Can you say *hypocrisy*?
That should be brought in at the trial and watch them lose it so fast their heads would spin.
It’s not necessarily hypocrisy.
The Amish rejection of (most) technology isn’t for its own sake. It has to do largely with what might help or harm the community, as well as wanting to maintain a visible separation from the “English.”
For example, for the most part Amish don’t have phones, because (for example), they are conducive to gossip, offer a direct line to the world that they want to keep separate from, and they reduce personal visiting. Hence they could be viewed as a net harm to the community. On the other hand, Amish leaders recognize the usefulness of a phone in an emergency - needing to call a vet or an ambulance, say. Hence the “phone shanty,” an outbuilding housing a communal phone that they can use if they need it, but it’s in public, so it is more difficult to abuse.
Sociologist Donald Kraybill, who lives in Amish country, wrote a very interesting article for Wired several years back about the implications of mobile phones for the Amish community, since you no longer need to be tied to a building to use a phone but can just stick it discreetly in your pocket?
Similarly, there are probably many good reasons why an Amish family might not want their own computer: it’s a time-waster, it requires that same connection to the world since it requires both electricity and a phone line; there’s the potential for abusing it, such as watching porn. On the other hand, hiring someone to put up a Web page advertising your quilts is useful for your business, while avoiding all those other problems. (And it’s probably fair to point out that the aforementioned Web site in the previous post actually belongs to the local chamber of commerce, and may well simply mean that the quilt-maker is a member.)
The Amish’s ethic concerning technology draws a distinction between ownership and use. Once that is recognized, what appears to be “hypocrisy” actually makes sense by their logic.