Technology in Community
The Amish Life We’re Looking For?
When I was 13 years old, I bought my first Windows laptop – a refurbished Dell XPS 15z that hilariously featured a DVD drive. What’s even better is that this laptop was touted as being the “thinnest and lightest” of its kind, while weighing a hefty 5.6 pounds and looking like a beast compared to my current day MacBook Pro. Regardless, I LOVED this laptop, and spent hours of my time video editing, making music, and reading tech articles.
Why am I informing you of my first major technology purchase? Because ever since I was young, I’ve loved consumer-level hardware and software: everything from Samsung smartphones to new iOS updates. I now watch every new Apple Keynote announcing their next “revolutionary” iPhone, and for fun I read reviews of tech products I’ve never used. I’m a nerd, sure, but I also care about how these devices influence our daily lives.
I’m convinced that beyond our personal use-cases, consumer technology has the power to shape the way we view our own personhood, and has the power to redefine our understanding of what it means to be human. Here at Charakter, I want to explore how everyday consumer technology impacts the way we view ourselves, our communities, and our world.
The Devices We’re Looking For
To create a framework for this viewpoint, I’ve decided to look towards Andy Crouch’s new book, The Life We’re Looking For, where he analyzes how technology has impacted our view of personhood today.
Crouch makes this claim: with every new technology, there is always a promise and a compromise. Marketers will always pitch us the benefits of a new device with “now you’ll be able to” promises – the dishwasher, for example, allows us to wash dishes without any physical labor involved. But these promises don’t include two large compromises that take the form of “you’ll no longer be able to” and “now you’ll have to.”
Crouch makes the claim that our modern technological conveniences often detract from allowing us to be full “persons,” which he defines as a “heart-soul-mind-strength complex designed for love.”1 In the case of a dishwasher, we lose the physicality of scrubbing and cleaning that engages our bodies, as well as the opportunity to build relationships while cleaning in a group or with a significant other. While convenience has left room for other activities in our lives, we’ve still lost something.
Crouch concludes his book by describing the need for close-knitted Christian communities that can truly embrace and recognize personhood. Ultimately, no matter how technology changes and influences the way we interact with the world, we still need other humans. The Imago Dei (Latin for Image of God) of each person should impact the way we use technology, where it is never at the expense or exploitation of others, but is used to promote flourishing and community.
A Horse & Buggy Framework
I recently came across an essay by a scholar named Donald Kraybill entitled Taming the Beast that showcases how Crouch’s ideas can work in action. I grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which is home to a large Amish population, and I’ve always wondered how this religious community functioned without the modern conveniences of cars, electricity, and the internet. My assumption was that they are religiously opposed to these amenities, but Kraybill’s essay changed my perspective.
Kraybill compellingly says that the Amish are not Luddites, but instead “selectively use, adapt, and create technology to serve the needs of their community.”2 He uses the automobile as an important case study.
When the automobile went mainstream in the early 20th century, the Amish chose not to use them. To the broad public, this seems insane – how could one be religiously opposed to such an innovative technology? Kraybill, however, shows that the Amish never once thought that the automobile was inherently sinful. Instead, he says “the new contraption threatened to fragment Amish communities, woven tight by the constraints of horse-drawn transportation.”3 The Amish weren’t opposed to cars, they were opposed to the extreme individualism that automobiles offered, which would split apart their tightly geographically defined communities.
But as the 20th century progressed, it became clear to the Amish that automobiles were necessary to ensure they could maintain their businesses and dealings with the rest of society. So began the Amish Uber system, where Amish employed non-Amish drivers to help transport them in vans or buses. Yet this bargain with this new technology still did not compromise their communities, since they chose to travel in groups and not individually. Kraybill concludes that the Amish primarily fear the harm that technology may have on their communities, not the technology itself.4
Final Thoughts
I’m not proposing we all become Amish, and I don’t think that Crouch is either. I don’t agree with the Amish viewpoint on cars or other convenient gadgets. But as I think about how the Amish view technology, it does present an interesting opportunity for modern Christians.
Consumer technologies have the capacity to take over us, driving us deeper into our own echo chambers and causing deep anxiety within us. But consumer technology can do exactly the opposite, creating opportunities to recognize the personhood of others by building deeper communities via technology.
My goal here at Charakter is to look at the ways that consumer technology can help us build community, and also how certain devices allow for the destruction of communities. I believe that when we frame things in the context of our communities, of the persons around us, it might help us see the Imago Dei in others a little clearer.
Crouch, Andy. 2022. The Life We're Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World, New York: Crown Publishing Group. Pg. 33.
Kraybill, Donald. 2021. What the Amish Teach Us: Plain Living in a Busy World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pg. 71.
What the Amish Teach Us, Pg. 73.
What the Amish Teach Us, Pg. 76
Great article seth! I learned something new about my *ahem* hometown.