PhilosophySciencePsychologySocietyCulture
EssaysVideos

Popular

About
DONATENEWSLETTER
/
/
Aeon
DONATE/NEWSLETTER/
/

    A rare, nuanced glimpse into modern Amish life — faith, simplicity, compromise

    The Amish are a group of traditionalist Christian church fellowships of Swiss Anabaptist origins who live almost exclusively in small pockets of the Northeastern and Midwestern US. Amish communities adhere to a creed of simplicity in lifestyle and dress, historically declining many of the conveniences of modern technology in favour of doing things in the manner of their forebears. In An Amish Man, the director Philip Bloom offers a complex picture of modern Amish life – an existence very much governed by devout faith and simplicity, but also, increasingly, compromise.

    Director: Philip Bloom

    16 December 2014
    Black-and-white photograph of a person wearing a dark hat and coat in a rural area, with blurred buildings and a field in the background.

    videoSubcultures

    Utopian communities rarely last. How have the Hutterites done it over four centuries?

    28 minutes

    Workers constructing a large red barn with a partially completed roof in a grassy field under a blue sky.

    videoWork

    Tradition and teamwork are awe-inspiring in this Amish barn raising timelapse

    4 minutes

    Members of an African-American Muslim community in Brooklyn, standing outside a building near a US flag with trees in the background.

    videoFairness and equality

    When does US news ignore a terror plot? When the target is called Islamberg

    30 minutes

    Children climbing on monkey bars, photographed from below, against a clear blue sky.

    videoEducation

    Scenes from a school year paint a refreshingly nuanced portrait of rural America

    25 minutes

    A woman in a red coat sitting in a sparsely furnished room with wooden benches and an old-fashioned stove in the centre.

    videoReligion

    Silent worship in a Quaker meeting house where only the fire in the stove is heard

    5 minutes

    A stylish painting of a woman smoking indoors, a man outside reflected in a window, and tall decorative branches in a vase.

    videoPhilosophy of religion

    What place does God have in an affluent, suburban world? A pastor explores

    26 minutes

    Close-up of a young white man, looking serious, with short blonde hair and light facial hair, in a dimly lit room.

    videoSocial psychology

    What ultranationalism offers working-class teens in England’s north

    16 minutes

    A smiling nun in a black habit and white wimple sitting in a church, with wooden furniture and a statue in the background.

    videoValues and beliefs

    Producing communion wafers is a fine art, blending faith and simple breadmaking

    2 minutes

    Painting of a woman in a pink dress lying in a field of tall grass, gazing at distant buildings under a grey sky.

    videoArt

    ‘I built the ground thinking of her’: the story of Andrew Wyeth’s ‘Christina’s World’

    8 minutes