Horse- and- Buggy Genius

Horse- and- Buggy Genius is a study of the Orthodox Old Order Mennonites of Ontario and the Old Colony Mennonites of Latin America. These two groups are linked to Canada. The Old Colony left Canada in the early twentieth century in search of religious freedom in Mexico and then to Blize, Paraguay, and Bolivia[1]. On the other hand, the Old Order Mennonites have been residents of southern Ontario for generations. The book explores the common commitment that both groups share in keeping their lives simple and free from technology while practicing an agrarian lifestyle. The two Mennonite groups share the same Anabaptist Christian custom but reflect diverse linguistic and geographic pasts, thus composing the ethnic phenomenon of the book’s title. Royden Loewen gives a comprehensible oral history of the two subcultures in the form of interviews looking into their adaptation, movement, and cultural contestation. According to the research done by Loewen, both of the groups have concluded that a simple agrarian life requires horse- and- buggy transportation, plain clothing, limited use of electricity, and most often number of times, the use of a steel-wheeled tractor.

Thesis

By writing this book, Loewen aims at relaying the stories of the Mennonite people who have resisted the logic of the modern world and still survived. With a team of researchers under his direction, Loewen interviews the horse- and- buggy Mennonites to catch a glimpse into their worlds, creating an oral history that interprets the stories they tell about their evolution into the modern world. Loewen’s main agenda in writing the book is to explore the “genius” that is in the way the horse- and- buggy Mennonites survive without using technology in a world that is under the constant pressure of evolving. He aims at reminding us of the degree to which the ideas of ascendancy of the individual in a consumption-oriented society have won in the modern world over a moral economy and communitarian wholeness. Loewen is neither dismissive nor ignorant of the tensions that have existed between these two communities and the modern world. Instead, he allows them to voice their opinions on their approach to life. In this book, Loewen neither romanticizes nor dismisses the Mennonites’ way of life, making this the Genius of the book. Loewen uses the word “genius” to demonstrate the complex simplicity of the two communities, a combination of innovation, tradition, and change.

The first chapter of the story “Changelessness in Canada’s Heartland,” introduces the first order Mennonites who having been surrounded by modern Canadian society have opposed the social change for the longest time. The narratives given by the community focused on the daily farm life and family interactions among the community[2]. These narratives make clear the importance of farming and family to faith and the threat that even minor technological innovations pose to their lifestyles. In the second chapter, “A New Orthodoxy in Backwoods Ontario,” Lowen explores the lives of Orthodox Old Order Mennonites, who left behind the old order Mennonite community in Waterloo and moved to Gorrie, Ontario and founded a new community[3]. As an oral history, the book emphasizes the community lives that the horse and buggy Mennonites live while giving attention to their own words. Loewen asks what is “the genius of survival”[4], meaning to ask, how do the old order and old colony Mennonites sustain themselves away from all of modernity? He answers this question using the many narratives of Mennonite lives and relocation, which “emphasize the community over the individual, the local over the nation, simplicity over profit, and peace over violence”[5]. They have particular adaptations to technology, thus reflecting their intent to adapt to technological advances that profit the whole community instead of alleviating the individual lives of the people. As a Bolivian Mennonite says, “steel wheel will not take me to heaven,” but he adds, “If we allow rubber tires, the next thing I will want an air-conditioned cab, then a car, and then city life”[6]. This is proof that the Mennonites try as best as they can to separate the communities they live in from the wider society. With the interviews conducted on the two groups, Loewen highlights the themes that appear throughout the book: a faith whose sincerity is measured by how well the world is excluded from daily life, migration to resist change, and an agrarian lifestyle to preserve family and community.

Loewen, with his book and the research done by his team of researchers, aims at telling the “untold story” of the Mennonites, who are often number of times mistaken by the Amish sects in the United States. Through the interviews conducted in Latin America and Ontario, the book maps out the geographical dispersion and linguistic richness of the interviews as they are conducted in English, High German, Spanish, and Low German. Horse and buggy genius addresses not only the communistic views on the Mennonites’ lives but also the unpopular individual opinions. An example is the farmer in East Paraguay who is regretful of the bushland past bulldozing practices and confesses that he is worried about climate change. The book addressed painful and difficult topics in the lives of the horse and buggy communities, which reveals the depth of the book. Such topics include incest and domestic violence, which the Old Order and Old Colony groups struggle with, and often numbers of times address serious crimes[7]. For example, the popular news in Eastern Bolivia in 2009, where Old Colony men raped more than one hundred Old Colony. However, the author chooses not to analyze these crimes further but instead focuses on perspectives that are seldom heard of, thus prompting one to examine their cultural norms and beliefs deeply. The book is also essential in exploring the tensions that exist between faith, tradition, and change in groups that live in different geographical and political contexts.

Horse and buggy genius reveals how much depth is yet to be explored. It is the beginning of understanding why the separation of the communities from the wider society has resulted in more extensive social differences between the two geographically separate groups. For example, the church members’ narratives portray an economic divide that is slowly growing in the Old Colony, suggesting that economic inequality is slowly becoming entrenched[8]. The community members who don’t have money have to migrate to find it, thus facing more social and religious risks that the community members. However, interviews among the Old order community don’t reveal such economic strains and diversities. The two groups also differ in the way they view gender. Although both Mennonite communities view women as the keepers of the household, compared to their old order counterparts, the Old Colony females receive less schooling than the Old Colony males. Therefore, they are less likely to have language and general skills that would help them to thrive economically. The interviews conducted on the Old colony widows reveal that their chances of experiencing poverty are higher than those of the Old Order members[9].

Through these interviews, two themes may emerge. One is that the Mennonite communities are suspicious of modernity. Regardless of this, they change and adapt to their surroundings. An example is the migration of the old colony Mennonites to new countries and communities as a form of resistance towards change. However, with this migration comes new challenges like those of adapting new farming techniques and strategies due to the changing weather patterns and market demands[10]. These demands bring with them new pressures of using pesticides and newly developed fertilizer for their farms. What is fascinating about the old colony Mennonites is that they make their decisions as a community while being guided by church structures. Even as they make changes in their lifestyles, they make changes that will protect their ways of life, and that will enable them to remain immune to the world’s modernity. The second theme that is evident through the interviews is the collective commitment of the horse and buggy Mennonites to remain true to their Christian beliefs and to their simple way of life amidst modernity. From the stories that the Mennonites give, one cannot help to stop and imagine how much better the world would be if everyone was not so glued to their smartphones and tablets. Rather than making life more complicated, the Mennonites try to make life simpler.

There are certain disparities that the book presents. Throughout the book, the author

characterizes both Mennonite groups as “anti-modern”[11]. Yet, the narratives given by the community members suggest that they have accepted technology as long as it does not interfere with their way of life or threaten the church community. Another disparity is that although the interviews reveal “unknown” information regarding the Mennonite communities, the book is written in first person, thus glossing over noteworthy questions about “insider/ outsider” status. This means that it does not openly reveal the dynamics of young researchers interviewing Mennonite elders, of women interviewing men in the patriarchal subcultures or of non- Mennonites interviewing Mennonites. The readers are not presented with the dynamics of the interviews, just the narratives and responses of the Mennonites according to Loewen. Lowen, however, demonstrates an insider knowledge when contrasting what is most evident to those outside of the horse and buggy communities. He notes that the perceptions of those outside the communities fixate on the “overt artifacts”[12] and nothing more. Loewen describes his own experiences as he was interviewing the Mennonites but readers do not get a glimpse into the ideas of the seven researchers who helped him conduct the interviews. As a result, questions arise on whether the methods used by the others were different or the same as his, and about the techniques used to collect data by the others. The presence of eight researchers in the research process but only one to tell the story in the book leaves pending questions about the methodology and construction of the research. From the interviews conducted, however, it is clear that the horse and buggy Mennonites’ way of living, cloth choices, and farming activities come of their fidelity to God, family, community, and the past.

In his conclusion, Loewen finalizes that Old colony and Orthodox Old Order Mennonites have more similarities than differences[13]. The author, through his research, has adequately addressed the ideas in his thesis. He presents a community that is adamant in preserving their religious goals while at the same time believing that family and community. Through the oral history of the Mennonite communities, the reader gets the “genius” of their survival in the face of modernity. The author uses the Mennonites as “storytellers” and lets the reader immerse themselves into the community. Although the book has various short backs, the author has achieved his goal of writing the research account. He displays one commonality that the two groups share, and that is “humility, submission, and simplicity in the face of modernity with its clarion embrace of ease and individualism,”[14] as he writes. One weakness that the author and the book lacks context. Readers who are not familiar with the Old Colony, for example, may find it challenging to grasp the dynamics that make them do what they do. However, the book offers insight into two groups that have been overlooked for the longest time and, at the same time, challenging those who are comfortable with modern technologies, thus making the book extremely valuable.

[1]Loewen, Royden. 2016. Horse-And-Buggy Genius: Listening To Mennonites Contest The Modern World. University of Manitoba Press. 8

[2] Royden, “Horse-And-Buggy Genius,” 18

[3] Royden, “Horse-And-Buggy Genius,” 50

[4] Royden, “Horse-And-Buggy Genius,” 104.

[5] Royden, “Horse-And-Buggy Genius,” 4

[6] Royden, “Horse-And-Buggy Genius,” 95

[7] Royden, “Horse-And-Buggy Genius,” 92

[8] Royden, “Horse-And-Buggy Genius,” 17

[9] Royden, “Horse-And-Buggy Genius,” 121

[10] Royden, “Horse-And-Buggy Genius,” 105

[11]Royden, “Horse-And-Buggy Genius,” 10

[12] Royden, “Horse-And-Buggy Genius,” 159

[13] Royden, “Horse-And-Buggy Genius,” 221

[14] Royden, “Horse-And-Buggy Genius,” 221