America Of The Amish Culture Essay

Words: 802
Pages: 4

Culture is characteristics and shared knowledge of a particular group that is taught to future generations. People use this knowledge to generate behavior and to interpret experiences (Spradley & McCurdy, 2009). Culture is able to maintain stability because it is a learned and shared way of living, it is symbolic, and it is dynamic and fluid.

Culture is not something that humans are born with. It is something that we learn as infants that helps them to shape how and when we fulfill our biological needs. This is done through the process of enculturation that tells them how to meet our biological needs and express ones self in a socially acceptable way (Smiley, 2014). In the Amish culture they rise at 4:30am to begin working in the fields and after breakfast the adults and children take part in devotions where they have a daily communication
…show more content…
While culture helps to shape persons thoughts and behaviors, it does not have the power to dictate them. The individual person still has a choice to do what is culturally acceptable or not (Smiley, 2014). The video The America of the Amish shows a mother that relocated to the Amish community with her two daughters from California. The mother felt that the Amish’s way of living was beneficial to providing her daughters a positive life style. They adapted to the shared way of living where you live a wholesome life, caring about god, and their families. The mother believed that this culture was better for her family because it provides a more wholesome life style than the culture she previously experienced in California. Cultures are unique in that they have their own set of beliefs about what is acceptable ways to do things or how to appropriately behave. In one culture it might be seen as disrespectful to make eye contact, while in another culture it is deemed a sign of