Opinion of the Amish? Should they be forced to integrate?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I have no idea how the Amish way of life would be possible if we forced their children through the extended rigamarole that most of us must complete.

Why? Would spending 20 hours a week over a combined 18 months at school really compromise the Amish upbringing that severely? I mean, I'm sure they have children do something from 16 to 18, but is that really such a vital cornerstone of their culture that some kind of accommodation can be found? They can very well run their own schools and teach their children there, as far as I'm concerned, as long as they conform to a minimal standard of learning objectives. Sure, cultures are important, but MUH CULTURE can't be the ultimate trump card to opt out of every civic obligation.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Again, I know the school system is in a dire state and I'd be the first to support a complete overhaul. That doesn't invalidate the general principle of a comprehensive education.

[Green Line]

They need to integrate.  France would never allow this; Be like France.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

They need to integrate.  France would never allow this; Be like France.

Disgusting.

[DC Al Fine]

I have no idea how the Amish way of life would be possible if we forced their children through the extended rigamarole that most of us must complete.

Why? Would spending 20 hours a week over a combined 18 months at school really compromise the Amish upbringing that severely? I mean, I'm sure they have children do something from 16 to 18, but is that really such a vital cornerstone of their culture that some kind of accommodation can be found? They can very well run their own schools and teach their children there, as far as I'm concerned, as long as they conform to a minimal standard of learning objectives. Sure, cultures are important, but MUH CULTURE can't be the ultimate trump card to opt out of every civic obligation.

I would take that as a reason not to intervene.

Tony, you appear to be falling into a common left-liberal trap; false neutrality. There are a lot of assumptions that go into any cultural mandate, and not all of them are necessarily true for every person or culture. Given the unsavoury history that goes along with a majority imposing it's culture on a minority, the burden of proof ought to be on the intervening majority, not the imposed-upon minority.

I would turn the question around. Why is it so necessary that Amish kids need to spend 20 hours a week for 18 months? They don't seem to be at the same economic disadvantage of a Western high school dropout.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Two of the most important and fundamental goals of a political community are 1. to socialize all its members in a sense of shared destiny and mutual trust, regardless of their background, and 2. to provide all its members with the material and intellectual means to exercise meaningful control over their lives. I happen to believe that a complete education curriculum is fundamental to both these goals.

I assure you that I'm sympathetic to people's desires to maintain a cohesive culture, and I think the State should do its best to accommodate those desires, consonant with these goals. However, again, MUH CULTURE can't be the justification for every deviation from the common norm. Claiming otherwise means refusing the basic premise of living in a shared society, and is also a clear slippery slope toward moral relativism.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

FFs, and shouldn't be forced to integrate. I think they should be allowed exemption from large portions of government-mandated education curriculum.

and

I have mad respect for them.  In some ways I'm even jealous.

I believe that the Amish lifestyle is, in a sense, the way life was intended to be lived.  The Amish never pollute, they're against the worship of material objects, they sure as hell don't start wars, and they take far better care of each other than us "English" do ourselves with our convenient lifestyles and advanced technology.  I don't much care for the 'shunning' against family members who choose to leave the culture, but obviously it would be extremely difficult to maintain a cohesive culture without those strict rules being in place.  (And that's of course why not exempting them from many federal education standards would denigrate them as a people.)

I have no idea how the Amish way of life would be possible if we forced their children through the extended rigamarole that most of us must complete.

Why? Would spending 20 hours a week over a combined 18 months at school really compromise the Amish upbringing that severely? I mean, I'm sure they have children do something from 16 to 18, but is that really such a vital cornerstone of their culture that some kind of accommodation can be found? They can very well run their own schools and teach their children there, as far as I'm concerned, as long as they conform to a minimal standard of learning objectives. Sure, cultures are important, but MUH CULTURE can't be the ultimate trump card to opt out of every civic obligation.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Again, I know the school system is in a dire state and I'd be the first to support a complete overhaul. That doesn't invalidate the general principle of a comprehensive education.

The Amish are not against education and they do a fine job running their own schools, but they're not interested in training future technicians, scientists, and desk job slaves like the rest of the American education system does.  What they teach is how to remain Amish.  Their kids are still taught reading, writing, and arithmetic like everybody else is, in addition to things that, as Averroes said, would be foreign to non-Amish.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

My comments echo Scott's in almost all respects on this issue.

Personally, I have respect for the ability to live in a manner that is apparently as sustainable and self-replicating as the Amish, and it certainly mirrors what in some respects my own aspirations for society are. That said, I am certainly sympathetic (for reasons far different than Antonio's) with the desire to implement a universal standard of education across an entire country.<sub>[1/sub] That said, it seems clear the Amish are sociologically superior to us (from what little I know of them), and I am not particularly fond of a state intent on smashing one's provincial trappings, particularly when they are in some sense an actual benefit. It is in very much the dilemma that many settler nations--both the United States and Russia/the Soviet Union included--encountered in dealing with native "uncivilized" populations. Some level of common sense--particularly as regards our "universal homogeneous state"--would have us "bring them up to our level". At the same time, these projects have in many instances sociologically destroyed these societies while still not entirely integrating them into our society; you thus suffer doubly through both the loss of culture and social sequestration. Were we to find the grandsons and granddaugthers of the Amish functioning even relatively well as software developers and suburban residents forty years from now, I would deem it a tragedy.

1. Such is essential to my ideally-conceived state, which produces skilled technical professionals in all manners suitable to maintaining the nation's pride and status in the international system.</sub>

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Antonio, one point of contention with your take is that in most ways the Amish do reject the basic premise of living in a shared society. They don't vote, they don't serve on juries, they aren't drafted, and they don't buy health insurance. They depend on non-Amish institutions in a lot of ways, and they do business with outsiders, but their way of life requires separation.

(All of that almost seems besides the point when you're arguing for their shared participation in a system of education that does not exist in the United States. Any group with the resources to keep its children out of our schools is probably doing them a lifelong favor.)

Actually, many Amish do vote, and pro-Trump PACs made a heavy investment in them in Pennsylvania this cycle.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/07/super-pac-hoping-amish-voters-will-make-election-day-gop-barn-raiser.html

[Figueira]

Voted FF like I would for any large group of people, but they have problems like any group. They should not be forced to integrate though.

[Reaganfan Democrat]

Voted FF like I would for any large group of people, but they have problems like any group. They should not be forced to integrate though.

Republicans?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Antonio, one point of contention with your take is that in most ways the Amish do reject the basic premise of living in a shared society. They don't vote, they don't serve on juries, they aren't drafted, and they don't buy health insurance. They depend on non-Amish institutions in a lot of ways, and they do business with outsiders, but their way of life requires separation.

Amish adults are free to make that choice, and the wider community should accept it (even if it would be a major problem if a large share of the population adopted this attitude, and as such it can only be tolerated up to a point). Children, however, are not their parents' property, and they should at least be put in the condition to develop closer ties with people outside their in-group if they are so inclined. I don't doubt that most of them would still chose to stay in their parents' community, but this substrate of wider socialization could only help.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Fair enough. I'll admit that learning more about the US education system makes me doubt that two more years into it would achieve much. I do believe in the importance of affirming abstract principles even when they can't be carried out very well in practice, though.