Cultural Change and Survival in Amish Society Essay

The Amish is a group of traditionalist Christians that rely on simple living, plain dress and refuse to adapt to modern technology. The history of the Amish started in Switzerland in 1693 led by Jakob Amman. Today majority of the traditional descendants of the Amish live in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

It’s very easy to find the differences between Amish and American societies and even though it may not seem like it at first glance there are some similarities between the two. Such as religion, yes America has a diverse set of religion, but both societies believe the right to religious freedom. That is why Amish societies are located in America because they are allowed to express their religion. Another similarity in both societies is education. Even though Amish children mostly only go to an eighth grade education, both societies prepare the children for adulthood and teach them skills that will help them in society.

Like many people back then they came to the one place that many went to ,to avoid getting killed. And that place was America. When coming to America some Quakers had already made their way to New England (a place founded on religious freedom), but the Puritans didn’t want them there. The Quaker some found themselves being treated just like when they Britin, with Some they hanged and others they banished. Later on, a number came to New Jersey, where they soon became so numerous that Penn took part with other Quakers in the purchase of that province. Some of these settlers crossed the Delaware to its western side. Thus when Penn reached America he found Quakers in his new province.

Perhaps the most culturally diverse nation on the globe, the United States is home to a dominant Anglo-American Protestant culture intermixed and alongside a host of sub-cultures that live and thrive on US soil. Among these cultures exists an array of distinct form of living all who boast an identity specific to only that select group. These subcultures exist in a couple different forms; convergent subcultures and persistent subcultures. First, convergent subcultures intend toward assimilation with the dominant society through various tactics to include: residential clustering, adherence to the language, dress, and cultural norms of their native land (Parrillo, 42). Contrarily, some cultures simply do not assimilate. In these cases, persistent subcultures adhere as much as possible to their own way of life and resist absorption into the dominant culture (Parrillo, 43). Among these persistent subcultures within the US are the Amish. The Amish are a sect of the Christian faith whose members have roots in twenty-two states across the

Each Amish province is completely independent and lives by its own set of unwritten rules or Ordnung. The Old Order Amish are the most rigorous of them all. One way that the Old Order Amish punish members who have been disobedient to the community and God is by shunning. Shunning is defined as “to avoid somebody or something intentionally” (Shun, 2007). Shunning is not meant to injure an individual, but merely to wound them. It is an attempt for redemption. If an individual repents they will be allowed back into the patronage. It is only in extreme cases where an individual continuously breaks the rules where they may be permanently shunned. There are usually a very low percentage of Amish who are excommunicated. Because the community is so closely netted, shunning has proven to be a great form of social control.

With the arrival of the 1920’s, new battles fought between traditionalist rural society and modernist urban civilization arose in the postwar United States. These urban-rural culture wars of this time period represent the everlasting conflict between conservatives and liberals. The 1920 census demonstrated to traditionalists that their views were under attack by the modernists who gradually came to outnumber them. Traditionalists were disturbed that they were losing a battle against immigrants who didn’t understand or appreciate “old American values” and against their own children, a new generation of rebellious youth who brought about sexual revolution, materialism, and skepticism.

Amish culture has been an attention grabbing field of study for many anthropologists. Currently, there population is only present in United States due to various historical events. Although Amish community has been living in United States for a considerably long time now which comprises of centuries but despite all the cultural influences from external forces, this community has successfully managed to retain its original character and essence. Where other communities have showed adaptation to sociological and cultural changes, Amish culture is present in its original form because of their closed social system. Their main mode of subsistence of Horticulture. Although this mode is considered to be a derivative of their way of obtaining financial independence but in reality this mode of living defines their Beliefs and values, Economic organization, Gender relations, Kinship Political organization and Social organization.

The “Pennsylvania Dutch” emigrated from Germany in 1700s (Source 5). They followed the idea of religious freedom (Source 5). William Penn gave the promise of religious freedom which allowed hope (Source 5). In the 1800s, most Germans tried to escape persecution from Europe (Source 7). In this case they settled in multiple places across the United States. Most settled in Pennsylvania. Lancaster County (Source 2), Punxsutawney, and northwestern Pennsylvania (Source 1). Others settled in the Southwest (Source 5). Furthermore “Pennsylvania Dutch”

The discussion of poverty, or what it means to be poor, seems to be very straightforward in the twenty first century. However, as one ponders what it means to be living in poverty, the meaning starts to become less clear. The problem lies on what one group of people believes poverty compared to another group of individuals. Group A can think Group B is a poor community: Meanwhile, Group B can think the opposite. A perfect example of this scenario is immigrants moved from Europe and began settling in America with the Native Americans. William Cronan describes how the interaction between the two different cultures was confusing for the two different groups. Cronon’s book, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, presents the problem of the one-sided poverty idea. Cronon says, “Many European visitors were struck by what seemed to them the poverty of Indians who lived in the midst of a landscape endowed so astonishingly with abundance.” The best way to understand why the Europeans interpreted the Native Americans this way, is to look at

The family care for their own and the Amish community gives assistance as needed. Therefore, the way how mainstream American life is driven by technology, I don’t think many Americans will take on the Amish culture.The Amish culture believes in the idea that everything has a reason in life. Their philosophy comes from their deep-rooted Christian faith from the church. They follow the basic tenets of the Christian religion by emphasizing on adult baptism, simplicity, community, separation from popular culture and the division of the church. In 1693, the Amish people formed their own branch of Anabaptism in Switzerland and eastern France under the leadership of their founder Jakob Ammann.All of the Amish communities today are from that group. We already know that within the Amish culture they do everything with hands, but there is some selective technology they do use by permit for agriculture. They use the tractor to help with the farming and time management. For the American society, farmers use computers, cell phones, cars and other technology, but for the Amish, they reject this technology because they believe it will do harm in their

The Amish people are a subculture group. This culture is one of the more distinctive and colorful cultural groups across America. Their rejection of modern technology is what has kept them apart of the high tech culture. They start back in the sixteenth-century Europe when a rebaptism of adults was then a crime punishable by death. Anabaptists or rebaptizers were groups’ that threatened civil and religious authorities. The Swiss Anabaptists followed a Jesus life were they loved their enemies, forgiving insults, and turning the other cheek. While other groups we’re more into violence. The Amish came in 1693 when the Swiss and the South Germans Anabaptists split into two groups: Amish and Mennonites. Looking for political stability and religious freedom they moved to North America where they first settled in southern Pennsylvania then to Ohio, Indiana, and to other Midwestern states. Were they have been able to maintain a distinctive subculture. They try to maintain cultural customs to preserve their identity. Amish speak a dialect of German known as Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch. This language is not a written language. Amish use the English when conversing with non-Amish individuals. When talking in Pennsylvania German to each other they tend to switch to English

The Amish faith is to be considered as living a life of self-surrender. According to Kraybill this attribute is the core of the Amish religion. The cornerstone to the values in the Amish faith is Gelassenheit. “The German word means submission=yielding to a higher authority. It entails self-surrender, resignation to God’s will, yielding to others, self-denial, contentment, and a quiet spirit” (12). Being able to display wholesomeness and respect toward the individuals which are trying to bring about an end of your complete form of life is an influential aspect which enabled the Amish to aid in the uprising of the First Amendment clause. They continued to fight for their religious rights in away that does not intrude on their belief of living a

Many of the young men who chose to join the Amish church after Rumspringa agree that giving up the keys to their car is the single hardest part. Most men wear “English” clothes during Rumspringa while most of the women wear traditional Amish clothes. If an adolescent joins the Amish faith and then quits they are excommunicated from their families and shunned by the Amish church. The adolescents who do not join the Amish faith seem to have a very difficult time in general society because of their lack of education and just the total differences in their upbringing. Many of the teens seemed to be very distraught over the decision and it caused more depression than

The old order Amish worship in individual homes compared to the New Order Amish. Old Amish send their children to elementary school but do not believe in them attending high school. The Old Order Amish are descendants of the colonial Amish who came to Lancaster and Berks counties Pennsylvania from 1738 to 1756 from Switzerland, Palatinate, Waldeck, Hesse- Cassel, Alsace, Bavaria, and Montbeliard ("Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online," 2012).

The thriller film ‘Witness’, directed by Peter Weir in 1985, tells about cultural conflicts between the Amish of Western Pennsylvania and Modern American corruption and violence. Philadelphia Police officer, John Book was obligated to hide from the three brutally and corrupt police officers as they were looking for a little Amish boy, Samuel Lapp. The boy witnessed the brutal killings and identified the killer as the three police officers. The ‘Witness’ strongly displayed many images of people and incorporated several techniques and images in various scenes to portray the contrast between two different worlds.