculate whether her hell was and is typical for Amish and other Plain People women, or if she was an unfortunate victim of relatively few outliers and the mainstream culture maintains a more proper respect for human rights in their patriarchal terms. Certainly a certain level of abuse is going to be a thing in a closed society; the question is, how effectively open is it really, in the sense that a person who dares suffer "strict shunning" is in fact free to then go. Certainly Bontrager's story suggests that powerful elders are in typical authoritarian fashion quite unwilling to blame the abuser when victim blaming is more convenient.
All this relates to positive reasons why some elements of Red society in the ATL might seek to actively rip open these communities and via the means of exposing abuses, hope to disperse them. But that is not the sort of conflict @Bookmark1995 is suggesting is the major nexus of Red persecution of the Plain Folk. Let us then set aside for a moment the question of whether the high retention rates of Amish communities (with "low" ones being 90 percent, and high ones near 100 percent) reflects 1) the perceived desirability, after a fair shake at experiencing the freedom (and potential isolation) of "English" outside society, of embracing the simple and ordered life; 2) mind forged manacles of warped perception that make even the freedom during "rumspringa" youth not really a fair trial at all, and as Bontrager points out, with dark lessons punctuated by tragic examples (she recalls a funeral for a boy who splurged on an automobile forbidden to his people and died in the resulting wreck, with the minister using it as a springboard to lecture on the wickedness and destructiveness of outsider ways) and as Bontrager also stresses, very poor preparation for realistic survival and good sense in the "English" ways of living; 3) some other kinds of string attached. Assume the Reds spoken of in the Civil War period are not particularly interested in the question of whether the Amish are comrades to also be liberated.
As people withdrawn from the mainstream of global capitalism, the Amish and other such groups would I think be considered as detachable from the capitalist order by revolutionaries buckling down to the nitty gritty nuts and bolts of making a real revolution. I suggested this kind of thing prevailed in some other contexts, such as in neutralizing West Virginia as an asset to the MacArthur coup regime by granting broad autonomy to the perhaps still in the ATL deeply religious people of that state. The idea in winning the Civil War is not so much to destroy everyone who stands in any way askew from a single monolithic vanguard party detailed program, but rather to simply prevent them from closing ranks around reaction. A certain diplomacy toward people who might be somewhat in the way but perhaps could be enticed easily to stand aside and let the vanguard forces through, as it were, might be all that is called for.
My ambiguous findings leave wide open the question--do the Amish "prosper" today because our mainstream society is objectively fraught with conflict and disruption, making the shelter from the storm the Plain ways offer more attractive--raising the retention rate of youth, some of whom die or otherwise suffer severely in their wild youth as cautionary examples to others--and if so, would the immersion of the Amish into a humane and aggressively iconoclastic libertine order cause their retention rates to drop, their youth to be inexorably drawn away, their hold outs investigated for sexual and other forms of abuse, and thus cause their sect to wither and die? Or would the youth, observing the strangeness of the "new English" ways to be so bizarre that they still prefer to return to the life they were raised in? Or will it be a mixed bag, with on one hand much superior tolerance of their autonomy (provided high standards of basic human rights are generally kept) and possible positive involvement in various regime supportive capacities leading to positive aid, versus the social solvent effect of high tech libertine communism drawing some away. And indeed I think a communistic America would in some ways be less hostile and strange to the Plain People than the competitive individualism of OTL capitalist society--the deeply faithful will maintain their distance in view of what separates them, including their patriarchal theocracy, their rigid gender norms, and of course insofar as some enjoy corruption as Bontrager's frightening story, however rare or typical, indicates some do will naturally shun all outside contact in defense of their privilege. But the adventurous, the curious, the dissident, will find certain aspects of socialist America more congenial. As a practical matter individuals such as Bontrager who have reasons to run will have greater confidence that if they do they will find refuge that is both safe and nearby.
Certainly some Red hotheads might take the notion of smashing this relic of medievalism, but I think given the many decades the American communist movement develops, and the diversity of its members and fellow travelers, and the basic devotion to rule of law and the decision to make the transition toward communism gradual and staged, wiser counsels of tolerance and scrupulous dealing will prevail in pre-revolutionary planning, such that previously hashed out policies already in place when the balloon of war goes up will be known and generally agreed to by revolutionary forces in zones where a fair number of Plain Folk (remember, just 10,000 or so if that--references give just 8000 in 1936 OTL, the higher figure guesses something or other makes life marginally better for them in the run up to revolution) are expected to be found. In the heat of hot fighting anything can happen, but any actions taken when there is time and space for consideration will I think be repudiated, apologized for, amended and compensated--including discipline up to death if it was egregious enough--if they are contrary to a general strategy of encouraging the Plain Folk to have confidence the Reds mean them no harm and will leave them alone generally and hope for cooperation of a kind they can justify by their own lights--simply continuing to market farm goods and "Amish furniture" will be plenty.
During the heat of the civil war, front lines will sweep back and forth, and like storm fronts form unexpectedly and dissipate a bit mysteriously. I wonder if anyone knows of any such fronts sweeping over Amish settlements in the Civil War of OTL and how Union and possibly Confederate forces did in dealing with them. My guess is, in terms of actual battle they figure mainly as landscape. It is before and after the battles their role would be most relevant.
I'm still somewhat confused as to why the pope, Pius XI, who in OTL said "Universally known is the fact that the Catholic Church is never bound to one form of government more than to another, provided the Divine rights of God and of Christian consciences are safe. She does not find any difficulty in adapting herself to various civil institutions, be they monarchic or republican, aristocratic or democratic" would be denouncing the revolution at all? This is the man who tried negotiating with the soviet union for years to stop persecuting eastern catholics (albeit braking off negotiations when they didn't produce results)
It just seems like something where he wouldn't get involved, especially since America's catholic population is rather minor compared to its protestants.
Limited apology; I write this stuff rather dialectically for one thing, forming views and changing them as I write, and sometimes it just seems I had best stop revising for better harmony with later conclusions and just post it already; editing therefore is incomplete. Also it involves my notions of courtesy, which might seem absurd to those overwhelmed, to consider many sides of a question and try to be fair to assertions I initially reject. And honestly I am kind of paranoid and afraid of being misunderstood and so go to great lengths to cover my rear, which is of course counterproductive in that these hemmings and hawings get lost in the sheer mist and fail to serve their purpose. I might therefore be more abrupt here!@Shevek23, reading your posts is enjoyable, and it makes my head feel like a balloon.
But the Amish are as noted few in numbers, and while rather adjacent to some key fields of battle-indeed battles will be fought on their soil, I suppose, overlapping anyway, and I would really like it if someone has information on whether any OTL Civil War battles did encroach on them and how they handled it as that would be most instructive here--on the whole very peripheral. If we assume the Reds take note of this in advance, as I suggest it is not crazy they would, they can provide for policies to largely route their side of the violence around them, circumstances permitting, and come to them with reasonable proposals for terms of participation acceptable to them, at no great sacrifice to the larger cause. The reactionaries of course are on their own lookout, but the salient thing here is Red attitudes. If there is to be tragic conflict on that front, the onus is on the Reds, not the Plain People--probably, subject to new information about the Amish and other such folk being more actively reactionary than I have found much evidence for so far.It is less "taking an active opposition" and more "being caught in the middle of two infernos of change."
No, while I will take issue with aspects of @Baron Steakpuncher 's specifics, the broad point they make points to a more fundamental error here. If the American Reds as described in @Aelita's evolving canon are going to be militantly anticlerical they will have the good sense to discriminate accurately between different sects. There is too much overlap between American religiousity and participation in the movement as both hard core revolutionaries and tolerant to embracing fellow travelers for them to be indiscriminate. People from most sects will participate on all levels and these comrades and fellow travelers will remonstrate on behalf of their own brethren and (in the proper spirit of most of these religions) on behalf of others too; also quite atheistic comrades, both in defense of the kin they are estranged from but connected to culturally, and again on general humanistic principles will join and/or listen sympathetically.And also the Reds HAVE gone a bit anti-clerical because of the Vatican's denunciation of the Second American Revolution.
I'm not accepting your fanfics as canon automatically, to be undiplomatically blunt about it. Perhaps they have been approved by the group of authors currently working on the latest definitive canon elsewhere, and then I suppose I will be reduced to dissent while stipulating what I think is not probable as "fact." Perhaps you will be retroactively supported, same outcome. But I am not yet convinced you have the proper spirit of the thing consistently, and what you offer will be considered by me as a contribution to be judged on merit. I think you are somewhat off base here and expect problems with that post when it appears, but of course you might surprise me.You'll see in the next post. I will say right now that it is less "animosity" and more "innocently insensitive."
I certainly dived in to my prior post with at least as much sympathy for them, and it was the credible fact of Torah Bontranger's experience as she reports it that caused me to be more reserved. Of course going in I suspected a certain amount of such abusiveness to be found among such people, as among Catholics or any more or less authoritarian order, including of course OTL Bolshevik leaders in Russia--collective farm managers and other such Little Stalins, or such monstrous figures as Lavrenti Beria, are or should be infamous to us Reddish types as cautionary tales. Gender oppression is all too pervasive in dominator societies after all! (and for fundamental reasons, per the analyses of such ecofeminist types as say Starhawk whom I find quite interesting and persuasive analytically speaking). Other aspects of objective oppression--of the limited and manipulative eduction and upbringing of children generally, or the limited life prospects for people of either gender, I believe I touched on too. Pragmatically though the Reds can take a position that they can leave such questions to post-revolutionary just social evolution, in view of the pragmatic consensus to compromise on the staged evolution of American society in general I think they would agree to punt such questions when they are not immediately pressing and temporize. We seem to agree the ball is in the Red's court and are disagreeing, I think, pending your actual post, that they would as I think take some responsibility to avoid pointless side tracking of their main revolutionary thrust for expedient as well as principled reasons, while it seems you are assuming by their nature they will disregard such caution. That is defensible but I don't feel you have demonstrated deeper knowledge or insight into the Plain People's likely situation on the ground then I started with. As I said, quite other people in much larger numbers in other circumstances that parallel theirs, much more central to the main revolutionary narrative, plausibly would be offered expedient deals. Offsiding them as neutrals is quite good enough, there is no need to strong arm them as cannon fodder.If you read between the lines, you'd see I've taken a more neutral attitude toward Amish, and have more or less portrayed them as decent human beings.
I think you'll find I made that point myself. They definitely sell goods in the market and buy them. The question is, are they capitalists? I think they generally are not; people might know some specifics to prove otherwise. The fact they have goods to sell is not strike against them! Putting their wealth on the side of reaction would be. Offsiding it to a peasant-millenarian religious commune is not threatening.OTL Amish aren't outside of society. Many of them do work in the market economy.
Again, you'll learn about the relationship between Amish and Reds in the next post.
Again, my take was that the civil war would draw in everybody, and that the Amish would be drafted and persecuted simply because that is what occurs in an ideological civil conflict.
I'm still somewhat confused as to why the pope, Pius XI, who in OTL said "Universally known is the fact that the Catholic Church is never bound to one form of government more than to another, provided the Divine rights of God and of Christian consciences are safe. She does not find any difficulty in adapting herself to various civil institutions, be they monarchic or republican, aristocratic or democratic" would be denouncing the revolution at all? This is the man who tried negotiating with the soviet union for years to stop persecuting eastern catholics (albeit braking off negotiations when they didn't produce results)
It just seems like something where he wouldn't get involved, especially since America's catholic population is rather minor compared to its protestants.
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father; God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God; begotten not made, one in being with the Father. Through Him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven. By the power of the Holy Spirit He was born of the Virgin Mary and became man. For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day He rose again, in fulfillment of the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.
Limited apology; I write this stuff rather dialectically for one thing, forming views and changing them as I write, and sometimes it just seems I had best stop revising for better harmony with later conclusions and just post it already; editing therefore is incomplete. Also it involves my notions of courtesy, which might seem absurd to those overwhelmed, to consider many sides of a question and try to be fair to assertions I initially reject. And honestly I am kind of paranoid and afraid of being misunderstood and so go to great lengths to cover my rear, which is of course counterproductive in that these hemmings and hawings get lost in the sheer mist and fail to serve their purpose. I might therefore be more abrupt here!
No, while I will take issue with aspects of @Baron Steakpuncher 's specifics, the broad point they make points to a more fundamental error here. If the American Reds as described in @Aelita's evolving canon are going to be militantly anticlerical they will have the good sense to discriminate accurately between different sects. There is too much overlap between American religiousity and participation in the movement as both hard core revolutionaries and tolerant to embracing fellow travelers for them to be indiscriminate. People from most sects will participate on all levels and these comrades and fellow travelers will remonstrate on behalf of their own brethren and (in the proper spirit of most of these religions) on behalf of others too; also quite atheistic comrades, both in defense of the kin they are estranged from but connected to culturally, and again on general humanistic principles will join and/or listen sympathetically.
The Amish will generally not be held accountable for anything the Pope in Rome has to say, but for their own actions and reactions only. Some general slosh of attitude can happen as an irresponsible outburst of sentiment to be sure, but I think the democratic and critical self-discipline of the movement will note, check, deter, and if necessary repudiate and rectify such irresponsible sloshing. They probably will not double down in embarrassed defensiveness, in victory they can afford magnanimity, out of sincere humanistic conviction or out of propagandistic expedience. In the heat of the events I suspect on the whole a little investment in diplomacy will be deemed expedient enough and clearly superior; specific circumstances to be apologized for and suitably deplored later might happen.
ITTL, it is indicated there was a bit of terror. So I simply saw it as inevitable that some innocent people would be sucked into it.
But certainly holding the Amish responsible for the Pope, or even a generic fear that all religious people are cut from one reactionary cloth, are not views that can stand critical self-scrutiny and will be damped out and corrected, belatedly if necessary.[/QUOTE]
I'm not accepting your fanfics as canon automatically, to be undiplomatically blunt about it. Perhaps they have been approved by the group of authors currently working on the latest definitive canon elsewhere, and then I suppose I will be reduced to dissent while stipulating what I think is not probable as "fact." Perhaps you will be retroactively supported, same outcome. But I am not yet convinced you have the proper spirit of the thing consistently, and what you offer will be considered by me as a contribution to be judged on merit. I think you are somewhat off base here and expect problems with that post when it appears, but of course you might surprise me.
I like bluntless. I consider it kinder then being humored. I appreciate the fact that you take the time to read my contributions, even if you feel I don't capture Revolutionary America.
I certainly dived in to my prior post with at least as much sympathy for them, and it was the credible fact of Torah Bontranger's experience as she reports it that caused me to be more reserved. Of course going in I suspected a certain amount of such abusiveness to be found among such people, as among Catholics or any more or less authoritarian order, including of course OTL Bolshevik leaders in Russia--collective farm managers and other such Little Stalins, or such monstrous figures as Lavrenti Beria, are or should be infamous to us Reddish types as cautionary tales. Gender oppression is all too pervasive in dominator societies after all! (and for fundamental reasons, per the analyses of such ecofeminist types as say Starhawk whom I find quite interesting and persuasive analytically speaking). Other aspects of objective oppression--of the limited and manipulative eduction and upbringing of children generally, or the limited life prospects for people of either gender, I believe I touched on too. Pragmatically though the Reds can take a position that they can leave such questions to post-revolutionary just social evolution, in view of the pragmatic consensus to compromise on the staged evolution of American society in general I think they would agree to punt such questions when they are not immediately pressing and temporize. We seem to agree the ball is in the Red's court and are disagreeing, I think, pending your actual post, that they would as I think take some responsibility to avoid pointless side tracking of their main revolutionary thrust for expedient as well as principled reasons, while it seems you are assuming by their nature they will disregard such caution. That is defensible but I don't feel you have demonstrated deeper knowledge or insight into the Plain People's likely situation on the ground then I started with. As I said, quite other people in much larger numbers in other circumstances that parallel theirs, much more central to the main revolutionary narrative, plausibly would be offered expedient deals. Offsiding them as neutrals is quite good enough, there is no need to strong arm them as cannon fodder.
Oh man. I fear that in a Stalinist America, the Amish would suffer the same fate as the Kulaks.
I think you'll find I made that point myself. They definitely sell goods in the market and buy them. The question is, are they capitalists? I think they generally are not; people might know some specifics to prove otherwise. The fact they have goods to sell is not strike against them! Putting their wealth on the side of reaction would be. Offsiding it to a peasant-millenarian religious commune is not threatening.
Selling goods?
You see, there it is in a nutshell. I think you have not yet understood what is supposed to be different about the American revolution described in this TL, how its mass base changes its nature from the boilerplate descriptions I think you are just repeating uncritically. And that's why I will wait for others to declare it canon, and if what you are writing here and now is any indication, they won't.
Fair point. But I fear simply assuming it would peaches and roses would be thinking uncritically, or that the Reds, despite being the good guys, wouldn't be above any bias.