Better Off_ Flipping the Switch on Technology - Eric Brende [22]
…Then again, maybe not. Without electric lights and replaceable razors, shaving every day is highly problematic. I left the huddle, stroking my new whiskers thoughtfully.
Five
The Ram
One warm summer afternoon little Amos looked up at me again from our back stoop. At eleven, Amos was Mr. Miller’s youngest son and most frequent errand-bearer. His face was so open and ingenuous, it shone; the mere sight of him brought on a feeling of peacefulness. He had joined his older brothers the day they showed us how to use the one-horse cultivator, with its adjustable prongs that widened and narrowed to fit the width of the row. And he had personally advised us on the picking times not only of beans, but of corn and cabbage and potatoes as well. Despite his age, he possessed the quiet confidence of a seasoned produce manager and, yet beardless, the diminutive authority of his father.
Now he politely asked, “Would you like running water?”
Had I heard right?
I knew there was a spring somewhere in the woods on the other side of the hill, but it took electricity to pump the water to the house. Since we had forgone household current, I didn’t understand Amos’s point. Now he explained: Electricity was not the only source of power available. There was also the water. Since it ran down a little hill, the power it generated could be used to pump itself. The idea was ingenious and elegant, and I had never grasped it until now. A certain device called a “ram” had been invented to combine the two uses of water: a water mill for pumping water. By sending the liquid through the small mechanism, a certain percentage would flow back up the hill, over the crest, and down into our house…and make our lives simpler.
Though I was intrigued by the technology, the offer made me uneasy. Had Mary and I come this far only to mechanize? Was Mr. Miller trying to tempt us from the course?
But on a moment’s reflection, I realized my error. Since when had the Millers abstained from technology? The evidence was everywhere and inescapable: the cultivators, the buggies, the canning equipment, the countless other basic utensils and implements. Evidently technology itself was not taboo, only technologies that interfered with this plain sect’s aims. Put positively, our neighbors chose devices they thought would benefit them—the minimum necessary to maximize their ends.
And the amount was still minimal. As these frugal people well knew, technology, and in particular motorized machinery, always brings a cost, whether up-front, in dollars, or long-term, in repairs, fuel, and maintenance. More important, even at low monetary cost, experience showed that such gadgetry can easily interfere with the delicate dynamics of the human welfare it is supposed to promote.
Still, to use minimal technology is not to use none. Nor is the minimal amount some arbitrary quantity. It is the minimum one deems necessary to one’s aims, and this may sometimes be more than a little; it may be quite a little.
Rams are very sophisticated mechanisms, yet they were by no means the most elaborate or substantial technologies the Minimites used. I noticed in nearly every local kitchen a big black, shiny cookstove with a little insignia on the front bearing the words “Pioneer Maid.” It was an invention of two Amish brothers from Canada, and it was more than an ordinary stove. It was the first-ever application of the principle of airtight combustion to wood-fired cooking. This made it the only notable advance in wood cookstoves in at least one hundred years, probably since the introduction of cast iron. Besides being efficient, the stove was versatile. It could cook, bake, maintain a hot water supply, dry vegetables, and heat 2,000 square feet of living space all at the same time. For the local housewife, it was an all-purpose appliance that met most of her heating needs at the touch of her fingertips.
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