The religious zealots we visit on vacation

[rug]

Twenty million people visit Amish communities every year. A new PBS documentary explores our fascination



A still from "The Amish: American Experience." (Credit: PBS)

Tuesday, Feb 28, 2012 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time
By Roger Catlin

How do Americans deal with religious zealots?

In the case of the Amish, many take bus tours through their compounds, buy their goods, take snapshots of their kids from afar and make a weekend trip out of watching their spiritual direction.

There are 250,000 Amish in America in hundreds of different communities, the beautifully made and instructive film “The Amish” points out, in its Tuesday premiere on PBS’ “American Experience.” But they are visited by nearly 20 million Americans annually.

Some of the Amish wonder if this is particularly good idea, since they have to rub shoulders so much with “the English” — as they call the outside world — with their excess weight, leisure time and unusual questions.

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/28/the_religious_zealots_we_visit_on_vacation/singleton/

[msongs]

1. they work hard...for the money nt

[tama]

7. Money they need

for buying more land for their growing numbers.

[Worried senior]

2. They mind their own business

and don't try to convert us to their way of life. I enjoy viewing their life too and respect them for willingness to live the way they do.

[southernyankeebelle]

3. I have visited the Amish community. I am polite and I go to buy their products. They are

polite in selling. I want nothing more then enjoy their products and not try to change their way of life. I certainly don't want to live their way of life. But this country keeps going to way we are we all might be forced into that way of life.

[tama]

8. Having spent some time

in ecovillages etc. that learn self-sufficiency, and I can say that those ways of life are not bad at all, the words that come first to mind are magic and beauty. There's lots of variety between communities (also between Amish communities, not to mention the whole variety), to suit as many tastes as possible.

[southernyankeebelle]

12. Your right. Having been through the Amish country in PA and even here in TN a small

community where I found and bought products. Lancaster PA is such a beautiful, beautiful area. Truly gods country.

[cbayer]

4. We love to take slow, meandering road trips using the GPS "avoid freeways" option.

This often takes us unexpectedly to communities we would have never seen.

One was a small town outside of Elkhart, Indiana that was populated primarily by the Amish.

We had a nice meal (they really like their pies, by the way), a stroll about town and some really great scenery of the farms, roads and social gathering places.

They were polite, but very standoffish.

I am interested in this film (but get no TV right now) because, as I understand it, they prefer not to be photographed at all. I am very curious as to how the film makers got by that.

[rug]

11. Oddly, a lot of the farms we visited in Lancaster County sold root beer.

We bought a root beer kit from them too but it wasn't nearly as good as theirs. And you're absolutely right about the pies. People have switched religions for less.

[dmallind]

5. Got to be honest I don't get this

I just would never dream of making an Amish or any other similar "settlement" a vacation destination. I used to live on the NY/PA border so I've certainly travelled through those areas frequently (and I suspect this counts me in the 20MM number assuming I stopped at a few gas stations or roadside cafes) but TO them....?

And this is bugger all to do with religion - I certainly have visited the Vatican, numerous cathedrals and churches, a few mosques and so on as a tourist. Likely to do so again. But nothing about a group of plainly dressed self reliant non-confrontational farmers who use less machinery than I do makes me say "my lord I have to see that!"

[tama]

6. Lot's of people

visit also (other) ecocommunities, those more hippy kinds with permaculture philosophies, Gaia worship and other pagan customs, drumming, dancing and Mary Jane. To see how they live, to participate in their way of life and get new experiences, and perhaps also to get a glimps of the direction of where the world is going.

Perhaps some of the Amish tourism is related to ecohippy tourism, at least partly.

[cbayer]

9. The places I have seen are more like this:

http://gasthofamishvillage.com/

I'm not sure who they appeal to.

[tama]

10. Granted, not very appealing

I like these places better, myself:

From a theosophist community (close to the ecocommunity I lived in but which is not on the internet):
http://www.ihmisyydentunnustajat.fi/it99/vainkuva1.html

And few more "general" ecocommunities I've also visited:
http://www.yhteisokyla.net/introduction-in-english.html
http://www.keuruunekokyla.fi/en/index.html
http://www.gaija.org/kuvagalleria

[cbayer]

14. Those look wonderful!

I've never been to Finland and I don't know of any similar kinds of places here.

We have talked of opening some kind of place where people could either come in their RV's or by boat and learn to live off the grid. We have learned so much and would love to teach other how to do it.

Places like you link to are right in line with that.

[2ndAmForComputers]

13. Maybe I'm being oversensitive

but I'd feel I'm making zoo animals out of people. Not cool.

[cbayer]

15. That's exactly the image I was looking for.

I feel intensely uncomfortable in place like that and just don't see the attraction at all.