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Similarities Between Amish And American Culture

Decent Essays

Culture can be defined as the totality of socially transmitted customs, beliefs, behavior, material objects, language, values, art and practices. Amish and American cultures have coexisted for more than 300 years, yet both are distinct while still sharing some similarities. Amish roots can be retraced to the 16th century, during the Protestant Reformation. Due to its ineffectiveness at the time some reformers baptized each other, which outraged religious authorities. At the time, rebaptism of adults was a crime and punishable by death. In these reformers’ views baptism was purposeful for adults if they made a voluntary confession of faith. Anabaptism, the act of rebaptizing, spread across Europe. Ultimately, Anabaptists separated into two major …show more content…

Norms are established standards of behavior maintained by a society. A set of rules, which can either be formal or informal. One common norm in the Amish society is dropping out of school after the age of 13, which relates to their belief of education leading to excessive pride. In American culture the legal drop-out age for school is no less than 16 years, and yet it’s not common and most pursue an education in college. Another common norm in Amish culture is that nice clothes and jewelry are prohibited because it is believed that they lead to vanity. On the contrary fashion and self-appearance are a common norm, imitating trendy fashion choices by celebrities is frequent. Also, the denial of rights to women is a norm. Women are considered to be the weaker vessel compared to men. It is the complete opposite in the American culture because women have the right to vote and for the most part women are about as equal as men. One last norm is that the Amish isolate themselves from the rest of the world. Moreover, social media is a huge norm in American culture. Sanctions are a dominant part of the Amish culture. Sanctions are penalties or rewards for conduct concerning a social norm. Most of the their important sanctions tie to their religion. For example, if they follow the rules they will be rewarded with going to Heaven. Furthermore if they don’t follow the rules then they will simply go to Hell. Another common one is that if one joins the Church,gets baptized and decides to leave again, then they will be shunned and their families will cut communication to them. The first two sanctions are similar to many of the religions that exist in American culture. For example, passage way will be opened to Heaven for those who have done good deeds and followed the rules, and the opposite for those with

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