2,135 words

Given that white people are only around 10% of our globalizing world’s population, it seems reasonable to predict that 100 years from now whites will be facing the same struggle for survival we face today. The decisions we make will affect our descendants’ chances of success, in part by determining how many of them will even be born. To this end we should have more conversations about — and take more action on — the founding of white preservationist communities, defined here as any community of whites bound together by religion or a similar transcendental ideology that maintains above-replacement fertility and sustains itself over generations. Such communities may seem at first like nothing more than exercises in romanticism. But there are currently hundreds of de facto white preservationist communities scattered throughout North America from which we can learn. I am speaking of those communities populated by the Amish and related groups.

Much has been written about Old Order Amish fertility, in large part because they are such a glaring exception to the seemingly all-but-universal demographic transition. Contrary to outdated conceptions about them, the Amish have abandoned farming for cottage industries and construction work in very large numbers. Some groups, such as the Holmes County Andy Weaver Amish, have left farming almost entirely and still boast a total fertility rate of nearly 8.0 children per woman.[1][2] The most important factor affecting Amish fertility is the group’s conservativism, which is primarily a measure of the group’s prohibitions on technology. Though many people seem to think the Amish simply chose some arbitrary date in the nineteenth century and forbade any technology invented afterward, the truth is that they and some Mennonites have developed the custom of examining and discussing new technologies before voting as a church on whether to adopt them.

Swartzentruber Amish are among the most conservative Amish groups, forbidding pressurized lamps, running water, and indoor flush toilets, all of which are permitted by more liberal groups.[3] A recent study on the fertility rates of different Amish groups in Ohio found that Swartzentrubers had a total fertility rate of 10.42 children per woman, the highest of any Amish group and certainly among the highest of any human group ever studied.[4] The same study found that the progressive New Order Amish, who allow electricity in their homes and hold services in English instead of the usual German to attract converts, had a total fertility rate of 5.76.[5] Numerous other studies have shown that with regard to fertility, Amish groups typically fall on a spectrum between five and ten children per woman in accordance with their relative conservativism.[6]

Even within sects, the degree of conservativism can vary from church district to church district. The Amish of Elkhart and LaGrange counties in Indiana are a progressive group with medium-low fertility by Amish standards. They are unusual in that decisions about technology are typically decided at the level of the church district, not at the higher level of the sect. Despite significant differences in what technologies they allow, all church districts in this community are in fellowship with each other. The Elkhart-Lagrange Amish are also noteworthy because most of the men work in factories, specifically in the local recreational vehicle manufacturing industry. In 2017, the Amish total fertility rate for factory workers’ wives aged 45-54 was 5.72.[7] Yet, the researchers also found that the total fertility rates for the wives of Amish factory workers in one of the settlement’s most conservative districts was at a robust 6.39 children, versus a mere 5.0 children in a geographically adjacent, but much more liberal district.[8] Again, when it comes to fertility, culture is king.

Scholars have put forward several theories as to why conservativism correlates with fertility among the Amish. For some, it is as simple as conservative Amish putting more stock in Christianity’s traditional injunction to “be fruitful and multiply.”[9] But other scholars have identified an additional, important factor – namely, the mindset known as Gelassenheit, achievement of which is important in Amish tradition. Gelassenheit requires total submission to God’s will, the abandonment of all selfishness, and acceptance of all which comes as a blessing bearing the imputed approval of the Almighty. Conservative church districts stress the importance of such a mindset to a greater degree than progressive ones.[10] It isn’t difficult to see how two parents who consistently practice it may wind up with more children at the end of their childbearing years than two who do not. More speculatively, it is also possible that progressive church districts have entered into a sort of devil’s bargain with technology. It is through technology that we control our surroundings, and every invention progressive districts adopt may chip away at their traditional philosophical ideal of fatalistic surrender.

It is one thing for a community to produce many children; it is another for the community to keep them. As Anabaptists, the Amish mark the beginning of church membership for young adults by adult baptism. Amish youth retention, or the number of young adults choosing to be baptized, is one of their great success stories. For all that many of us look at the Amish and think, “Who in their right mind would want to live that way?”, approximately 85% of children born into Old Order Amish households end up choosing to join the Church, and this percentage has risen steadily over the past century.[11] For example, 30% of the Amish born in the sizeable Geauga County, Ohio settlement in the 1920s left the Church, whereas only 5% of those born in the 1960s did so.[12] In Elkhart-LaGrange, the over 60 age cohort’s defection rate of 18% is more than double the under 30 age cohort’s rate of 7%.[13] And in the Amish settlement of Nappanee, Indiana, a full 55% of Amish children born in the 1920s decided against joining the church, versus only 16% of those born in the 1970s.[14] One would think that technology’s lure would have become more enticing as it advanced, but the Amish have deliberately retrenched themselves. Importantly, they have moved their children out of public schools and into private, Amish-run schools, typically with classes of only Amish children, thus limiting non-Amish peer influence on the young. It should also be noted that the move out of farming over the past 50 or so years has expanded employment opportunities for enterprising young Amishmen. In fact, the Andy Weaver church in Holmes Country, Ohio — which, as noted, contains almost zero farmers — boasts a youth retention rate of 97%.[15]

Though a small number of Amish decide to leave the Church after being baptized, the number of post-baptism defectors is kept in check by the Amish practice of shunning. Shunning is the practice by which the Amish ostracize those Church members whose sins are seen as serious enough to place them outside the body of the Church until they publicly confess and repent. Traditionally, this applied to any Amish person who reneged on his or her baptismal vow to serve the Church regardless of what other congregation the person ultimately joined, if any. However, during the twentieth century some Amish in the Midwest began to practice a more relaxed variant, where Amish men and women who, without fanfare, joined a different, usually more progressive Anabaptist church were spared. Not all Midwest Amish adopted this new way of thinking, however. Today’s ultra-conservative Swartzentruber Amish are descended from a group that refused the reforms and continues to shun anyone who leaves their sect, even for another Anabaptist group. The very large Lancaster Amish community has also held the line and practices the traditional version of shunning.

So what lessons does the Amish experience have for white preservationists? The first is simple proof of possibility. Even with the government having trampled our God-given right to freedom of association through civil rights legislation, it is possible to have white preservationist communities provided they are bound together by something more than mere geography. Further, it is possible for these communities to maintain fertility rates significantly above replacement in the midst of modernity so long as serious and intentional steps are taken to keep modernity’s influence to a minimum. (The purpose of this essay is not to advocate for the highest fertility rates humanly possible; however, white preservationist communities do need above-replacement fertility rates to fulfill their function.) Separation from mainstream society should begin early in the form of either homeschooling our children or using private schools populated by the children of white preservationists. Modernity’s influence can also be curtailed through prohibitions on certain technologies, such as televisions, within the home. Films and television shows — and other technologies — could still be enjoyed in designated centers located within the community whose selection of available programming has been vetted and approved by community leaders. Other technologies, such as social media, might be banned completely except for business use — a common practice among the Amish and conservative Mennonites. As with the Amish, individual communities of white preservationists can come to very different conclusions as to which technologies are and are not in their interest. What is important is that they view technology as a tool and a choice, not an inevitability.

Additionally, some combination of a rite of passage, such as adult baptism, and social control, such as shunning, should be used to keep defections out of the community in check. My own parents came from a very tightly-knit and established Italian-American community in a major Northeastern city. It was a clean and safe neighborhood which offered the children born into it many reasons to stay, yet anyone who visits there today would see mostly Vietnamese. The Italians are long gone, spread throughout the region and even the country, each person having followed his or her own professional, personal, or economic compass. Simply establishing safe and clean communities is not enough to keep our children in the fold; there must be a ritualized commitment to the white preservationist community as a whole and strong disincentives to abandoning that commitment. Amish communities, especially new and small ones, frequently disband, but the practice of shunning ensures that Amish who leave one community will populate and strengthen another Anabaptist, and probably Amish community, not disappear into the American mainstream. White preservationists need a similar setup.

The second lesson the Amish hold for white preservationists is the extraordinary nature of what exactly is possible, provided we successfully insulate ourselves from negative mainstream influences and establish a pro-natalist counterculture. As the Amish have had very few converts and rarely adopt, they have remained overwhelmingly white and seem set to continue to do so — at least until the establishment notices and defines their whiteness as problematic. It’s thus something of a white pill to review their demographic development. In 1911, there were only 6,600 Amish living in North America.[16] That number is over 380,000 today.[17] Their doubling time is usually given at around 20 to 25 years, meaning they should surpass one million sometime in the 2050s.[18]

Imagine what we could do for our people if we could organize several thousand white preservationists willing to adopt a pro-natalist counterculture. The population of Denmark is just shy of six million people. The population of New Zealand is around five million, whereas Sweden is just above ten million. What would it mean for the politics of these countries if, in 2160, they each held one million white preservationists, half of whom were old enough to vote, and that number was set to double in only 25 more years?

Even in large countries such as the United States, white preservationists could prove electorally valuable. There are already thousands of people across the West working to build a pro-white counterculture whose efforts deserve all respect, but the need for that culture to be consistently pro-natalist is not often discussed in depth. This is understandable, as family planning is such a personal matter. But it is also unfortunate, as the sooner we establish a true pro-natalist counterculture, the earlier we strengthen our foothold in the New World and our old bastions in Europe.

Notes

[1] Charles Hurst and David McConnell, An Amish Paradox: Diversity and Changed in the World’s Largest Amish Community (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press), 80.

[2] Donald B. Kraybill, et al., The Amish (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press), 155

[3] Amish America, “Amish Technology Use in Different Groups,” April 19, 2007.

[4] Henry Troyer, “The Varying Fertilities of the Amish Groups of Holmes County, Ohio,” Journal of Plain Anabaptist Communities, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2022), 54.

[5] Troyer, “Varying Fertilities,” 54.

[6] Donald B. Kraybill, et al., The Amish (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press), 155.

[7] Thomas Meyers, “A Demographic Profile of the Elkhart-LaGrange Old Order Amish Settlement,” Journal of Plain Anabaptist Communities, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2022), 70.

[8] Meyers, “Elkhart-LaGrange,” 71.

[9] Gn. 1:28

[10] Kraybill, et al., The Amish, 157.

[11] Kraybill, et al., The Amish, 164.

[12] Kraybill, et al., The Amish, 162.

[13] Meyers, “Demographic Profile of Elkhart-LaGrange,” 78.

[14] Kraybill, et al., The Amish, 162.

[15] Kraybill, et al., The Amish, 162.

[16] Kraybill, et al., The Amish, 155-56.

[17] Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College, “Amish Population, 2023” (accessed March 23, 2024).

[18] Kraybill, et al., The Amish, 155.