A few days after his browsing in the library, the village began to buzz about an upcoming musical in the entertainment center called “To a World Less Able,” a title that interested Rick but gave him no clue about its content. On the day of the performance, Rick walked around to the front of the entertainment center and entered through the foyer.
The curtain rose revealing a beautiful painted farm scene as the backdrop. The actors were dressed in the distinctive clothing of the Amish except for a few actors on the periphery who wore cattle costumes and switched their tails convincingly. The story was about a young man, James Zinn, as he was reaching maturity. His parents had raised him to pay close attention to his farm chores—tending to his family’s cattle and other livestock, for the most part—and he did that diligently. There were barn-raisings from time to time where all got together to put up a new barn for an Amish neighbor. The actors even did a mock barn-raising on stage accompanied by a rousing song. These Amish gatherings were hard work with intense hands-on training, but they were also warm communal times with feasts of superb food. The knowledge required to do the barn raising and the feasts was carefully passed from person to person, generation to generation.
Although the musical treated the Amish way of life with great respect, it was also light-hearted in many places. In a number toward the end of Act I, the cows danced and sang a song in appreciation of how they lived.
Thank God, I’m an Amish Cow
My barn is straight
And fresh with paint.
No leaning walls can be found
Or stuff lying around the ground.
Thank God, I’m an Amish cow.
We eat good grass,
Swat our tails with sass,
On our backs, warm sunshine.
Pennsylvania life is fine.
Thank God, I’m an Amish cow
I get shots so I don’t get sick.
Tasty salt blocks to lick,
But no additives shot beneath my hide,
Just good feed and my farmer by my side.
Thank God, I’m an Amish cow.
I’ve got friends in Lancaster
With more names than I can master.
Pigs and goats and horses, too,
A ram, and to keep him happy, ewe.
Thank God, I’m an Amish cow.
And then the cow paused and spoke the last line.
Of course, it’s much better to be a dairy cow than a beef cow.
The audience chuckled at the grim humor.
James loved his Amish life. He helped those in his community and they helped him. However, he couldn’t use things from the outside world unless they’d been approved by community leaders for use by the group. James bristled at the communal telephone, and the prohibition of rock and roll music—which he loved. However, there was a larger problem. James loved things in the outside world beyond telephones and rock music. Higher math and art museums, for examples, but, most of all, he loved buildings. James appreciated that the Amish built better wooden barns than the outside world, but he wanted to design larger buildings than barns, buildings with steel frames and sheer glass walls, buildings that were sleek, modern, and forward-looking. He wanted to be an architect.
However, James couldn’t become an architect without further schooling. At the beginning of Act II, there was a beautiful, plaintive song about how sad he had been at the end of the eighth grade when he had to stop formal schooling. James had wanted to continue his education at an outside high school but the elders, a stern intimidating lot, prohibited it. Such things were not done, they told him. The discussion between them got heated and James, in a snit of youthful rebelliousness, threatened to sue, but the elders told him that the issue had been litigated years before in the Supreme Court, which had decided that the Amish in Wisconsin could stop education after the eighth grade notwithstanding the state’s truancy law.
James was unhappy for the next several years, but then reached legal adulthood, so he could leave and resume his education and do what he wanted…provided he could support himself in the outside world. After sending out a dozen letters, he was thrilled to get an offer to work as a security guard at the newly organized Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. The salary, though modest, would finance his further education. He knew he had a long road ahead, but he also knew he had a strong work ethic as a result of his Amish rearing. He was going to complete his education and become an architect.
At the end of the musical, James ruminated about his decision to leave.
To a World Less Able
The food outside has bad taste,
Cooked in fat as thick as paste.
They serve mere gruel on their tables.
Should I go to a world less able?
Men outside cannot farm
Without big machines in place of arms.
Are their achievements a mere fable?
Should I go to a world less able?
Outside greetings are largely unctuous.
Their gatherings are commonly fractious.
Their children are overly rambunctious
And offer their elders too much fuss.
I’d say, ‘Stop that, kid. Stop your babble’.
Should I go to a world less able?
Outside, I’ll be flooded by advertising:
‘We’ve got great clothes in your sizing.
Come buy my stuff that you’ve been prizing.
Buy them now, my prices are rising.
All my clothes have the right label.’
Should I go to a world less able?
James walked slowly to the front of the stage with his head lowered, deep in thought, while the instruments played softly in the background. He resumed singing, albeit more quietly.
It’s not just ads that makes me think,
Wondering whether I’m going to sink.
I’m going to the outside world
To make my way, my sails unfurled.
I am leaving for their schools
That will teach me buildings’ rules.
I want to make structures tall and shiny,
Not wooden shelters for cows’ hineys;
Though our barns are well built,
Set right, with nary a tilt
An architect I wish to be,
Designing sleek toilets where people can pee
With walls around for privacy.
Yes, an architect I wish to be.
Steel and glass I’ll erect,
Pulled skyward by crane’s neck.
No helping hands from my friends,
Just strangers working for scato’s ends.
But what if I need help from someone true
To aid me there as we all do?
Will they be there to see me through?
Or tersely say, ‘Help? Fuck you!’
Will they say ‘I’m working for myself,
Not working with others building social wealth’.
Scato, scato drives them all,
In their private offices and shopping malls.
He then slowly spoke the last line:
Should I go to a world less able?
After James walked offstage and the musical ended, Rick, who was nearing the end of his research, was keenly aware that he would soon be leaving the Euromamo to return to outside society.
Why doesn’t everybody leave everybody else the hell alone?
Jimmy Durante
CHAPTER 32
Privacy
The next morning, Rick stacked his field journals on his table, admiring the pile they made.
Eight full journals, two hundred fifty pages each. Of course, my big handwriting accounts for some bulk, but it’s still a nice achievement. The top journal…that’s got the preliminary outline of my dissertation. I’d better take a glance through it to make sure I can write about each topic.
….
OK. I can handle those. What a relief. Journals into the backpack. There’s the Human Relations Area File Guide Jasovic gave
me. Go through the topics one last time. Any of them will be fair game during the oral examination. Good thing that, during the year, I checked off the topics as I completed them. I love running my fingertips down the checkmarks. OK. They’re done, so into the backpack it goes. Thank the Golden Warren, I don’t have to ask any last-minute questions. Once I leave the village, my research is over, finished, done. No quick trip to the library to patch up holes in it.
Good for me. I got through my research and I did it in a year, on schedule. I feel good all the way to the marrow of my bones. When I get back, I’ll worry about writing my dissertation but, for now, I just want to enjoy this. My next task is to get back to La Puerta and tell Raul that he doesn’t need to come up river to pick me up. The trip down the La Cuerda on the Euromamo rail and water system should be safer than my trip up river was, although there’s always risk in the rain forest.
The new Leader, John Eel Hunter, knocked on his door, jostling him from his thoughts.
“I know you will be leaving us soon,” he began. “It’s important that I discuss a matter with you before you depart.”
“Sure, Leader. What’s on your mind?”
“I have a proposal for you. Consider staying with us and living your life in our village. We could easily work you into our economy. Education seems a natural fit for you but, if you’re interested, we can talk about other possibilities.”
“It’s tempting, Leader. I’ve great respect for Euromamo values and you’ve built an admirable, civil society, but I belong in outside society. I’m accustomed to the surroundings there, to being near my relatives and the friends I made before I came here. The career I’ve been working toward—teaching at a university—is located there, not here.”
“I understand,” said the Leader. “Since you aren’t disposed to stay with us, I want to discuss privacy with you one last time. You’ve told us that your purpose in studying us is to describe us to outside society.”
“I must do it to get my degree,” said Rick, “and the degree is vital for my career.”
“How many people will learn about us from your writing?” asked the Leader.
“My first work will be a dissertation, which I’ll then revise for publication by an academic press. The readership is almost always small,” admitted Rick, somewhat sheepishly.
“You would talk about us at your university?” asked the Leader.
“Yes, the university requires that I report on my research, mainly through a written dissertation but verbally as well. Anthropologists are always interested in learning about previously unknown societies and doubtless my professors will want to hear what I have to say about you. I may also present papers on my research at academic conferences and publish papers in journals.”
“Our existence would almost certainly be picked up by newspapers for the general public to see,” the Leader remarked sadly.
“What comfort can I give you?” asked Rick.
“As you know by now, we greatly treasure our privacy. In the bluntest terms, the continuation of our society in its current form depends on our controlling the elements we incorporate from outside society. It’s as if we have blue discs posted on trees around our village. We want to control whether we’ll remove them periodically to let in an outside influence. As you know, we think carefully about what to accept and what to reject. We need to make these decisions at our own pace to protect us from getting overwhelmed by consumption values.”
“You wouldn’t get overwhelmed because of my writing, would you?”
“We fear that we would. We’re unusual…descendants of Englishmen who have been living here in privacy for over two centuries. We’ve built our society around unconventional ideas about warfare, social wealth, inheritance, religion, sex, marriage, and advertising, to name only a few. We anticipate there’d be interest in us.”
“Surely you could fend off outside influences, just as you have done for years.”
“Perhaps, but the main reason we’ve been able to maintain our society is by admitting outside influences on our own terms and at our own pace. We incorporate from outside society thoughtfully, over time rather than reflexively after being inundated with advertising and other pressure to adopt new stuff quickly, impulsively. We would lose control, I fear.”
“But you are deep in the rain forest…”
“Deep indeed…until you found us. Following you would be photographers from National Geographic, more anthropologists, journalists, and television crews—and businessmen. Don’t forget them. The revelation that we’ve been producing plant-based medicines will certainly spark the interest of pharmaceutical companies. Their representatives would come to us with enticements to expand our production, or come wanting our consent to produce and mass market our medicines outside the rain forest. If a product became popular, its production might deplete the plants we use to make it, just to name one risk. The enticements they would offer would be difficult to resist and, if we caved, that would be the end of us. Considerations of business would dominate our minds and draw us away from fuller, more balanced living.”
“That might not happen,” suggested Rick.
“That’s far short of a guarantee. The point is we’re confident we can control outside influences if we continue doing what we’re doing. That’s what we need, a secure space of privacy to continue living how we choose.”
“What do you want from me?”
“We want you to avoid violating our privacy.”
“How? By not writing anything about you?” asked Rick.
“Yes,” the Leader answered directly.
Rick paused a moment.
“That would be extremely difficult given my circumstances,” he responded.
“Then, can you write your reports in a way that’ll shield us from scrutiny by the outside world? Can you maintain our anonymity? We live in a valley deep in the rain forest and all we want is to be left alone to pursue our way of life as we choose. Isn’t there enough space on Earth for us to do that?”
“Early on, you knew why I was here,” Rick replied. “I intended to research you and write about you. You also knew when I finished I would leave. Why didn’t you just kick me out?”
“When you arrived, we thought carefully about whether we should kick you out and be done with you. The problem was that, after you met Leader Olive-White, you knew we spoke English so even if we had persuaded you to leave, you already knew enough to inspire subsequent anthropologists and journalists to return and barge into our peaceful existence. Our best option, the Leader concluded, was to let you live with us in the hope that, over time, you would understand the importance of privacy to us, and our need to manage our contacts with outside society. In short, she hoped that, by living with us, you would convert to our way of thinking about privacy. Maybe then you would forego writing about us. This brings us to my question for you: Have we won you over?”
“I’ll think about it carefully,” said Rick. “I’ve always been forthcoming with you, so I tell you now that it’ll be difficult for me to avoid writing about you. Research in preparation for writing is why I’m here. It’s what I do as an anthropologist. How can I explain to my teachers and to those who funded this trip that I’m unwilling to use the research I collected?”
“Surely, information about us can’t be very useful to outside society,” the Leader responded. “Anthropologists have collected information about enough cultures by now to satisfy their needs.”
“Anthropologists are always interested in additional societies, especially those that have unusual features or that can provide useful examples about how to live…like the Euromamo,” said Rick. “You talk frequently about the valuable lessons you learned from surrounding groups and from outside society. Shouldn’t you now share your Euromamo values with outside society?”
“No, because if you tell them about us, their interest in us will destroy us,” the Leader countered quickly. “If we become like outside society, humans will have one less distinct culture
going forward. Don’t you need diverse cultures, just as you need diverse plants and animals biologically?”
“My writing would emphasize the need to protect your society from outside intrusion, in effect saying leave you alone,” offered Rick. “Wouldn’t that make writing about you OK?”
“No. As we see it, if you don’t write about us at all, no one has to be told to leave us alone.”
Rick paused to think about his next tack.
“You don’t want outside society to come in here and introduce unwanted changes to your society, right?” he asked.
“That’s right,” responded the Leader.
“But you’ve suggested introducing things into the societies around you: birth control into the Mexamamo, economic diversification into the Soumamo, respect for science into the Islamamo, for example. If they adopted your suggestions, it would change the way those groups live. Shouldn’t you leave them alone, just as you wish to be left alone, and let them live the way they want to?” asked Rick.
“A fair point. We’re aware that some of our suggestions to neighboring groups would change them so we follow two guidelines. First, we don’t suggest anything unless we’ve concluded that the changes would improve their society, based on our reading of history and anthropology. In short, our suggestions are based on data and analysis. Second, we merely suggest and don’t pressure anyone to do anything. We simply let them know that another path is available and let them make the choice for themselves. Throughout, we try to remain kind, considerate, and sensitive to their reactions. To date, the suggestions we’ve made to our neighbors do not seem to have generated much animosity, except among the Islamamo. In contrast, the pressures that outside society could bring to bear on us wouldn’t have these constraints.”
“If you felt overwhelmed by outsiders, couldn’t you refuse to let them come into your village? You could refuse any contract offers made by outsiders. That would protect your privacy, wouldn’t it?”
The Blue Disc Page 38
