Shakers :: essays research papers

Amish DocumentaryI. TitleThe AmishDate12/23/04Time1230 libraryWest Linn Public LibraryII.I have heard very little of the Amish people. I forever visitm to hear jokes made some them and conversations almost how crazy they argon for not using electricity. I decided that I actually wanted to learn about them to test the validity of the comments I hear.III.Besides the fact that Amish where black, flat hats and dont use electricity, I know zilch about the Amish.IV.In this documentary the filmmakers got a hold of a very articulate old Amish man. I enjoyed hearing him speak about what his manners was like as a child. He explained a lot of things about his family and how they lived. There were several accounts of certain activities that they would do. For instance, after church the boys would get together and play this ball game where one would try to hit separate with a hard ball. I would not expect that some separate Amish cultures would do this, yet they argon implying in t he video that this is what all the Amish are like. There were also many stories told that showed just how strict these people were and how virtually they followed their religion. The documentary stated that in order for the Amish to still make a living, more modernized tools had to be used. One of the ones recently accepted was the cable railway car that milked cows mechanically. Without this, the Amish man explained, the Amish could not get by. The man also explained that his family and other families in his community would ask neighbors to take them in a car somewhere on occasion. Also, as time progressed, the Amish were allowed to use pay phones set(p) outside of the village. I think it was great the filmmakers could get a bloodline like this, but I only really heard about the religion/ lifestyle via one persons stories. I am sure that many of the things his family or community did were not the same as every iodin other Amish family or community. Also, I constantly recognized footage that I had seen before, in that same film. They were obviously just looking at one specialised community. If in that location are thousand of different Amish people out there, there must be hundreds of different interpretations of the religion. I would have liked to see a different community and see how they lived to see if the Amish really were homogeneous everywhere or if each community was unique.