In the dusty outskirts of Seminole, Texas - just past the cotton fields and under the relentless spring sun - Peter Hildebrand stands outside a gas station, his eyes rimmed red and voice cracking.
Mennonites skewed anti vax before it was trendy, like a long time ago. Old religious vaccine exemptions were basically for them, IIRC.
Like, I remember hearing about these folks when I was in school in Texas.
What I’m getting at is that they’re not quite the same as MAGA-zone vaccine skepticism. There’s some overlap, but they’re more old school and broad than that, with a more general technology-hesitant slant, while MAGA skepticism seems more driven by social media and influencers.
By and large, Mennonites do skew pretty crazy and conservative in a lot of ways, but I think it’s worth pointing out that there can be a tremendous amount of variation from one church/community to another, there’s not much in the way of a larger overarching organization, a lot of policies, beliefs, interpretations and such are sorted out at the local level.
Some Mennonite churches are practically indistinguishable from the Amish, but there are some around that are very liberal. I live in an area with a pretty large Mennonite population, and the churches kind of run the entire gamut from horse and buggies to some of the most modern and liberal churches I’ve ever heard of.
They do, like I said, tend to skew more towards the conservative end of things, but there is a lot of variation there.
Yeah, it skips the religious purism (and the sometimes very real attempt at pondering deep morality), and goes straight to modern attention hacking mixed with timeless demagoguery and conspiratorial urges.
That’s what I’m getting at. I empathize more with old school religious communities acting this way… to some extent. Some transcripts in the article are not very flattering.
i heard about them through a yotubers channels who had a guest with mennoites connecitons. she said they were different brand of crazy from the amish groups.
Like, I remember hearing about these folks when I was in school in Texas.
You realize that none of have any context for that, right? You could have been in school in Texas 3 years ago. Or it could have been in 1965. We don’t have any clue.
That being said, I fully agree with your overall post. I’m just nitpicking.
The youngest Millennials graduated school in about 2014 or 2015 at the latest. There’s no way, in context, they’re talking about a PhD, and very, very little chance they’re even talking about undergrad university.
It wasn’t obvious because of the age, it was obvious because people don’t say “back when I was in school” to refer to a doctorate. And when the context is specifically trying to emphasise how young they were at the time, they don’t tend to mean “when I was an undergrad”, either.
They didn’t say “back”, but yeah, I get what you mean.
Like, I remember hearing about these folks when I was in school in Texas.
They heard about them. This could’ve been because when they lived in Texas, Texans told them about the group. Or because they studied trends in anti-vax movements when they went to school in Texas.
I think the original point was that the reader has to make assumptions about what they meant, and my point was that even clarifying the age doesn’t change that we’re still making an assumption about when they were in Texas.
Mennonites skewed anti vax before it was trendy, like a long time ago. Old religious vaccine exemptions were basically for them, IIRC.
Like, I remember hearing about these folks when I was in school in Texas.
What I’m getting at is that they’re not quite the same as MAGA-zone vaccine skepticism. There’s some overlap, but they’re more old school and broad than that, with a more general technology-hesitant slant, while MAGA skepticism seems more driven by social media and influencers.
By and large, Mennonites do skew pretty crazy and conservative in a lot of ways, but I think it’s worth pointing out that there can be a tremendous amount of variation from one church/community to another, there’s not much in the way of a larger overarching organization, a lot of policies, beliefs, interpretations and such are sorted out at the local level.
Some Mennonite churches are practically indistinguishable from the Amish, but there are some around that are very liberal. I live in an area with a pretty large Mennonite population, and the churches kind of run the entire gamut from horse and buggies to some of the most modern and liberal churches I’ve ever heard of.
They do, like I said, tend to skew more towards the conservative end of things, but there is a lot of variation there.
Yes, very true. I’ve kinda seen that in other states.
MAGA skepticism is more about attention grabbing publicity and gathering loyal voters.
Yeah, it skips the religious purism (and the sometimes very real attempt at pondering deep morality), and goes straight to modern attention hacking mixed with timeless demagoguery and conspiratorial urges.
That’s what I’m getting at. I empathize more with old school religious communities acting this way… to some extent. Some transcripts in the article are not very flattering.
i heard about them through a yotubers channels who had a guest with mennoites connecitons. she said they were different brand of crazy from the amish groups.
You realize that none of have any context for that, right? You could have been in school in Texas 3 years ago. Or it could have been in 1965. We don’t have any clue.
That being said, I fully agree with your overall post. I’m just nitpicking.
Fair point. I’m a millennial, how about that :P
So did you graduate from college last year? PhD, or reskilling? Following a passion?
(Still not enough info to know when it was! Haha)
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The youngest Millennials graduated school in about 2014 or 2015 at the latest. There’s no way, in context, they’re talking about a PhD, and very, very little chance they’re even talking about undergrad university.
Hm…I’m seeing that millennials are between 29 and 44. Even 29 is old enough to earn a PhD.
Either way, the older ones are definitely old enough to be talking about post-secondary.
It wasn’t obvious because of the age, it was obvious because people don’t say “back when I was in school” to refer to a doctorate. And when the context is specifically trying to emphasise how young they were at the time, they don’t tend to mean “when I was an undergrad”, either.
They didn’t say “back”, but yeah, I get what you mean.
They heard about them. This could’ve been because when they lived in Texas, Texans told them about the group. Or because they studied trends in anti-vax movements when they went to school in Texas.
I think the original point was that the reader has to make assumptions about what they meant, and my point was that even clarifying the age doesn’t change that we’re still making an assumption about when they were in Texas.