Freedom and Technology: Allies or Foes?

It helps to see one’s world through another’s eyes every now and then.

Yesterday I said goodbye to Eyob and Fai, two students from my alma mater, Grinnell College, who had just spent a week with me as externs studying sustainable agriculture, sustainable living and sustainable community development.

Both first year students, Eyob was born in Sudan, the son of refugees from the war-torn Republic of Eritrea, Fai a resident of Thailand and the daughter of college professors. We spent the week visiting friends and neighbors in Jamesport, both Amish and not, engaging in stimulating conversations ranging from the physics of information to various theories of development.

The theories of development caught my interest immediately as they mirror the polarity of current agricultural thoughts. The theories fall under the broad titles of Modernization and Dependency, with differing ideas on how to solve the problems of so-called undeveloped countries, one believing in modernization through technology, the other believing that only leads to dependency.

The assumption that “undeveloped countries need bolstering” reminds me right away of Stan Parson’s famous line, “If technology is the solution, what’s the problem?” It is the inappropriate use of technology – from the plow to genetic manipulation – that wreaks the most havoc on our planet. From desertification to disease outbreak, the culprit is most often the inappropriate application of technology.

The modernists support the corporate model of development - economically driven, government supported, with corporate interests dominating individual interests and little to no regard for the impact on local cultures. The modernists see the transfer of technology on a global level as the answer to development problems. Whether economic stimulation is the goal or the result of this policy depends on one’s level of skepticism. In my opinion, only the very naïve can believe policies to force open markets are altruistic.

Dependency theorists look deeper into the social implications of technological transfer across cultures. They note the undermining of cultures (particularly AGRI-cultures) when cheap, foreign products (food, eg.) become available. Traditional ways and traditional foods are dropped in favor of the easy, cheap and new. As a result, developing countries become dependent on those supplying them, suffer from an erosion of culture and they have a whole new set of problems to deal with.

It puts me in mind of the saying, I think attributed to President Harry Truman, “If you want to make a man a cripple, give him crutches.”

To those of us flirting with, or deeply engaged in, alternative agriculture, these are familiar poles of thought. Can there be a global industry more polarized than agriculture? On one end are the front page, glitzy, scientific triumphs - gene spliced tomatoes, round-up ready soybeans, and cloned calves that accomplish what?

An inedible tomato, a soybean guaranteed to make you buy herbicides and five expensive sources of hamburger. Yes, I admit it’s cool that we can do those things. But just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

And at the other end, without fanfare, are naturalist farmers, mimicking time-tested patterns of nature, growing healthy, tasty food while building organic matter and healthy soil.

As Fai and Eyob and I toured Jamesport and spoke to Amish and “English” (non-Amish to the Amish) friends, we dove deeper into the subject of appropriate development. Our first stop was at my neighbor Joe Burkholder’s new store, Oak Ridge Furniture. Joe recently built a giant store with show room, work shop and storage areas and moved his young family to a house nearby.

Joe is twenty-five, handsome and self-assured beyond his years. He is quick to smile and disarming with stories of his blunders and near-blunders. How was it that he built this business, had so much inventory, employees (actually more like sub-contractors) and responsibility at an age barely more than a college graduate?

This was a question that I hadn’t heard Joe asked before and the answer was insightful. Joe was working outside of the home after school years like all Amish boys and spent some time working in a furniture shop. At the age of seventeen he fell in love with the furniture business and that began a dream of a business of his own.

“I believe if you have a goal and work hard you can achieve it,” Joe said.

I was mightily impressed with all three of these youngsters – all conversing in their second language. I knew I was in for a good week.

Several times later in the week we visited my good friend and right arm, Abe Kurtz. At only twenty-six, Abe has a home with wife, Susie, and three daughters on 160 of the best acres near Jamesport, a growing herd of cattle, and a large shop housing a thriving tarp business as well as our hopping plucker/scalder mini-assembly line. Abe has as much confidence and humility as you can stuff inside one young man.

There were no surprises with Abe’s answers until a later visit when I tested my budding theory tying technology and freedom together. It went something like this.

Modern folks, certainly governments and corporations, see development as primarily education and technology transfer with maximum commerce involved. It is really commerce driving it, but we can give the powers that be – politicians, bureaucrats, and CEOs - the benefit of the doubt and say that they truly have the best interests of humanity at heart. I’m sure many do.

This is the prevailing model that is meddling with countries like Eyob’s and Fai’s to help “raise their standards of living.” Well, are they really helping?

The long answer is yes and no and roughly parallels the plusses and minuses of the large corporate hog farms that moved into north Missouri recently. On the plus the hog concentration camps provide jobs and an increased tax base. On the minus they pollute and squeeze out the little producers. That is a gross simplification. And the ramifications of development on a global scale are much more complex to sort out.

There is no black and white. Development comes in shades of grey and looks different from each individual perspective. So how, then, can a person make any type of objective qualitative judgment as to whether a form of development is good or bad?

I was at a loss. Then I fell back on the premise that carried Alice and me out of the dark years of farming back in the 80s: nature is the model. I fell back on my biological training and the unassailable truths of nature. If we looked at models of development through the lens of nature’s template it is easy to see where they clash with nature. We can, therefore, sort out the appropriate from the inappropriate.

With the naturalist’s glasses on, most of the clashes are obvious and severe: Confinement, manure aggregation, concentrate feeding are all agricultural development norms that cannot be found in any natural systems. And therefore each one is a risky proposition requiring a lot of technological props. They are doomed to failure because Mother Nature always bats last.

Exporting cheap foods, machinery for automated production and western technology also flies in the face of natural development. It causes cultural upheaval and radical changes in diet and nutrition. The western world can’t seem to look outside its borders without feeling that every family ought to have two cars, three TVs and medical benefits.

After looking at biology and nature’s example of sustainable development, Fai and Eyob and I came back to looking at the Amish. How do they stack up? Of course, they fail miserably by typical western measure: sub-standard education, sub-standard income, poor access to medicine (no insurance, no phones for emergencies). By modern measures of success - cars and televisions - they aren’t even on the radar screen.

The western mind sees Amish and sees what they don’t have: vehicles, televisions, computers, fashionable clothes. Looking at them through nature’s check-list for sustainable development, however, they get an amazingly high report card.

* They require no government assistance. (And still they have to pay taxes.)

* They contribute hardly at all to air pollution and energy consumption.

* They trade locally, stimulating the local economy (unlike corporations that out-source all over the world).

* They invest locally. All their earnings stay right at home. They invest in land, more buildings, and CDs in the local bank.

* They produce most of their own food from their huge gardens and the livestock they grow. Very little of their food has been trucked from afar.

* They are better land and animal stewards. There are exceptions here, but on the whole they keep more soil on the land and take better care of their stock than their “English” counterparts.

* They use manures instead of formulated fertilizers. Again there are exceptions, but many have dairies and spread cow and horse manure on crop fields.

As significant as all those high marks are, they pale in comparison to the big realization I had about the Amish when we had our second discussion with Abe: Could they be freer because of their shunning of technology!?

Look at the western world’s approach and results: We are handing out crutches left and right and making cripples of our nation’s own poor, of developing country’s poor. We are taxing ourselves heavily and subsidizing global corporate greed – all in our quest to hand out more crutches. Look at our obese population. Look at the sky-rocketing number of non-ambulatory people. We have arrived at a fascinating and precarious stage in population growth and health through our accepted western model of development.

But look at the Amish. With eighth grade educations and a long arm’s length from the government they are producing young men like Joe and Abe - entrepreneurs who are adding value to their local economies, raising healthy, well-adjusted children of their own who will have a sense of responsibility to the family, a sense of contribution, a practical view of the world and priorities that revolve around community strength.

In front of Eyob and Fai, I asked Abe if he ever felt like he had been deprived in any way by being raised Amish. Almost bashfully Abe said, “I really feel like I had more freedom being raised Amish.”

That’s when the truck of truth hit me. Of course! It’s the community safety net, the family values, the personal freedom and responsibility that make for individual strength and security. What “English” twenty-five year olds did I know that were shouldering half the responsibility of Abe or Joe? None. I certainly wasn’t at twenty-five.

It makes sense when you see eight and ten-year old boys and girls driving a team of horses in the hay field, doing exactly the same amount of work as their older siblings and father and uncles. It makes even more sense when you understand that any money earned before the child comes of age – usually twenty-one – goes back to the family and, in turn, when the child marries or comes of age, the parents help set them up on property of their own.

Working for Mom and Dad is not at all objectionable when you know that, down the line, Mom and Dad’s economic well-being is going to have a big impact on how well you get set up when you leave the nest.

It is a system that maximizes personal responsibility. And, following that, what can be more freeing than knowing your own capabilities, having the confidence to strike out on your own, to set, and go for, your own goals!?

So many children today are coddled and sheltered and, consequently, inept when Mom decides they need to get out on their own. I rarely see Amish parents “mother henning” their kids. The kids play at games many of my friends would consider high risk. And sure, there are tears, cuts, scrapes and minor accidents.

Abe once told me a story that some Amish women noticed from inside the house a couple of very little boys climbing up the ladder of a tall silo. The women were very worried but just watched from inside as the boys went all the way up, poked around and then climbed back down. Abe said they knew if they had gone outside and called to the boys that the boys would have known their mothers and aunts were afraid for them. That in turn could have made the boys feel fearful about what they were doing. The women put their desire to have the boys growing up confident and unafraid before their maternal instincts to fear for their safety.

It takes a lot to allow children that kind of freedom and learning on their own.

Who is going to be a more functional global citizen, a child who understands through experience how the world works and where his or her limitations lay or one who is scared to go outside where he or she might get stung or scratched or dirty?

I’m convinced, despite the strict dress code, despite the horse and buggy, despite the limited travel and exposure to the world, and most of all, because of their shunning of technology and their ideas on parenting, the Amish are, as a whole, freer than the “English” and epitomize the best model of appropriate development: the empowerment of the individual.

Any reasonable plan for community development, be it within one’s own country or for export to a developing country, would do well to consider that countries are composed of communities and communities are composed of individuals. Empowered individuals are the true backbone of sustainable communities and strong countries.

It does my heart good to see, though my vantage point of poultry equipment sales, the emergence of a new breed of courageous and optimistic folks, young and old, Amish and not. Allan Nation has called them the farmers of tomorrow. I like to think of them as rural entrepreneurs, modern pioneers, risk-takers who see the bigger picture, carefully choose their technological tools, hold on to a land ethic that precludes plundering, and have at heart a basic understanding of nature’s model and scale.

These folks are more self-reliant, have old-fashioned values, are more optimistic, family oriented, nature oriented, and more spiritual in traditional and non-traditional ways.

I want to thank Fai and Eyob, fellow Grinnell Pioneers, for opening my eyes to these insights and making me thankful, once again, for my community, my values and my service.

Thanks Fai, thanks Eyob. The new world belongs to your generation. May your memories of Jamesport serve you well.