The Roman Philosopher Lucius Anneaus Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE) was perhaps the first to note the universal trend that growth is slow but ruin is rapid. I call this tendency the "Seneca Effect."
Showing posts with label Amish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amish. Show all posts

Sunday, November 28, 2021

Small Communities: How to avoid being exterminated

 


In the "Simpsons" series, Shelbyville Manhattan is the mythical founder of the town of Shelbyville. He split from his companion, Jebediah Springfield, who had refused to found a town where cousin marriage was legal. So, they founded two separate cities: Shelbyville and Springfield. Both cities went their own ways, without interacting very much with each other except in terms of occasional raids performed by local hotheads. In a more realistic tale, however, we might have expected that the Shelbyvillians and the Springfielders would have considered each other as abominations to be stamped out and that they would have engaged in doing exactly that.


Sometimes, you really feel like leaving this madness to the people who watch the news on tv every day or keep harassing you on social media. You feel like joining a separate community, like the Amish. They don't watch TV, don't use the Internet: wonderful life. Yet, you have a nagging feeling that it might not be so easy.....

 

As things stand, many of us are starting to think about the possibility of quitting. Yes, quitting the debate on social media, quitting the insults on TV, quitting the attempt to extract a drop of rationality from people whose brain was washed away by a tsunami of folly. They think they are the majority and maybe they are. Or maybe not but, in any case, why can't you just do your thing in peace, without bothering anyone? 

Not so easy. Theoretically, democracy is about protecting the rights of minorities. But, in practice, the Western propaganda system has evolved into something that thrives on demonizing minorities, in some cases pushing for, and obtaining, their extermination. The case of the Jews in Europe remains paradigmatic: it came after decades of demonization carried out in a society that was basically democratic in terms of its political structure. 

So, if you want to be a minority, you are at risk. At a very serious risk. 

In earlier times, it was possible for non-standard groups to leave their countries of origin and simply move to other places. That's becoming more and more difficult: not only the world is full of people, but the global propaganda machine seems to be linking governments all over the world. Countries that at some moment seemed to be friendly, suddenly become heavily engaged in stamping out the abomination represented by the minority of people who think like you. 

There follows that if you really want to be different, you have to accept that you are a separate group in a potentially hostile larger community. It is a dangerous condition, but history tells us that there have been examples of minority groups surviving for centuries or even millennia. Think of the Jews, the Dhimmi (non-Islamic communities in Islamic countries), the Roma (the "Gypsies"), and the Amish as possibly the oldest example of the many minority religious communities in the United States.

The Jews are the most ancient example. Their dispersion is known as the "Diaspora." It started with the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD. From then on, most Jews have been living in scattered communities in Asia, Europe, and Africa. In recent times, they switched their strategy by returning to a full-fledged state. Their population is estimated at about 15 million (ca. 0.2% of the total world population).

The Dhimmi, أهل الذمة Ahl aḏ-dhimmah "the people of the covenant" are the non-Muslims living in an Islamic state. They are mostly Middle Eastern and African communities that maintained their Christian identity during the expansion of Islam, starting with the 7th century AD.  But they are also non-Christian groups such as the Jews and the Zoroastrians in Iran. Their number is hard to estimate, but it may be large: for instance from 10% to 15% of the Egyptian population is estimated to be Christian Copts nowadays. 

The Roma, also known as the Gypsies, are not so ancient as the Jews and the Dhimmi, but their existence may go back to the early middle ages as migrants from India, so quite possibly more than one thousand years. Very little is known about them until relatively recent times and even their total population is hard to estimate: it may be as small as 2 million, or perhaps as large as 20 million. 

The Amish are the most recent of the list, but still count at least three centuries of existence, having originated in Switzerland in the late 17th century, as a sect of Christian "anabaptists." In time, most of them moved to North America. They are now estimated to be about 350,000. 

All these groups didn't have an easy life and they were often subjected to various kinds of vexations and persecutions. Of the three, the Jews went through a full-fledged extermination attempt during the 20th century, after a history of local exterminations called "pogroms". The Dhimmi fared somewhat better: they are protected by the Sharia law and there are no reports of extermination campaigns specifically directed against them. But they have to pay a special tax and there are many reports of vexations and harassment against them. The Roma were repeatedly mistreated all over history and explicitly targeted for extermination during the 20th century by the German Nazis. The Amish were never under an actual threat of extermination in modern times, especially in the US where the legislation traditionally favors religious groups. But they had their troubles in the past and nobody can know what the future has in store for them. 

You may think that the hard life of Jews, Dhimmi, Roma, and Amish has been difficult enough that it is not to be taken as an example. But they are, actually, exceptions to the rule that in most human societies, anyone different is exterminated. The list is long: just take a look at the Wikipedia entry for "genocides," you'll see what I mean. 

So, how could the Jews, Dhimmi, Roma, and Amish manage to survive? There are several points in common in their strategies, the main one being to offer a low profile target to would-be exterminators. It means being not just a minority, but a very small minority that keeps to itself. That is, little or no proselytizing is allowed. It is possible to convert to Judaism for someone not born as a Jew, but it is not easy. The Dhimmi, wisely, refrain from trying to recruit Muslims. The Roma are close-knit family groups: you have to be born a Romani to be one. As for the Amish, they are more open to new recruits, but they do not make much of an effort at proselytizing, either.

The non-threatening image is helped by the rules that discourage mixed marriages. A rule sometimes expressed as "I don't marry your sister, you don't marry my sister." Then, the idea is to be poor -- even abjectly poor and also to avoid all forms of violence. 

The Roma have honed this strategy to perfection, they are often extremely poor and do not use and do not carry weapons. The Amish do the same, although they are known as gun lovers -- but they use guns only for hunting. The Jews are somewhat an exception, but their modern fame of a rich elite and of being effective warriors is recent. The condition of the Christian Dhimmi in the Middle East is similar: only recently have they developed effective militias, but they never tried an all-out clash against the Muslim majority. 

The main strategic position of these surviving minorities involves laying all their cards on the table. The way they dress, their language, their physical aspect, clearly identify them for what they are. (again the Jews are an exception, but that's modern. In earlier times, they were clearly identifiable). Deception by the minority would be seen as a threat by the majority -- it is to be avoided at all costs. 

Finally, these minorities tend to live in enclaves or traveling colonies of limited size, but not just as single families. It is probably a compromise between being too vulnerable (single families) and threatening (large groups). 

These rules have kept these separate communities alive for several centuries. But tolerance is always just one step away from genocide. It typically starts with the accusation of mistreating babies, then it moves one step up toward the accusation of eating them. It was commonly used against the Jews (and one may wonder how difficult it must have been for them to find kosher babies for their evil dinners). The Roma are commonly accused of stealing non-Roma's children (just as unlikely, considering that they have many of their own). And, finally, the Amish have been recently accused of pedophilia. (it is enough to say that it came from the "Daily Mail" to be sure that it is false, but just in case, take a look at this

After the "baby eating" phase, accusations may climb up to higher levels of depravity in a positive feedback mechanism well known in these matters. It does not necessarily lead to a full-fledged genocide, but it may happen if there are economic gains to be made in the extermination. A typical case is that of the Cathars, a European religious group that was common in Southern France during the Middle Ages. Their problem may have been that they owned lands in a specific region of Europe, where they also kept cattle and, probably, money and valuable items. When a papal decree allowed the confiscation of their possessions (and those of their supporters, or presumed to be), that opened up a specific interest in exterminating them. And it happened. 

Another example of a group that chose the wrong strategy were the followers of Jim Jones, who retreated to a remote jungle commune that they called "Jonestown," in Guyana. We will never know exactly what happened, but the whole community was wiped out in 1978. It is normally reported that it was the result of mass suicide, but some say they were exterminated by someone who wanted to get at the community's treasure. Like the Cathars, they had isolated themselves in a specific region, they had accumulated a certain wealth, and when they were attacked (if that's what happened), nobody could intervene to help them. 

As you see, forming your own community within a larger society is not easy -- especially in a democracy. You would have to develop a special language, live separately from the others and, most of all, be abjectly poor. And even that won't save you from the occasional pogrom. Then, if you make a mistake, you may expect the worst: not just a pogrom, but a full-fledged attempt of genocide. Not great as a prospect. 

Can you think of a different strategy? How about NOT laying your cards on the table and, instead, forming some kind of secret society? As you may imagine, this idea brings a different set of problems. We'll discuss that in a future post.