Better Off_ Flipping the Switch on Technology - Eric Brende [62]
As it happened, the subject of the meeting this day, Sylvan divulged, was “a little chat on the relation of matter and spirit.” What he meant by this, more literally, was the extent to which human causes and plans need yield to Providence. The talk was not abstract speculation. It had a concrete focus: the telephone.
Personal telephones, as I already knew, were not allowed in Minimite practice. But pay telephones had never been off limits, and their use was creeping in. No one disputed the need: a midwife had recently called the doctor to save a mother’s life during delivery. But members increasingly were using pay phones—and their neighbors’ telephones—for less urgent reasons, like setting up business transactions with produce wholesalers. They were starting to drive their buggies great distances to reach convenience store phone booths.
The exchange went back and forth. Frequent use of the phone, some felt, encouraged idle chatter, sped the pace of life, and reduced real-life contact with members of the community. But banning phone use altogether, others countered, was out of the question. No one wanted laboring mothers to die for lack of a doctor. In the end a compromise was reached. The council agreed to continue allowing use of phones, but only when urgently necessary. At the same time, they began to make plans to coordinate produce sales using a single Minimite go-between.
As news of this discussion sank in, I realized there was something astonishing about it. Here were members of an obscure sect in a prayerful meeting—rationally evaluating the implications of a technology that the rest of us accept on faith. You could even say they were in the process of conducting an experiment on the telephone. Would that the inventors of our gadgetry were so scientific.
The mood during this exchange remained collegial and focused, but when the topic veered to another matter, a rift opened up. The use of telephones, it seemed, was not the only source of hurrying and scurrying. Another was land speculation. Members who had migrated from Lancaster County were buying up ground as fast as they could out of fear of a future shortage. They were used to the high prices and scarcity of farmland on the east coast and wanted to make sure their sons would one day have their own farms. But this defensive buying strategy only drove prices up and vastly increased the work needed to pay for and maintain farmland. Minister James had preached on a Gospel parable about a man who refused to pause for refreshment because he was too busy buying land; among the Minimites the tale was not fiction.
When it came to choosing sides in the debates, Sylvan made no bones about the way he leaned—toward Providence. “Consider the lilies of the field,” he said, “how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin!” Others, however, lent their support to the cause of hard work and ever-bigger family farms. Sylvan gazed heavenwards. They were returning to the rat race they had come here to escape.
He could not conceal the revulsion he felt toward this defensive land-acquisition strategy. He suspected that behind the practice lurked a simple lack of faith. But he did not hold out much hope of dissuading the land buyers. They were too set in their ways.
The standard-bearer of this faction, besides, was one of the most respected and articulate men of the group. He was a likely candidate for a new ministerial position that soon would be created when the growing settlement divided into two districts. He could become, effectively, the head of the whole community. If he were elected, its identity might at last become defined—at the expense of a certain reasonable breadth. The name of this person was Edward Pendleton.
The news filled me with foreboding. What troubled me most went beyond the mere issue of land acquisition; it was the way Edward had made this particular piece of land, this particular community and code, the only answer. Mary and I didn’t want to make the same mistake. Until Edward