The Amish

Résumé du document

We discuss about the characteristic features of the Amish community in this document. The Amish are a religious and close-knit community which lives in the USA, a country that is riding high in terms of technology. The most astonishing aspect about them is that they choose to live on the fringes of the American society. America can be a devout country, but it is home to a peculiar community. There are about a two hundred thousand Amish people living in the United States, especially in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Ontario in Canada. They are generally rural farmers who live in a bygone area. They are faced with an extraordinary clash of the ancient and modern principles. But the core of the problem lies in the fact that they are supposed to be a community that would never set foot in automobiles and would never accept changes in their lifestyle. It is indeed surprising that there is a community which is rejecting technological advances and hopes for prosperity in the modern world. There is something more to the retro image of horse-drawn buggies and straw hats, which we will analyze in this document.

Extraits

[...] Religion is another pillar of the Amish life The Amish are a very conservative Christian faith group, for example, they believe in the Trinity, read the Bible. They share basic theological beliefs with other Protestants churches, but they belong to the Anabaptist because they believe baptism should be reserved only for those who are ready to enter a life of faith. They submit their life to God and the Church. They place the holy authority before the government. Each congregation, called a district, is autonomous; there is any centralized Amish organization. [...]

[...] The Amish philosophy places the community before the individual. They do not have a hierarchical governing structure. The community is composed of an average of forty families, so as to say three hundred and fifty persons. This is completed by Church and the school. - The welfare state for the Amish is the support network provided by the extended family (the average Amish has eighty 80 cousins). Donald Kraybill (an expert on the Amish) said many ways, they are better prepared than most Americans to deal with tragedies”. [...]

[...] The Amish live their own American dream. Informative Bibliography - George M. Kreps, Quiet Moment in Time: A Contemporary View of Amish Society, Carlisle Pr. - John A. Hostetler, Amish Society, Johns Hopkins University Press - Diane Zimmerman Umble & David L. Weaver-Zercher present The Amish and the Media, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. [...]

[...] It is called Shunning. Some habits that show controversies Here I can list some of their habits. - They reject involvement with the military or warfare - They avoid insurance; they do not accept any form of social assistance from the government - Farm work is still done by hand But we can notice some customs quite controversial compared to their vow of remaining outside the world. - They read newspaper such as Time, in parallel with Amish reviews Botschaft” or “Family life” - they use banks. [...]

[...] Furthermore, among the Amish, fifty percent are farmer. And in the twenty first century (21st), they will be around five millions. The rapid increase in the population has allowed gradual changes and evolutions in the Amish society. Increased prices for farmland and decreasing revenues for low-tech farming have forced many Amish to work away from the farm, for example in factory plants. The growing cost of farming, and economic pressure have forced the Amish to make lifestyle altering compromises, such as work off the farm, coming into contact with an outside world we can assess that the shift from farm to non-farm employment is the biggest social change in the last century in Amish life, deprives some Amish from their cultural bonds, lose a little bit of identity. [...]