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It is really fascinating to see an outsider interpretation of the Amish and you can really see how he is using them to make arguments about the failures of centralization. From the perspective of the Chinese government the Amish might seem like an unacceptable liability because they refuse to fully integrate with the larger society, but Wang clearly thinks that this is a superior system when he writes that: "Some management methods in American society are actually unmanaged. This is a more effective management method under certain conditions." This is a fascinating criticism of China but is it an accurate read on the Amish? I think Wang overstates the case. The Amish might not drive cars but plenty of them use modern tractors. I think there are also more institutionalized vectors for engagement with the outside world than this author admits - the Amish are a lot more influenced by and integrated into modern society than they might seem to be at first blush. That having been said, I don't think any of this undermines his overall point about hands-off management of different social groups being a potentially more effective way of buying social peace.
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Nov 30, 2019 20:39
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GoluboiOgon posted:It seems really odd to me that he thinks of the amish as ethnic minorities. they certainly don't think of themselves as non-white. they may seem technologically backwards now, but even in the 1930s the average us farmer still used horses for farming instead of tractors; when the amish settled in iowa they wouldn't have been seen as inferior technologically. the only time the amish were ever discriminated against was for speaking german during wwi. I think the bolded sentence here is key. In North America we automatically equate ethnicity with race but in other parts of the world the major divides don't necessarily map out in the same way. In other parts of the world language or religion can play the role that race tends to play in North American settler societies. So while we might be inclined to look at the Amish and say "of course they're not a distinct ethnicity, they're white!" that is probably less meaningful to someone from a part of the world where factors other than biological race play a much larger role in shaping social conflicts. I also think that we should probably read his comments as being at least in part a reflection of where the Chinese state was at the time he wrote the book. I get the impression he's doing something that authors have done throughout the ages - describing a foreign society as a covert way of safely critiquing your own country. Instead of describing the failures and successes of Chinese governance - a potentially dangerous activity - perhaps Wang uses his discussion of the successes of the United States to subtly make the case for or against reforms within China. It sort of seems like the book is less interested in getting the exact details of the Amish example correct and more focused on using them as a prop in an argument that the author is making about how sometimes the government trying to control every aspect of a situation makes the government itself more vulnerable.
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Dec 2, 2019 22:31
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