Where are the sex abuse rates from? The Amish have many traits (isolation, obedience of children to elders, emphasis on harmony) that increase sexual abuse rates while decreasing reporting. Even if the rate of first offense is unchanged, those traits make abuse much more likely to continue, raising the number of total offenses per person.
Also, describing Rumspringa as “substantial freedom” seems like an exaggeration, just from the wikipedia page you link to. Adolescents are punished less harshly for adults for certain transgressions, but still owe obedience to parents and are subject to a lot of community control (if they weren’t, what behavior was seen wouldn’t be so similar within communities while varying a decent amount between communities. The communities each have their lines, and the teenagers know what they are).
I think it’s entirely possible the Amish are making different trade-offs because they value different things, and are happy with the results of their choices. I’m really intrigued to learn more from them about those trade-offs. But this book seems to be taking their word for how their choices play out (and in particular, taking adult men’s word for how they work out for women and children) in ways I don’t find very useful.
The evidence on sexual abuse seems to be entirely anecdotal, and not quantified in any meaningful sense. I included it to avoid implying that the Amish are consistently minimizing crime.
Adolescents during Rumspringa are certainly subject to social pressure, but not obviously more so than in other cultures. They appear to have less parental control than those with tiger moms.
Is that particular study cruxey for you, or just an example? I don’t find it convincing, but the reasons why are only important if this is a crux for you.
Examples of the kind data I would find compelling:
compare serum cortisol levels between the Amish, various subgroups in the US, and isolated religious groups we’re very sure are repressive, like FLDS.
I expect serum cortisol to vary a lot within the US, so it’s important to create the right subgroups. It seems entirely plausible being Amish is better than being mainstream poor but worse than being mainstream rich.
Among the Amish, I’m curious about the breakdown by gender and being cis+straight vs. not.
compare heart rate variability (generally correlated with high parasympathetic nervous system activity and emotional health) among those same groups
I’d love to compare other diseases of stress, but everything I can think of either has too many physical contributors to illness, or detection is too strongly based on self-report.
quantify level of support after an obvious traumatic injury like breaking a leg, and something subtle like back pain. If being Amish is net positive it seems like a lot of the positivity lives in the social support, so how good is it, actually?
I’d like to see this for both median members and the least liked/lowest status.
How fast do equivalent injuries heal among Amish vs. mainstream subgroups?
conversion rate to Amish or equivalent.
The conversion rate from mainstream to literally Amish is ~0, but that could be almost entirely Amish refusal to allow converts in. I’d use a more expansive definition that included back to the land/giving up tech. I expect the rate of doing that and maintaining is way, way less than the 10-15% Amish departure rate, although it’s not a fair comparison because there’s nothing one family can do to generate the support level of the Amish.
I don’t expect to find strong evidence on this topic anytime soon, so I’m making do with what’s available. I think I’ve been influenced by a fair amount of poorly legible evidence.
Cortisol and HRV data would likely be valuable. I predict that they would show that the average Amish person is mildly less stressed than the average American.
The Amish seem to approve of outsiders converting to be Amish, but they are definitely not making it easy. It’s likely somewhat hard to get started, because more tourists want to visit Amish communities than those communities are willing to interact with. You’d need to learn an obscure dialect of German in order to be accepted. Then learn lots of rules about which technologies can be used when. Many people are mildly addicted to something that the Amish prohibit or heavily restrict (television, electricity).
Something like half of new converts eventually drop out. That’s important evidence that establishes that Amish communities can’t be a lot better than other cultures. But I think it’s consistent with Amish culture being slightly better on average.
I’m only making a rather weak claim that Amish communities are a decent place to live. My stronger claim is that, based on what many Americans claim to want, there’s something weird about how few give any thought to converting. In particular, I see a discrepancy between how much people say they value equality, versus how much they seek it out.
Where are the sex abuse rates from? The Amish have many traits (isolation, obedience of children to elders, emphasis on harmony) that increase sexual abuse rates while decreasing reporting. Even if the rate of first offense is unchanged, those traits make abuse much more likely to continue, raising the number of total offenses per person.
Also, describing Rumspringa as “substantial freedom” seems like an exaggeration, just from the wikipedia page you link to. Adolescents are punished less harshly for adults for certain transgressions, but still owe obedience to parents and are subject to a lot of community control (if they weren’t, what behavior was seen wouldn’t be so similar within communities while varying a decent amount between communities. The communities each have their lines, and the teenagers know what they are).
I think it’s entirely possible the Amish are making different trade-offs because they value different things, and are happy with the results of their choices. I’m really intrigued to learn more from them about those trade-offs. But this book seems to be taking their word for how their choices play out (and in particular, taking adult men’s word for how they work out for women and children) in ways I don’t find very useful.
The evidence on sexual abuse seems to be entirely anecdotal, and not quantified in any meaningful sense. I included it to avoid implying that the Amish are consistently minimizing crime.
Adolescents during Rumspringa are certainly subject to social pressure, but not obviously more so than in other cultures. They appear to have less parental control than those with tiger moms.
Here’s a survey of Amish women that tends to confirm the mostly good outcomes: Health status, health conditions, and health behaviors among Amish women (ungated copy). For children, the high retention rates seem like medium-quality evidence.
I wonder how much their satisfaction depends on the hope of eternity in heaven.
Is that particular study cruxey for you, or just an example? I don’t find it convincing, but the reasons why are only important if this is a crux for you.
Examples of the kind data I would find compelling:
compare serum cortisol levels between the Amish, various subgroups in the US, and isolated religious groups we’re very sure are repressive, like FLDS.
I expect serum cortisol to vary a lot within the US, so it’s important to create the right subgroups. It seems entirely plausible being Amish is better than being mainstream poor but worse than being mainstream rich.
Among the Amish, I’m curious about the breakdown by gender and being cis+straight vs. not.
compare heart rate variability (generally correlated with high parasympathetic nervous system activity and emotional health) among those same groups
I’d love to compare other diseases of stress, but everything I can think of either has too many physical contributors to illness, or detection is too strongly based on self-report.
quantify level of support after an obvious traumatic injury like breaking a leg, and something subtle like back pain. If being Amish is net positive it seems like a lot of the positivity lives in the social support, so how good is it, actually?
I’d like to see this for both median members and the least liked/lowest status.
How fast do equivalent injuries heal among Amish vs. mainstream subgroups?
conversion rate to Amish or equivalent.
The conversion rate from mainstream to literally Amish is ~0, but that could be almost entirely Amish refusal to allow converts in. I’d use a more expansive definition that included back to the land/giving up tech. I expect the rate of doing that and maintaining is way, way less than the 10-15% Amish departure rate, although it’s not a fair comparison because there’s nothing one family can do to generate the support level of the Amish.
I don’t expect to find strong evidence on this topic anytime soon, so I’m making do with what’s available. I think I’ve been influenced by a fair amount of poorly legible evidence.
Cortisol and HRV data would likely be valuable. I predict that they would show that the average Amish person is mildly less stressed than the average American.
The Amish seem to approve of outsiders converting to be Amish, but they are definitely not making it easy. It’s likely somewhat hard to get started, because more tourists want to visit Amish communities than those communities are willing to interact with. You’d need to learn an obscure dialect of German in order to be accepted. Then learn lots of rules about which technologies can be used when. Many people are mildly addicted to something that the Amish prohibit or heavily restrict (television, electricity).
Something like half of new converts eventually drop out. That’s important evidence that establishes that Amish communities can’t be a lot better than other cultures. But I think it’s consistent with Amish culture being slightly better on average.
I’m only making a rather weak claim that Amish communities are a decent place to live. My stronger claim is that, based on what many Americans claim to want, there’s something weird about how few give any thought to converting. In particular, I see a discrepancy between how much people say they value equality, versus how much they seek it out.
(Apologies for low-effort response to an interesting article.)