Genius article Miri! Our society could do with a large dose of Amish humility and common sense to counter the technocratic transhumanist hubris we are being afflicted with.
The world teaches us to be proud of our possessions, our achievements and other people’s adoration. I was brought up in a Christian home but those worldly ambitions were still valued. I think the Amish have applied biblical principles in such a practical way as to be able to reject all of those ideas and live with humility and serve others.
A very interesting and thought provoking piece Miri, and something a little different from your usual output. Being ever busy I frequently postpone for a day or two reading things I have subscribed to (and paid for) on Substack but this is never the case with your missives, which I just have to read almost as soon as they land in my inbox.
I remember a ripple of interest in all things Amish really being generated by the film 'Witness' starring Harrison Ford. Good film - and sort of 'put them on the map' with the general public so to speak.
The key thing I draw out of this post (and others) is the feeling that all things can be sorted by re-engaging community. It helps - there is no doubt - but it isn't the total answer. Oddly - I found (link at the bottom) published the very day you post this up - an Amish leader charged with child murder.
The Amish tend to 'shun' people who display bad behaviour in their own community - which may (though rarely does) lead to complete ex-communication and banishment from their wider system.
Their ways of dealing with depression and mental health tend to be much more like our communities across the Western world dealt with them decades ago. To some degree - some mental health charities now are re-engaging this - by getting people to rock up every week - on a certain day - at a certain time - which creates connection and a degree of familial familiarity. All of which I support - provided the framework does not get hijacked for certain individuals purposes and or as a personal platform for them. Unfortunately, I've seen both.
Which leads neatly onto why community and society at large are both important. We've had half a century of relentless individualism. It started in the 1960's and accelerated no end in the 1970's with the fiscal system willfully introducing credit cards and a 'spend spend spend' mindset.
All of a sudden, you could buy shit you didn't really want, with money you didn't really have in order to impress people you really didn't like. What could possibly go wrong?
You've typed great essays on why this was folly - especially breaking up the family unit and scattering it to the four winds (I know - I was one of those people - and I still question if the juice was worth the squeeze)?
But - as well as community - we also need to recognise the huge importance of wider, broader society. One does not exclude the other. One in fact shouldn't exclude the other. To take the 'genius' mindset. It reminds me of 'tall poppy syndrome'. The Danes have an expression for it - but I cannot remember it. It (apparently) dates back to Roman times. Genius can weigh heavily on the recipient. A quirk of human nature is we hate other people's success (Morrissey wrote a song about that - amongst his many miserable musings). It can alienate people within families (I watched the film about cellist Jacqueline du Pré - and found myself feeling acutely sorry for the sister's younger brother). It can also depend on the level of genius. Mozart was unhappy, but Kiri Te Kanawa has had a lovely life. OK, you could argue one is higher up the genius squash ladder than the other - but still?
Some probably live with the isolation of their genius better than others?
We probably need to get better at harnessing the talents of individuals better than we do. Making 'genius' a rightful contribution but not an amplifier for unbridled ego? The Amish have decided to not harness innovation. That said - there are Amish talking about their lives on You Tube, so maybe they have relaxed this a little bit? That means many of them may die quietly without access to modern treatments? We probably won't know how many - or how often? Does this make it a better life? Don't know.
Certainly food for thought? Community I believe will become more necessary now that the oxygen supply for rampant individualism is becoming restricted.
Thanks Richard, and yes, the re-engagement of community is vital, but the problem with that we face - and that the Amish don't - is that we have developed so many technologies to replace it. People stopped talking to their neighbours once they had 'Neighbours' to watch on television, whilst modern transport innovations and the cosmopolitan nature of contemporary life means most communities aren't stable or integrated. The Amish rejected things like television and motorised transport from the outset, precisely because they accurately predicted what it would do to human communities and thus human meaning.
They eschew technology, not because they are "luddites" as such, but because they intuited the grave danger implicit in replacing a human with a machine. That this replacement made a human being redundant in the very real sense of the world - no purpose.
We may have dismissed their warnings and said, "so what, who wants to do boring jobs a machine can do? I'd rather have the free time" - but now we are at the inevitable end stage of that philosophy: where AI is on course to take, eventually, ALL jobs (or only a very small smattering will be left), leaving us all redundant, and with all the huge existential and survival problems that come with that. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle and it is the inevitable conclusion of the "technologised" society (see Jacques Ellul and, er, Ted Kaczynski).
As for whether there are truly any happy and fulfilled geniuses, I'm pretty sceptical of that, but the best way to avoid any incipient genius causing the often inextricably linked torment is to ensure the "genius" ability of a person's character doesn't become all-encompassing and exclusionary of everything else. A genius should also be involved in normal, day-to-day human labour as all humans have had to do for 99.9% of our history, and are therefore all built for - growing food, farming animals, being involved in the production and maintenance of shelter, furniture, etc. It's sequestering them in the proverbial ivory towers because "they are above all that" (above being human) that leads to a lot of mental health issues and personal suffering. Their genius should be considered simply one skill they have, not the totality of who they are or what they have to contribute.
And yes - 'Witness' - great film! I may rewatch it this evening.
Yes, the management of genius is really where I was coming from. I’m all for pushing boundaries - I really am - especially if it keeps people alive where otherwise they would perish - which is why I loathed Matt Hancock during ‘Covid’ (& still do the toxic turd). He fractured societies bind of trust with that landscape.
On that issue - technology being developed to better monitor people’s health remotely was ‘hijacked’ for test & trace. Just like Nobel’s dynamite - what started out as something to save lives in construction ending taking 100’s (1000’s?) more lives on the battlefield.
Huxley (yes I know - on the inside or the outside?) accurately predicted people would pay to put themselves in prison with television. Except … not quite. I always believe the collective common sense will prevail. One small example of television not cutting through was the dear old Ford Edsel. A hideous automotive flop that a two hour television special commissioned by a sweating Ford board - including Frank Sinatra crooning at America still couldn’t shift. “It’s shit - we hate it - we ain’t buying them” responded America.
People DO know when they are being played more than many believe. I have always felt this - and it’s the cornerstone of my optimism.
The Amish don’t reject technology as much as they reject humanity’s ability to manage it. That I respect them for. The same moral maze could be found in Spielberg’s film ‘Gremlins’. That image of the Chinese man taking it back was “you’re not ready for this”. Quite prophetic.
If there is one word I truly believe should be in every human head - every minute of every day - it’s balance. Physically it is - which is why any illness affecting physical balance is horrible. But it’s cognitive balance. That’s our challenge now. That’s why psyops ridden globalist cabals have done (& continue to do) so much damage to people all over the globe. They are continually frigging with our cognitive balance - and we need to get better at stretching our minds beyond their shite - and absorbing ourselves into the miracles that lay beyond?
Maybe - just maybe - instead of AI finishing us - it might just finish them? I don’t know - there are lots of people pondering & postulating Quantum physics and it’s potential ability to help us here. I’m not an expert (or frankly even much of an enthusiast fumbler) in the realm of Q-P, but I support those who are in harnessing it for the benefit of human kind?
Agree strongly with most of your comment, but "The Amish have decided to not harness innovation". Don't they innovate very well? Or do you mean technology?
Loved every word of that. You always nail it Miri. You've dragged out every thought I've ever had about this topic, including everything you said about the Amish. I managed to listen to your link about Amish music/singing before leaving for work today. I want to hear more. You are an outstanding thinker and writer IMO. A "genius" of sorts? I hope you enjoy more of an "Amish" style life and not a Bronte sister kind though. Cheers Miri!
Thank you, Scamitis, that's very kind indeed, and I'm glad you are enjoying learning more about the Amish. My early childhood was actually quite 'Amish-like' - I mean, we had electricity and transport and things, but it was quite rural, so lots of wholesome outdoor pursuits and fruit picking etc. Indeed. one of my relatives converted to the ("Amish-lite") Mennonite church... By strange coincidence, however, I now live very near Bronte-ville! Haworth, where they grew up, is only about 15 miles from me in Huddersfield
Very interesting again Miri. I can really relate to this. I had piano lessons with the father of a well-known conductor who had ideas for me to go to music school and be a concert pianist but I backed out of it. I couldn't handle that kind of thing. Ironically, I ended up going to music college to do a postgrad in double bass instead. I was kind of forced into it, led to believe that the only way out of my situation was to go to uni (my dad didn't even do O-Levels, left school age 14 in 1942 to become an office junior), and after uni, deciding/being persuaded that playing double bass was the best option. The alternative was to go home and do an ordinary working job (I honestly wasn't interested in graduate jobs, I didn't even go to the careers fair), and why had I done all this wonderful education to then go home and do that, when I should be aspiring higher and broadening my horizons?!
I found the whole experience of a Royal music school very difficult, plucked out of my home environment into something completely different, under high pressure to achieve a high standard (it almost makes me feel nauseous thinking about it, and I've heard other music college grads describe feeling "scarred" by their time there). I ended up making great use of my music college diploma by going abroad to teach TEFL for a number of years😂. I'm now back home practising piano again, thinking of offering myself as a pianist for venues, events, weddings etc., which is probably the sort of thing I should have been doing in the first place, maybe going to a local FE college after I finished school (you don't need a uni or music college degree to do that). I'm also thinking of learning some kind of trade you can do freelance to combine that with, like carpentry, tiling, decorating, which is what my father did (around the house anyway). Again, I now think this is what I should have been doing when I left school, not going to uni!
It's only taken me 35 years to figure this stuff out. There's hope yet😂🤦
Thanks Simon, that's very interesting, and oddly parallel to a situation in my family. If your dad was 14 in 1942, he was nearly exactly the same age as my paternal grandmother (a year younger). She left school at 15, very much against her wishes, as she loved education and even hoped to go to university, but her father had died when she was 10 and the family needed her wage, so she was forced to leave and get a job.
As a result, she was absolutely determined her children would have the opportunities she didn't have, especially in music, as she'd always wanted to learn the piano. Her three the children, the oldest of whom was my dad, were therefore intensively tutored in piano from an early age, and, like you, my dad was considered to be concert pianist material, and encouraged to apply to the RCM. But he had similar reservations about what a professional music career would mean, so didn't go that route and did a psychology degree instead, never going pro as a musician (although continuing to be involved academically via the field of the psychology of music).
My grandmother never fully resolved her feelings about being prematurely removed from education and had a very rose-tinted view of what qualifications and careers offered a person, always telling her children and grandchildren (the female ones particularly) how lucky they were to have had all this wonderful education and the opportunity of a career. Her grandchildren were all doing fairly unremarkable jobs in admin, retail, and so on, living in shared houses, etc., but my grandmother's (and your father's) generation really did believe education and qualifications offered a better, enviable, "dream life" that they (understandably!) wanted for their children.
In the large majority of cases, this isn't true, and most of us would have been much better off staying in our local area (not amputating ourselves at 18 to go to some random place), gaining skills and experience with local - ideally family or close community - business, and doing any necessary training or qualifications around the job. As you say, only takes us a few decades to work out what we should have known at 16!
Interesting. I can definitely relate to this. The pressure to do well academically and musically came from my aunt. She was born in 1932 so just missed out on the introduction of the grammar school system after WW2. She went to teacher training college and started teaching c.1952 maybe, and later became a headmistress. She'd had piano lessons when she was younger but didn't pursue it as a career and later told me she regretted it, so I think this made her determined that I shouldn't "make the same mistake" as it were. She was obviously very big on education, was constantly telling me I must study hard and do well at exams, try and get into Oxford (I didn't even bother applying there, and would never have got in with my grades, as I basically gave up on everything except the music). I'm sure she would have loved to have gone to a Royal music institution, she was a strong supporter of the monarchy, and attended church her whole life, pretty much without fail.
I don't think my dad wanted me to do anything in particular beyond just getting a job that paid for you to live on, and put a bit away for a pension, though he was proud that I'd gone to uni and music college. He really disliked his office assistant job (and the people running the place) and it was his negativity about that that gave me more motivation to go to uni and college actually, as I was led to believe that was "the only way out" as it were, even though there are lots of other options you could pursue. I wasn't really told about those or encouraged to do them though. Once you're pushed down the academic uni/college route then that's what you're doing, no questions asked, and you're made to feel bad and guilt-tripped if you don't, as a "waster" or something. I felt like I had no choice, even though I had doubts about it in the back of my mind (like being pushed onto a raft and onto the rapids, without knowing how to steer the raft, where you're going, or why you're even doing it).
I agree with a lot of what you say. I don't believe they're providing this education altruistically, for the reasons that are claimed. It's for other purposes, partly to provide labour for them, and to get people like myself from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (or ethnic minorities, or women) into higher positions in order to "diversify" the professions. As you've said, it atomises society, takes you away from your culture, heritage and history, breaks up communities, leaving you adrift and rootless, and much more vulnerable and exploitable to whatever the establishment wants you to think, say or do. And all the while, they sell this by telling you this is for your benefit, dangling the prospect of a better-paid job, higher achievement and prestige, and that they're helping minorities up the ladder. That comes with a big price though, and as my story shows, is not guaranteed of success.
Another first class missive Miri! Your discussion of the dark side of genius made me think of the extraordinary abilities said to be facilitated by MK ultra style of mind control
The paragraph that perfectly sums up many of the issues for young people today is:
'A whole gravy-train industry of Higher Education has also sprung up around the idea of telling youngsters to “fulfil their dreams”, where money-grubbing universities cynically assure mediocre students with two Ds at A-level they can become the next Steven Spielberg by spending £50k studying Media Studies at the University of Swindon Roundabout'.
I left comprehensive school in 1982 after my 'O' levels at 16, as did most of the children in my year. I can only recall one girl going to university and she was extremely bright. Quite a few of the boys went to college to learn trades but the majority of us were encouraged to find a job and start living our lives.
I accept that the job market is vastly different now to forty years ago but I put much of the blame for the current situation on my generation, who not only allowed but actively encouraged their children to fall into the trap you describe, whereby going to university was seen as 'the opportunity I never had'. Getting a degree (in any subject) meant that their children would have a 'dream' life, apparently.
As you say, the word 'dream' is used to push numerous expectations onto children from a very early age. Get your dream job, then you can go on dream holidays, buy your dream house and have a dream kitchen (whatever that is).
The vast majority of people are not particularly talented and will never be rich but are more than capable of applying themselves to full time work and having happy rewarding lives with meaningful relationships. Surely that's what everyone should want for their children?
It certainly seems that many of the inhabitants of 'English' life can learn a lot from the Amish about what's really important 👍🏻
Great comment, Mick, and all so true. The line about the vast majority of people not being particularly talented is the key. That's true and always has been throughout human history - and not being "brilliant" is nothing to be ashamed of (obviously), but now a kind of familial vanity has developed where so many families are encouraged to believe (by way of overly-indulgent teachers and ever-slipping standards at school) that their child is, and are therefore going to have "the dream" as you describe it (including "dream kitchen" - lol!). Going to university has taken on a quasi-religious significance and to be able to tell the neighbours "my Ollie's at university" is virtually akin to saying he's joined the priesthood.
Then Ollie comes back three years later laden with debt, a drinking problem, and can't leave home for seven more years since he can only get part-time work in a supermarket.
Whereas if he'd left school at 16 and got a job, he'd be faring so much better, not just professionally and financially, but in terms of personal development and independence, too. Mark's son left school at 16, got an electrician's apprenticeship, which he completed at 19, and now aged 22 lives in his own flat in central Manchester on an extremely good wage. No debt, won't want for work for the rest of his life, total independence. His friends of the same age who went to uni, meanwhile...
🎯 I worked with so many people over the years whose chest puffed out with pride as they told me about their amazing child at university. I remember one bloke telling me his daughter was at one of the best art universities in the country in east London. When I asked him whereabouts in east London he said ‘Dagenham’, and I said ‘oh that’s near where I used to live, it used to be the North East London Polytechnic’.
Apologies if you’ve already seen it but Sasha Latypova briefly mentions the lack of chronic illness in the Amish (as you have) at about the 59 min mark in this interview about vaccines.
The ex-poly scam is particularly painful. I did my A-levels in Stoke, and my college evidently had some sort of paid partnership with the nearby "university" of Wolverhampton (Wolverhampton Poly until 1992), and were always shoe-horning students into it, promising them it would lead to a far more glittering life than continuing with the paid work most were already doing around studying.
These kids were literally going there to do Media Studies (having been told by the college tutors it was a "top film school") - and if there's a less valuable qualification in the world than a degree in Media Studies from Wolverhampton Poly, I wouldn't like to know what it is.
Every single one of them ended up straight back in Stoke after graduating, getting back into the same line of work they'd been pursuing whilst doing A-levels - which they could and should just have continued with at 18, without accruing massive debt and unrealistic expectations by spending three years at a pretend uni. A totally cruel and pointless scam.
This a message sent by Meher Baba to the Poona (now Pune, India) Cricket Conference in the 1960's:
"It is good to excel in whatever one takes up, so long as there is a feeling of humility with this excellence. For this leads to love of God, and to love God as He should be loved is the best excellence. I give you my blessing, that one day each of you may have this love."
Almost everything i can think of in modern popular "English" life from hobbies, jobs, entertainment etc. breeds unfulfillment and unhappiness in the end. Manic highs/lows and addictiions become the product of such dissatisfaction.
True geniuses in living. So well done and educational! Thank you Miri!
Thank you, Galactic, much appreciated! And yes, you're right - it seems that all modern preoccupations ultimately end up feeling empty because they are so focused on the self: personal ambition, personal goals, personal tastes - whereas too much focus on the self leaves people isolated and unfulfilled, and it's being part of something bigger that brings sustained happiness.
I envy the Amish in a complementary way. I tried hard to raise my four in this practical and sensible way, despite the obstacles. Primarily, my other half who worked in the city, an hour away, who built his reputation and successful business at the expense of staying closely in touch with his family. With him gone so much, I felt I had the freedom to homeschool (within the local community), homestead (animals, thriving gardens, building projects), and studying the Biblical text (I grew up "Christian") so to be armed with source knowledge rather than captured by religious organizations to be taken advantage of... yet when Dad came home and as the years went by, he failed to see the progress of simple living, due to his north London upbringing and the impression he had that children should be sequestered in factory schools, in competitive sports, preparing for college, and holding to the "sensible" view of scientific materialism.
January 1st, 2020, he broke it off after the last child left home. We all managed to make sense of our own world and the breakup of the marriage, which I think we have. Six years later, I moved into the house, in a different state, one of my children bought as an investment and began building gardens again, raising animals, and welcoming grandchildren on happy visits.
The faith I have in the God of the Bible to act on his word has always sustained me. The patience of hope, the labor of love, and this work of faith brings me contentment.
As somebody who has recently returned to Christianity and started reading the Gospels again, I had completely forgotten its central message. Humility, and forsaking Pride, the number one sin. You could argue that our whole culture is an inversion of that message, where you ARE special, and like a Hollywood film, the most desirable outcome is where the world eventually conforms to your wishes. I think if we do escape this current chaos people will look back on the last sixty years as some sort of enveloping nightmare, where every precept of the religion we had all followed for thousands of years was forgotten. And as you note Miri, you look upon a community like the Amish, and it just speaks to us on a fundamental level. they've got something right, that we've got wrong. Or rather, they just stayed on track, whilst the rest of us went down a massive sinkhole.
Thanks Kevin, that's very true. An awful lot of people cosplaying 'Christianity' on the world stage are the antithesis of its central tenets, which the Amish embody very well. I hope you're right that we will soon put the last 60-year - to put it politely "experiment" behind us...
An enjoyable read. Of course part of the reason why the Amish don't raise geniuses is that they need the kids to help plough, hoe, sweep up and all that barn-raising and chook feeding or whatever it is they do. Tough lives require all hands on deck - it's only the middle classes of some wealth living comfortably in large communities that can let little Nigel or Nigella practice the Alpenhorn for days on end in their massive music room, or ride Ginger Nut round the paddock for hours.
So well done the Amish for not blowing smoke up their kids! And conversely boo to the people who produced those formative TV programmes of my youth which were oh so seductive. Fame, for instance. A load of narcissistic weirdos in the big Apple all pretending to work together but really, like in A Chorus Line or 42nd Street, desperately hoping the lead starlet would break their leg or have a grand piano fall on them so they could be the star. Bloody Fame: I loved it, sadly. It was all a bit satanic and inverted (in retrospect).
And here we are. The Britain's Got Talent career trajectory, is, as you say, straight through to a job shelf-stacking in Home Bargains and kids thinking the way out is via a football academy: 'I didn't need to write or read with my sporting gifts'.
On the other hand I suppose Afghan or Pakistani hill tribes don't raise that many geniuses either and they're quite religious too, although their quilting skills are a bit sh*t. Still, they can knock up an AK47 from baked bean tins which is quite commendable.
That Ricky Gervais monologue where he describes going to someone's house and meeting their autistic son and then taking him to a casino expecting him to some kind of card counting savant is a good meditation on genius and idiocy and where we are!
Thankyou , excellent article. As you discuss these issues are at the heart of everything. Many childhoods pre - 1975 ish would be redolent with this truth . Many people exist in this spirit today , most of them more than ninety years old.
There is nothing Miri could write about that I won’t stop everything I’m doing to read. This was fascinating (as usual) and so very true (as usual!).
Many thanks, Skye, very much appreciated!
Genius article Miri! Our society could do with a large dose of Amish humility and common sense to counter the technocratic transhumanist hubris we are being afflicted with.
Thank you, Trevor! And absolutely right. The Amish are the antithesis of everything that's wrong with the world.
From someone that writes with a feathered quill, may I once again applaud you for your genius Miri :-)
Ah yes, and on wax-sealed scrolls, too! Thank you - from such a qualified scribe, I greatly appreciate it :)
The world teaches us to be proud of our possessions, our achievements and other people’s adoration. I was brought up in a Christian home but those worldly ambitions were still valued. I think the Amish have applied biblical principles in such a practical way as to be able to reject all of those ideas and live with humility and serve others.
Brilliant article! Thank you.
Thank you, Bernhard, a very astute observation.
"Accept the world as it is, but not the ways of the world."
A very interesting and thought provoking piece Miri, and something a little different from your usual output. Being ever busy I frequently postpone for a day or two reading things I have subscribed to (and paid for) on Substack but this is never the case with your missives, which I just have to read almost as soon as they land in my inbox.
Many thanks, Bill, that's very kind and much appreciated.
I remember a ripple of interest in all things Amish really being generated by the film 'Witness' starring Harrison Ford. Good film - and sort of 'put them on the map' with the general public so to speak.
The key thing I draw out of this post (and others) is the feeling that all things can be sorted by re-engaging community. It helps - there is no doubt - but it isn't the total answer. Oddly - I found (link at the bottom) published the very day you post this up - an Amish leader charged with child murder.
The Amish tend to 'shun' people who display bad behaviour in their own community - which may (though rarely does) lead to complete ex-communication and banishment from their wider system.
Their ways of dealing with depression and mental health tend to be much more like our communities across the Western world dealt with them decades ago. To some degree - some mental health charities now are re-engaging this - by getting people to rock up every week - on a certain day - at a certain time - which creates connection and a degree of familial familiarity. All of which I support - provided the framework does not get hijacked for certain individuals purposes and or as a personal platform for them. Unfortunately, I've seen both.
Which leads neatly onto why community and society at large are both important. We've had half a century of relentless individualism. It started in the 1960's and accelerated no end in the 1970's with the fiscal system willfully introducing credit cards and a 'spend spend spend' mindset.
All of a sudden, you could buy shit you didn't really want, with money you didn't really have in order to impress people you really didn't like. What could possibly go wrong?
You've typed great essays on why this was folly - especially breaking up the family unit and scattering it to the four winds (I know - I was one of those people - and I still question if the juice was worth the squeeze)?
But - as well as community - we also need to recognise the huge importance of wider, broader society. One does not exclude the other. One in fact shouldn't exclude the other. To take the 'genius' mindset. It reminds me of 'tall poppy syndrome'. The Danes have an expression for it - but I cannot remember it. It (apparently) dates back to Roman times. Genius can weigh heavily on the recipient. A quirk of human nature is we hate other people's success (Morrissey wrote a song about that - amongst his many miserable musings). It can alienate people within families (I watched the film about cellist Jacqueline du Pré - and found myself feeling acutely sorry for the sister's younger brother). It can also depend on the level of genius. Mozart was unhappy, but Kiri Te Kanawa has had a lovely life. OK, you could argue one is higher up the genius squash ladder than the other - but still?
Some probably live with the isolation of their genius better than others?
We probably need to get better at harnessing the talents of individuals better than we do. Making 'genius' a rightful contribution but not an amplifier for unbridled ego? The Amish have decided to not harness innovation. That said - there are Amish talking about their lives on You Tube, so maybe they have relaxed this a little bit? That means many of them may die quietly without access to modern treatments? We probably won't know how many - or how often? Does this make it a better life? Don't know.
Certainly food for thought? Community I believe will become more necessary now that the oxygen supply for rampant individualism is becoming restricted.
https://www.kq2.com/news/crime-news/2026/04/21/judge-denies-bond-for-cult-like-amish-leader-now-charged-with-childs-homicide/
Thanks Richard, and yes, the re-engagement of community is vital, but the problem with that we face - and that the Amish don't - is that we have developed so many technologies to replace it. People stopped talking to their neighbours once they had 'Neighbours' to watch on television, whilst modern transport innovations and the cosmopolitan nature of contemporary life means most communities aren't stable or integrated. The Amish rejected things like television and motorised transport from the outset, precisely because they accurately predicted what it would do to human communities and thus human meaning.
They eschew technology, not because they are "luddites" as such, but because they intuited the grave danger implicit in replacing a human with a machine. That this replacement made a human being redundant in the very real sense of the world - no purpose.
We may have dismissed their warnings and said, "so what, who wants to do boring jobs a machine can do? I'd rather have the free time" - but now we are at the inevitable end stage of that philosophy: where AI is on course to take, eventually, ALL jobs (or only a very small smattering will be left), leaving us all redundant, and with all the huge existential and survival problems that come with that. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle and it is the inevitable conclusion of the "technologised" society (see Jacques Ellul and, er, Ted Kaczynski).
As for whether there are truly any happy and fulfilled geniuses, I'm pretty sceptical of that, but the best way to avoid any incipient genius causing the often inextricably linked torment is to ensure the "genius" ability of a person's character doesn't become all-encompassing and exclusionary of everything else. A genius should also be involved in normal, day-to-day human labour as all humans have had to do for 99.9% of our history, and are therefore all built for - growing food, farming animals, being involved in the production and maintenance of shelter, furniture, etc. It's sequestering them in the proverbial ivory towers because "they are above all that" (above being human) that leads to a lot of mental health issues and personal suffering. Their genius should be considered simply one skill they have, not the totality of who they are or what they have to contribute.
And yes - 'Witness' - great film! I may rewatch it this evening.
Yes, the management of genius is really where I was coming from. I’m all for pushing boundaries - I really am - especially if it keeps people alive where otherwise they would perish - which is why I loathed Matt Hancock during ‘Covid’ (& still do the toxic turd). He fractured societies bind of trust with that landscape.
On that issue - technology being developed to better monitor people’s health remotely was ‘hijacked’ for test & trace. Just like Nobel’s dynamite - what started out as something to save lives in construction ending taking 100’s (1000’s?) more lives on the battlefield.
Huxley (yes I know - on the inside or the outside?) accurately predicted people would pay to put themselves in prison with television. Except … not quite. I always believe the collective common sense will prevail. One small example of television not cutting through was the dear old Ford Edsel. A hideous automotive flop that a two hour television special commissioned by a sweating Ford board - including Frank Sinatra crooning at America still couldn’t shift. “It’s shit - we hate it - we ain’t buying them” responded America.
People DO know when they are being played more than many believe. I have always felt this - and it’s the cornerstone of my optimism.
The Amish don’t reject technology as much as they reject humanity’s ability to manage it. That I respect them for. The same moral maze could be found in Spielberg’s film ‘Gremlins’. That image of the Chinese man taking it back was “you’re not ready for this”. Quite prophetic.
If there is one word I truly believe should be in every human head - every minute of every day - it’s balance. Physically it is - which is why any illness affecting physical balance is horrible. But it’s cognitive balance. That’s our challenge now. That’s why psyops ridden globalist cabals have done (& continue to do) so much damage to people all over the globe. They are continually frigging with our cognitive balance - and we need to get better at stretching our minds beyond their shite - and absorbing ourselves into the miracles that lay beyond?
Maybe - just maybe - instead of AI finishing us - it might just finish them? I don’t know - there are lots of people pondering & postulating Quantum physics and it’s potential ability to help us here. I’m not an expert (or frankly even much of an enthusiast fumbler) in the realm of Q-P, but I support those who are in harnessing it for the benefit of human kind?
Agree strongly with most of your comment, but "The Amish have decided to not harness innovation". Don't they innovate very well? Or do you mean technology?
Largely technological. Please see my reply to Miri.
Loved every word of that. You always nail it Miri. You've dragged out every thought I've ever had about this topic, including everything you said about the Amish. I managed to listen to your link about Amish music/singing before leaving for work today. I want to hear more. You are an outstanding thinker and writer IMO. A "genius" of sorts? I hope you enjoy more of an "Amish" style life and not a Bronte sister kind though. Cheers Miri!
Thank you, Scamitis, that's very kind indeed, and I'm glad you are enjoying learning more about the Amish. My early childhood was actually quite 'Amish-like' - I mean, we had electricity and transport and things, but it was quite rural, so lots of wholesome outdoor pursuits and fruit picking etc. Indeed. one of my relatives converted to the ("Amish-lite") Mennonite church... By strange coincidence, however, I now live very near Bronte-ville! Haworth, where they grew up, is only about 15 miles from me in Huddersfield
I've purchased the book you linked to. Just felt I needed that one 😃.
Very interesting again Miri. I can really relate to this. I had piano lessons with the father of a well-known conductor who had ideas for me to go to music school and be a concert pianist but I backed out of it. I couldn't handle that kind of thing. Ironically, I ended up going to music college to do a postgrad in double bass instead. I was kind of forced into it, led to believe that the only way out of my situation was to go to uni (my dad didn't even do O-Levels, left school age 14 in 1942 to become an office junior), and after uni, deciding/being persuaded that playing double bass was the best option. The alternative was to go home and do an ordinary working job (I honestly wasn't interested in graduate jobs, I didn't even go to the careers fair), and why had I done all this wonderful education to then go home and do that, when I should be aspiring higher and broadening my horizons?!
I found the whole experience of a Royal music school very difficult, plucked out of my home environment into something completely different, under high pressure to achieve a high standard (it almost makes me feel nauseous thinking about it, and I've heard other music college grads describe feeling "scarred" by their time there). I ended up making great use of my music college diploma by going abroad to teach TEFL for a number of years😂. I'm now back home practising piano again, thinking of offering myself as a pianist for venues, events, weddings etc., which is probably the sort of thing I should have been doing in the first place, maybe going to a local FE college after I finished school (you don't need a uni or music college degree to do that). I'm also thinking of learning some kind of trade you can do freelance to combine that with, like carpentry, tiling, decorating, which is what my father did (around the house anyway). Again, I now think this is what I should have been doing when I left school, not going to uni!
It's only taken me 35 years to figure this stuff out. There's hope yet😂🤦
Thanks Simon, that's very interesting, and oddly parallel to a situation in my family. If your dad was 14 in 1942, he was nearly exactly the same age as my paternal grandmother (a year younger). She left school at 15, very much against her wishes, as she loved education and even hoped to go to university, but her father had died when she was 10 and the family needed her wage, so she was forced to leave and get a job.
As a result, she was absolutely determined her children would have the opportunities she didn't have, especially in music, as she'd always wanted to learn the piano. Her three the children, the oldest of whom was my dad, were therefore intensively tutored in piano from an early age, and, like you, my dad was considered to be concert pianist material, and encouraged to apply to the RCM. But he had similar reservations about what a professional music career would mean, so didn't go that route and did a psychology degree instead, never going pro as a musician (although continuing to be involved academically via the field of the psychology of music).
My grandmother never fully resolved her feelings about being prematurely removed from education and had a very rose-tinted view of what qualifications and careers offered a person, always telling her children and grandchildren (the female ones particularly) how lucky they were to have had all this wonderful education and the opportunity of a career. Her grandchildren were all doing fairly unremarkable jobs in admin, retail, and so on, living in shared houses, etc., but my grandmother's (and your father's) generation really did believe education and qualifications offered a better, enviable, "dream life" that they (understandably!) wanted for their children.
In the large majority of cases, this isn't true, and most of us would have been much better off staying in our local area (not amputating ourselves at 18 to go to some random place), gaining skills and experience with local - ideally family or close community - business, and doing any necessary training or qualifications around the job. As you say, only takes us a few decades to work out what we should have known at 16!
Interesting. I can definitely relate to this. The pressure to do well academically and musically came from my aunt. She was born in 1932 so just missed out on the introduction of the grammar school system after WW2. She went to teacher training college and started teaching c.1952 maybe, and later became a headmistress. She'd had piano lessons when she was younger but didn't pursue it as a career and later told me she regretted it, so I think this made her determined that I shouldn't "make the same mistake" as it were. She was obviously very big on education, was constantly telling me I must study hard and do well at exams, try and get into Oxford (I didn't even bother applying there, and would never have got in with my grades, as I basically gave up on everything except the music). I'm sure she would have loved to have gone to a Royal music institution, she was a strong supporter of the monarchy, and attended church her whole life, pretty much without fail.
I don't think my dad wanted me to do anything in particular beyond just getting a job that paid for you to live on, and put a bit away for a pension, though he was proud that I'd gone to uni and music college. He really disliked his office assistant job (and the people running the place) and it was his negativity about that that gave me more motivation to go to uni and college actually, as I was led to believe that was "the only way out" as it were, even though there are lots of other options you could pursue. I wasn't really told about those or encouraged to do them though. Once you're pushed down the academic uni/college route then that's what you're doing, no questions asked, and you're made to feel bad and guilt-tripped if you don't, as a "waster" or something. I felt like I had no choice, even though I had doubts about it in the back of my mind (like being pushed onto a raft and onto the rapids, without knowing how to steer the raft, where you're going, or why you're even doing it).
I agree with a lot of what you say. I don't believe they're providing this education altruistically, for the reasons that are claimed. It's for other purposes, partly to provide labour for them, and to get people like myself from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (or ethnic minorities, or women) into higher positions in order to "diversify" the professions. As you've said, it atomises society, takes you away from your culture, heritage and history, breaks up communities, leaving you adrift and rootless, and much more vulnerable and exploitable to whatever the establishment wants you to think, say or do. And all the while, they sell this by telling you this is for your benefit, dangling the prospect of a better-paid job, higher achievement and prestige, and that they're helping minorities up the ladder. That comes with a big price though, and as my story shows, is not guaranteed of success.
Another first class missive Miri! Your discussion of the dark side of genius made me think of the extraordinary abilities said to be facilitated by MK ultra style of mind control
Many thanks, Angie, and that's a very good point. It just shows that "genius" of any kind tends to have a strong connection to trauma.
Brilliant article thanks Miri.
The paragraph that perfectly sums up many of the issues for young people today is:
'A whole gravy-train industry of Higher Education has also sprung up around the idea of telling youngsters to “fulfil their dreams”, where money-grubbing universities cynically assure mediocre students with two Ds at A-level they can become the next Steven Spielberg by spending £50k studying Media Studies at the University of Swindon Roundabout'.
I left comprehensive school in 1982 after my 'O' levels at 16, as did most of the children in my year. I can only recall one girl going to university and she was extremely bright. Quite a few of the boys went to college to learn trades but the majority of us were encouraged to find a job and start living our lives.
I accept that the job market is vastly different now to forty years ago but I put much of the blame for the current situation on my generation, who not only allowed but actively encouraged their children to fall into the trap you describe, whereby going to university was seen as 'the opportunity I never had'. Getting a degree (in any subject) meant that their children would have a 'dream' life, apparently.
As you say, the word 'dream' is used to push numerous expectations onto children from a very early age. Get your dream job, then you can go on dream holidays, buy your dream house and have a dream kitchen (whatever that is).
The vast majority of people are not particularly talented and will never be rich but are more than capable of applying themselves to full time work and having happy rewarding lives with meaningful relationships. Surely that's what everyone should want for their children?
It certainly seems that many of the inhabitants of 'English' life can learn a lot from the Amish about what's really important 👍🏻
Great comment, Mick, and all so true. The line about the vast majority of people not being particularly talented is the key. That's true and always has been throughout human history - and not being "brilliant" is nothing to be ashamed of (obviously), but now a kind of familial vanity has developed where so many families are encouraged to believe (by way of overly-indulgent teachers and ever-slipping standards at school) that their child is, and are therefore going to have "the dream" as you describe it (including "dream kitchen" - lol!). Going to university has taken on a quasi-religious significance and to be able to tell the neighbours "my Ollie's at university" is virtually akin to saying he's joined the priesthood.
Then Ollie comes back three years later laden with debt, a drinking problem, and can't leave home for seven more years since he can only get part-time work in a supermarket.
Whereas if he'd left school at 16 and got a job, he'd be faring so much better, not just professionally and financially, but in terms of personal development and independence, too. Mark's son left school at 16, got an electrician's apprenticeship, which he completed at 19, and now aged 22 lives in his own flat in central Manchester on an extremely good wage. No debt, won't want for work for the rest of his life, total independence. His friends of the same age who went to uni, meanwhile...
🎯 I worked with so many people over the years whose chest puffed out with pride as they told me about their amazing child at university. I remember one bloke telling me his daughter was at one of the best art universities in the country in east London. When I asked him whereabouts in east London he said ‘Dagenham’, and I said ‘oh that’s near where I used to live, it used to be the North East London Polytechnic’.
Apologies if you’ve already seen it but Sasha Latypova briefly mentions the lack of chronic illness in the Amish (as you have) at about the 59 min mark in this interview about vaccines.
https://youtu.be/eWo_XpBaGus?si=zw9WVfhJEqXZpvCF
The ex-poly scam is particularly painful. I did my A-levels in Stoke, and my college evidently had some sort of paid partnership with the nearby "university" of Wolverhampton (Wolverhampton Poly until 1992), and were always shoe-horning students into it, promising them it would lead to a far more glittering life than continuing with the paid work most were already doing around studying.
These kids were literally going there to do Media Studies (having been told by the college tutors it was a "top film school") - and if there's a less valuable qualification in the world than a degree in Media Studies from Wolverhampton Poly, I wouldn't like to know what it is.
Every single one of them ended up straight back in Stoke after graduating, getting back into the same line of work they'd been pursuing whilst doing A-levels - which they could and should just have continued with at 18, without accruing massive debt and unrealistic expectations by spending three years at a pretend uni. A totally cruel and pointless scam.
Thanks for the Sasha link!
Ah, the Student Loan scam! Now there's a scandal in the making!! All extremely deviously done IMO.
This a message sent by Meher Baba to the Poona (now Pune, India) Cricket Conference in the 1960's:
"It is good to excel in whatever one takes up, so long as there is a feeling of humility with this excellence. For this leads to love of God, and to love God as He should be loved is the best excellence. I give you my blessing, that one day each of you may have this love."
Almost everything i can think of in modern popular "English" life from hobbies, jobs, entertainment etc. breeds unfulfillment and unhappiness in the end. Manic highs/lows and addictiions become the product of such dissatisfaction.
True geniuses in living. So well done and educational! Thank you Miri!
Thank you, Galactic, much appreciated! And yes, you're right - it seems that all modern preoccupations ultimately end up feeling empty because they are so focused on the self: personal ambition, personal goals, personal tastes - whereas too much focus on the self leaves people isolated and unfulfilled, and it's being part of something bigger that brings sustained happiness.
I envy the Amish in a complementary way. I tried hard to raise my four in this practical and sensible way, despite the obstacles. Primarily, my other half who worked in the city, an hour away, who built his reputation and successful business at the expense of staying closely in touch with his family. With him gone so much, I felt I had the freedom to homeschool (within the local community), homestead (animals, thriving gardens, building projects), and studying the Biblical text (I grew up "Christian") so to be armed with source knowledge rather than captured by religious organizations to be taken advantage of... yet when Dad came home and as the years went by, he failed to see the progress of simple living, due to his north London upbringing and the impression he had that children should be sequestered in factory schools, in competitive sports, preparing for college, and holding to the "sensible" view of scientific materialism.
January 1st, 2020, he broke it off after the last child left home. We all managed to make sense of our own world and the breakup of the marriage, which I think we have. Six years later, I moved into the house, in a different state, one of my children bought as an investment and began building gardens again, raising animals, and welcoming grandchildren on happy visits.
The faith I have in the God of the Bible to act on his word has always sustained me. The patience of hope, the labor of love, and this work of faith brings me contentment.
I'm really sorry to hear about that, Dawn, but it's great you gave your children such a good start in life and your new home sounds wonderful!
As somebody who has recently returned to Christianity and started reading the Gospels again, I had completely forgotten its central message. Humility, and forsaking Pride, the number one sin. You could argue that our whole culture is an inversion of that message, where you ARE special, and like a Hollywood film, the most desirable outcome is where the world eventually conforms to your wishes. I think if we do escape this current chaos people will look back on the last sixty years as some sort of enveloping nightmare, where every precept of the religion we had all followed for thousands of years was forgotten. And as you note Miri, you look upon a community like the Amish, and it just speaks to us on a fundamental level. they've got something right, that we've got wrong. Or rather, they just stayed on track, whilst the rest of us went down a massive sinkhole.
Thanks Kevin, that's very true. An awful lot of people cosplaying 'Christianity' on the world stage are the antithesis of its central tenets, which the Amish embody very well. I hope you're right that we will soon put the last 60-year - to put it politely "experiment" behind us...
An enjoyable read. Of course part of the reason why the Amish don't raise geniuses is that they need the kids to help plough, hoe, sweep up and all that barn-raising and chook feeding or whatever it is they do. Tough lives require all hands on deck - it's only the middle classes of some wealth living comfortably in large communities that can let little Nigel or Nigella practice the Alpenhorn for days on end in their massive music room, or ride Ginger Nut round the paddock for hours.
So well done the Amish for not blowing smoke up their kids! And conversely boo to the people who produced those formative TV programmes of my youth which were oh so seductive. Fame, for instance. A load of narcissistic weirdos in the big Apple all pretending to work together but really, like in A Chorus Line or 42nd Street, desperately hoping the lead starlet would break their leg or have a grand piano fall on them so they could be the star. Bloody Fame: I loved it, sadly. It was all a bit satanic and inverted (in retrospect).
And here we are. The Britain's Got Talent career trajectory, is, as you say, straight through to a job shelf-stacking in Home Bargains and kids thinking the way out is via a football academy: 'I didn't need to write or read with my sporting gifts'.
On the other hand I suppose Afghan or Pakistani hill tribes don't raise that many geniuses either and they're quite religious too, although their quilting skills are a bit sh*t. Still, they can knock up an AK47 from baked bean tins which is quite commendable.
That Ricky Gervais monologue where he describes going to someone's house and meeting their autistic son and then taking him to a casino expecting him to some kind of card counting savant is a good meditation on genius and idiocy and where we are!
All the best!
Most amusingly accurate!
Thankyou , excellent article. As you discuss these issues are at the heart of everything. Many childhoods pre - 1975 ish would be redolent with this truth . Many people exist in this spirit today , most of them more than ninety years old.