Amish Culture Counterculture Analysis

For many of us, if we’ve ever taken a trip ‘up north’ we’ve probably been exposed to a small part of Amish culture. Even as close as Gladwin, it can be easy to spot the yellow horse and buggy Amish directed traffic signs. Observed from a distance it is easy to tell that these people are “different” from the rest of our nation’s society. This is because they are a counterculture with their own beliefs, ideals, and materials. To keep this counterculture alive they raise their children into the Amish lifestyle as well. This can be analyzed using three of the six agents of socialization; Family, Religion, and Neighborhood.
According to Robinson, the Amish began in 1693 when Jacob Amman broke away from the main protestant reformation movement in southern Switzerland. They then began to reference the mennonite faith for their essential beliefs and practices. In the 1700’s, both Amish and Mennonite alike, began immigrating to Pennsylvania, and because of this almost all of the 165,000 Old Order Amish that live in the United States speak Pennsylvania Dutch. Almost, all of the members of the Amish faith are born and raised …show more content…
As we say in the video, religion dominates every aspect of their lives. From the point of baptism, religion, or their church leaders rather, tells the children of the Amish culture what how they should dress, what they should own, what they shouldn’t own, what work they should do, and how they should treat each other. If a member of the Amish community challenges or breaks any of the church’s rules they will more than likely face excommunication. Because religion is one of the most essential parts of the Amish culture, excommunication is a terrible thing because it takes away their sense of belonging to the community (Trouble