“They call themselves the Plain People. The men and women known as the Old Order Amish till their fields with horse and plow, travel by horse and buggy, and live without electricity or telephones” (Egenes xiii). In the technologically advanced and modern world we live in today, the word “plain” is extinct from contemporary culture. It is hard to imagine a life without the present-day conveniences that American society tends to take for granted on a daily basis. A world without telephones, electricity, computers and television is almost unfathomable in America, however, not to the Amish. This paper will be discussing how the Amish are a counterculture that oppose almost every aspect of the modern lifestyle of society in the United States, as well as develop a research proposal which will focus on crime in the Amish culture versus crime in American culture among teens. In order to begin to investigate this, it is important to have an understanding of the history of the Amish.
The origin and migration, religious beliefs and practices, economic organization, family and community, as well as education are all important components to understanding the background of the Amish. The first Amish families arrived to America in the 1700s, in search of religious freedom, escaping persecution in Germany, Switzerland, and France (Egenes xiii). The families started in Pennsylvania, and after waves of immigration in the 1800s, Amish population eventually spread to 20 other states (Egenes xiii). Religion is a remarkably significant component of their society in which a member vows to live a life full of Christian principles and follow the rules of church and community until death (Egenes xiv). Baptism does not occur until later in teenage ye...
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Gaddy, C. Welton., and Barry W. Lynn. First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State. Boston: Beacon, 2008. Print.
McGahey, Richard, and Jennifer S. Vey. Retooling for Growth: Building a 21st Century Economy in America's Older Industrial Areas. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution, 2008. Print.
Misiroglu, Gina. "Amish." American Countercultures: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History. Vol. Two. Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference, 2009. 28-29. Print.
Schwieder, Elmer, Dorothy Schwieder, and Thomas J. Morain. A Peculiar People: Iowa's Old Order Amish : An Expanded Edition. Iowa City: University of Iowa, 2009. Print.
Walbert, David J. Garden Spot: Lancaster County, the Old Order Amish, and the Selling of Rural America. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.
Part I of A Sand County Almanac is devoted to the details of a single piece of land: Leopold’s 120-acre farmed-out farmstead in central Wisconsin, abandoned as a farm years before because of the poor soil from which the "sand counties" took their nickname. It was at this weekend retreat, Leopold says, "that we try to rebuild, with shovel and axe, what we are losing elsewhere". Month by month, Leopold leads the reader through the progression of the seasons with descriptions of such things as skunk tracks, mouse economics, the songs, habits, and attitudes of dozens of bird species, cycles of high water in the river, the timely appearance and blooming of several plants, and the joys of cutting one’s own firewood.
Lasch-Quinn, Elisabeth. "Family." Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History. Ed. Mary Kupiec Cayton and Peter W. Williams. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001. Student Resources in Context. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.
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The family provides a dense web of social support from cradle to grave. […] Family members help each other during an emergency, a fire or flood, and, of course, at a death”. The Amish community would not have withstood the drastically shifting eras had it not been for their foundation built on solid family and community relationships. Within Amish homes, bonds between siblings, parents and their children, as well as potentially extended families ties including aging grandparents or other relatives, are of utmost importance. Importantly, these interrelationships are not left within the household as the Amish community holds an interconnectedness inclusive to the community that creates an additional support network. This patchwork community of benevolence is not a gift, but a reward. There are expectations and consequences, as the BBC reports “[…] Members are expected to believe the same things and follow the same code of behaviour (called the Ordnung). The purpose of the ordnung is to help the community lead a godly life. […] If a person breaks the rules they may be 'shunned', which means that no-one (including their family) will eat with them or talk to them”. Expectations must be met for an Amish individual to earn and maintain their spot within the community. Despite guidelines wavering depending on each community and their location, the Amish are expected to follow God and seek salvation in a preset and dictated manner. Punishments for breaking the ordnung are strictly enforced and the insubordinate individual is completely excommunicated as a result of their disobedience. Since family connectedness is universally valued amongst Amish communities, if an individual is shunned, they will lose not only their community status but communications will be severed between immediate family members. When applied to education, if prohibited by that particular Ordnung, pursing a higher
Decisional Conflict R/T Cultural, religious and family beliefs AEB Amish typically do not believe in preventative medicine (Prenatal testing and immunizations).
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This paper addresses the results of interviews, observations, and research of life in the Ottawa tribe, how they see themselves and others in society and in the tribe. I mainly focused on The Little River Band of Ottawa Indian tribe. I researched their languages, pecking order, and interviewed to discover the rituals, and traditions that they believe in. In this essay I revealed how they see themselves in society. How they see other people, how they see each other, what their values were, what a typical day was etc. I initially suspected that I would have got different responses from these questions but in reality the results in the questions were almost completely the same. I studied this topic because mostly all the people that are close to me are associated in the Ottawa tribe. I additionally love the Native American culture, I feel it is beautiful and has a free concept.
Schultz, David, and John R. Vile. The Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America. 710-712. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale Virtual Reference Library, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. .
People have been living in America for countless years, even before Europeans had discovered and populated it. These people, named Native Americans or American Indians, have a unique and singular culture and lifestyle unlike any other. Native Americans were divided into several groups or tribes. Each one tribe developed an own language, housing, clothing, and other cultural aspects. As we take a look into their society’s customs we can learn additional information about the lives of these indigenous people of the United States.
The Native Americans religion "reflected their cultural practices" (Lauter, 5). The Indians religious practices were associated with their me...
Do the First and Fourth Amendments Protect?" Current Issues & Enduring Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking and Argument with Readings. Ed. Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin's, 1999. 316-324.
How the judicial branch rules in cases relating to the 1st and how they relate that to all the rights of public school students. This includes anything from flag burning to not saluting the flag to practicing religion in school. The main point of this paper is to focus on the fact that schools have a greater ability to restrict speech than government.
The Pueblo Indians religious history is different than the average Christian religion history. Their religious beliefs are based on the creation of life. The persons seen as the creators of life are the centrality and the basis of their religion. In the early 1900’s these Indians were looked upon in different lights. White man compared the Pueblo rituals and religious routines with his own. Pueblo religious beliefs, practices and social forms were criticized, scrutinized and misunderstood by white Christian American settlers. The major religious practice and worship of the Pueblo Indians involved ritual dances. White men attempted to stop these Puebloan ritualistic dances because they did not meet his own religious standards and this happened before the Indians had a chance to explain or define what their dances really stood for. Women played a significant role in Puebloan ritual dances and religious