January 21, 2021

Deviating

(Conforming)

“If you can’t solve a problem, it’s because you’re playing by the rules.” — Paul Arden         

The Amish and Mennonite communities of the United States take a considered and discerning approach to the adoption of technologies. Their religious beliefs do not forbid the use of technology — rather they observe the diffusion of new innovations to anticipate the kinds of the impacts that adoption of any emerging technology may have, and use this as the basis for informed community governance regarding choice full adoption of technologies that support the flourishing of the Amish way of life. The Amish do own and use electrical power generators for particular kinds of purposes such as light industrial production. However the great majority of their household appliances have been retrofitted to work on pneumatic power derived from air compressors (which are themselves powered by electric generators). In What Technology Wants, Kevin Kelly describes in detail the Amish stance toward the use of electrically powered equipment and devices in particular in “Lessons of Amish Hackers.”

By consistently operating using fewer resources and placing less demand on the grid, the Amish community represents a “positive deviance”, in deviating from mainstream technology ownership and energy consumption patterns. The positive deviance is the exception to the rule, the outlier from which we can learn. The positive deviance approach was codified as a transferable method by Save the Children researchers Jerry and Monique Sternin who in the 1990s were working in Vietnam. In observing that some but not all children in a village were malnourished, they focused on understanding the lifestyle behaviors practiced in the families of those nourished outliers because they achieved positive outcomes within that local system while others did not. Positive deviance has been codified as a change methodology that focuses on assets and successes. It sources intelligence and solutions from communities or collectives, It assumes that every system has within it the tools and intelligence to meet and address its own challenges in its own context.

Positive deviance is a wonderful complement to other asset mapping strategies that designers may already be using. As pattern readers and recognizers designers are accustomed to recognizing patterns as they emerge within systems. Once these patterns are identified, signals and cues of deviation emerge within the pattern. Because it’s based in careful and respectful observation of what’s already working, positive deviance tends to be conducive to honoring existing cultural practices, in contrast to other modern design interventions that attempt to apply a “solution” that may have been successful elsewhere, irrespective of local norms or transferability. Positive deviance from norms demonstrates the inherent resiliency of social holons, and looks for ways to build on concrete successes within the constraints of a given milieu.

Conscious designing can open worlds by jarring us out of our complacent tendency to mistake what is in front of us for the way that things must be. Obedience to conditioning makes us automatic and boring. That the Amish managed to maintain their lifestyle and culture by means of flexible and community driven decision-making as opposed to rigid inflexible rules is an inspiring example of the power of local governance to cohere and extend community identity. Furthermore, the bare fact that Amish and Mennonite communities carry on without the pervasive technologies that we take for granted is a remarkable demonstration that many counterfactual design worlds are possible, yet such alternatives remain mostly unexplored. It also underscores the tight coupling between collective values and designed worlds. By adhering to and performing their religious beliefs, the Amish community provides a working example that other ways of living and consuming resources are possible. This opens a huge creative space for designer-hackers who want to explore off-grid or low net-consumption consumer appliances and services, for example.

Conscious designing is visionary, co-world making and co-world disclosure. Positive deviance is a means by which designers can recognize opportunities to open new worlds of possibility by means of co-designing. It starts with a holonic, systems thinking approach that honors the integrity of existing systems within systems of interdependencies. In the process of auditing and mapping the assets and challenges of a given system, patterns emerge from which positive anomalies can be identified. Designing, in a case like this, is a facilitative partner with the community in encouraging the Goodness that has already emerged at the intersection of the physic sphere, biosphere and semi-sphere at that local corner of the universe.

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