The Amish settlement in and around Holmes County, Ohio, hosts the world’s largest concentration of Amish. Along with this massing of "plain people" comes an increased diversity and difference in Amish perception of fundamental reality, beliefs, and practice within the Amish community. Even the casual observer will realize the depth of this diversity by visiting two distinctively Amish groups within the community: the spartan pastoral culture of the Swartzentruber Amish in Southern Wayne and Northern Holmes County, Ohio, and the restaurants and furniture shops of the Old Order Amish in what have become the traditional tourist destinations of Holmes County, Ohio.

Swartzentruber church authorities expect married men to cover their ear lobes with their hair and refrain from trimming their beards, wear hats with four inch brims, and drive buggies devoid of slow-moving-vehicle emblems, windshields, rearview mirrors or battery powered lights. Their two kerosene-burning lanterns are placed in a diagonal rather than a parallel line – one light near the left wheel axle the other midway up the right side of the back of the buggy – to mark their separation from other Amish groups. Old Order church authorities expect married men to refrain from trimming their beards, but their hair is not expected to cover the ear lobe. Many Old Order men wear hats only to church, and rarely drive their buggies, which are equipped with windows, mirrors, and battery-powered lights and heaters, long distances preferring to hire a personal chauffeur instead.

Behind their backs, the Swartzentrubers are called gnuddel vullahs, or "wooly lumps," by the Old Order Amish. According to several Amish and Mennonite sources, this is said because, when the Swartzentrubers milk their cows by hand, their long hair and beards gather lumps of manure, dirt and grim from their cows – resulting in matted and lumpy clumps of hair. Because many take baths once per week or less particularly during the winter, due to the time-consuming task of heating water on a stove heated by coal or wood, some Swartzentrubers develop a certain earthy smell and at times their hair care is reminiscent of Rastafarians. In general, the Swartzentrubers are seen by other members of the Amish community as dirty people who "think they will find salvation by not taking baths." This is a blatant misconception in the eyes of the Swartzentrubers. Insulting ideas of this nature serve only to convince the Swartzentrubers to move inward toward further ethnocentrism, away from the world and other Amish groups in hopes of finding freedom to live their lives peacefully within their tradition. Facing an onslaught of media attention framed to portray the Swartzentrubers as "cultish," many Swartzentruber members have resolved not to speak about their faith and practice so as to not "cast their pearls before swine." Although they share the same last names – Stutzman, Gingerich, Yoder, Weaver, Miller, Hershberger among others – often those most unsympathetic to the Swartzentrubers are other Amish who deal with them in practical daily life.

Both of these Amish groups share common historic beliefs – separation from the world, a strategy of withdrawal from secular political process, non-resistance in physical conflict, an emphasis on humility and simplicity and perhaps most importantly an unflinching belief in the face of modernity that they are the representation of Christ on earth, the bride of Christ, God’s chosen people. Their purpose on earth is not to expand God’s kingdom on earth, but rather, to maintain it.

Paradoxically, perhaps it is their common history both ideologically and genetically that demands expansion of difference. As each group attempts to reconcile their current perception of "right living" and ideological validity with their common larger discourse, heritage and ultimately their interpretation of the Bible, strong differences arise. If the Amish share a common discourse, and yet perceive time and space in radically different ways, the justification for continued brotherhood between members of different groups within the larger Amish faith grows thin. Because of their close similarities both ideologically and genetically, Amish groups perceive each other as a threat to their social stability and perceived "rightness" of practice. This threat has been marginalized and ignored by reducing the opposing group to an entity that is no longer "truly" Amish – the other. Both groups feel strongly that their mode of practice is correct. In order for the Swartzentruber Amish to be perceived by the Old Order Amish as equals and brothers they must adopt the time and space of the Old Order Amish. In the same way, the Old Order Amish must adopt the Swartzentruber perceived time and space in order to be accepted as equals and brothers. Based on the assumption that time and space are socially constructed, this paper will attempt to elicit in a dialectic manner the geography of difference within the Amish community of Holmes County, Ohio, – particularly the creation of polar differences of religious, cultural and economic values between the more progressive Old Order Amish and more traditional Swartzentruber Amish.

Over the past century, the Holmes County, Ohio, Amish population has doubled every 22 years; they have grown from an estimated population of 2,600 in 1920 to a conservative estimate of 53,000 in 2003. Within the Holmes County Amish community, the Old Order Amish represent the mainstream majority, with nearly 100 congregations or districts they dwarf the smaller more conservative Andy Weaver and Swartzentruber or more liberal New Order Amish groups which have about 20 congregations each. These four groups comprise 90 percent of the Amish in the area. The remaining 10 percent fill the cracks between prominent conservative and liberal Amish ideologies.

In the mid-1960s, the Old Order Amish began to observe day-light saving time. This is significant not because their day now began earlier or later, but because of the reason for the change. It had little to do with their desire to save day-light. They had been socialized entrenched in the earth – rising with the sun at five a.m. every morning – a tradition nearly all Old Order Amish continue today. Rather, the Amish changed their clocks so they would be the same as the clocks in town – the same time as the mill, or the market, or the tourists. The Old Order Amish changed their clocks because the market changed its clocks. The Amish were changing their lifestyle – they were becoming a material part of the self-regulating market. They were becoming a materialist culture. Instead of the economy being embedded in socially determined time and space, social relations became embedded in the economic system. The faith and practice of the Old Order Amish was now structured to some degree around the needs of the market.

Marc Olshan in his 1994 study of micro-enterprise in New York Amish communities compares Amish cottage industries to a Trojan horse. In Olshan’s theory, the Amish, through their dependence on the larger market economy both in terms of production and consumption may be forced to align themselves to the dictates of commerce. This relationship has altered Old Order Amish ideas of time and space dramatically. As Karl Polanyi states in his book The Great Transformation, in order for a market to be free, the social authority of the affected group must acquiesce to the demands of the market. "This is the meaning of the familiar assertion that a market economy can function only as a market society." Because they lack traditional Amish resources, women are now forced and expected to buy pre-made fabric, pre-made foods, commercially-produced milk and dairy products. Indeed, to some extent Amish women are increasingly defined by their selection in consumption, rather than their production. This consumption is aided by the augmented use of private chauffeurs. Because of increased wealth within the community, many Old Order Amish businessmen employ as many as three drivers: one for his wife, one for him during the day at work and one for the evenings and weekend. Old Order men use their horse-and-buggy for relatively short distances and church functions. Because "time is money," the Old Order Amish feel it is better to pay more in order to get more done more quickly – demand outweighs traditional supply. They have effectively compressed time and space, yet because they do not drive themselves, there is still a sense of accountability to the community reputation as to where and when they can and cannot travel.

While traditionally men, women and children produced side-by-side in an agricultural setting, as men began to work in light or heavy industry, women tended to stay home, cook, clean, tend the vegetable garden and take care of children. Rather than remaining partners in production by raising young workers to work in the fields, Amish women became housewives. A role typified by trips to Wal-Mart to purchase products unavailable on the dormant Amish farm. Old Order single women often work in customer service at restaurants and boutiques, while Old Order single men often work in wood shops and on carpenter crews which travel throughout the state. Cleary, the Old Order Amish are increasingly becoming split rather than united in production. As in most American families, one of the few times there is a sense of unity of purpose in the Old Order Amish family is in consumption of either food or religious services. In their current system, the Old Order Amish are united in production in that friendships and brotherhood is found with those who work together. However, because the Amish are tight-knit as a result of their close geographic proximity, the overall economic equality within the Old Order Amish church has decreased. Naturally, this increased hierarchical structure of wealth increases levels of competition for scarce resources and respect. Those who are good businessmen commandeer respect within the church. Those who do poorly within the accepted system receive less respect. The Old Order Amish practice the social tradition of aiding those who are less fortunate, but if an Amish businessman fails because he is perceived to have poor management skills he is viewed with suspicion. In some ways, a deplorable businessman is a disgraceful Amishman. The Old Order Amish respect those who work hard and are well rewarded. Common sense is defined by business savvy, smart investments and frugal living. These every day values translate into extremely hard-working, innovative, humble individuals with a lot more money than their apparent material culture belies. It also emphasizes an increased interaction with and awareness of the world and its methods of production. However, by prohibiting the use of telephones or electricity inside the house, the Old Order Amish do maintain some sense of self-reliance and separation from the time and space of the world. This separation allows the Amish to continue to primarily focus on production rather than consumption; nevertheless, as disposable incomes continue to accumulate, observers have begun to wonder what outlet the Old Order Amish will find to make use of their success and to what extent their success will affect their ethic.

There exists within the Amish system of belief an underlying distrust and disloyalty toward the secular world. This idea is rooted in scripture "be not conformed to this world," abstaining from the lusts of the flesh as "strangers and pilgrims in this world," and in the "martyr complex" that inundates the Amish perception of their historical Anabaptist identity. The agent used to maintain this distrust and disloyalty is the overriding discourse of maintenance of heritage and the survival of the kingdom of God – of which the Amish play a central role. In everyday life, this larger discourse is implemented by church authorities through the use of the ban or meiding also known as shunning. Those who grow to close to the world in practical living are shunned by their family, friends and religious culture until they admit they are wrong, repent and prove their loyalty to the church over time. The degree and severity of this shunning of the world and the things that are in the world varies greatly across the Amish religious landscape.

Based on their understood need for alternative means of financial success the Old Order Amish have adopted much of the economic "ways of the world." Because of land scarcity and therefore increased land prices, as a result of American urbanization and the exponential growth of the Holmes County Amish population, the Old Order Amish began to include in their repertoire of livelihoods, occupations apart from their tradition of agriculture and family-oriented production. Since the mid-twentieth century the Old Order church has increasingly begun to include light industry ownership and heavy industry employment. Today Roman Schlabach says only five out of 32 families in his Old Order Amish district near Charm, Ohio, are farmers. The reasons for this dramatic shift are complex – they involve the active participation and interdependency of the Swartzentruber and Old Order Amish in constructing a hierarchy of economic and social success. This economic and social construction is the basis of the construction of difference with the Amish community.

Based on most academic and popular sources, tourism began to inundate Holmes County, Ohio, in the early 1970s. This invasion by the world was hosted first with reluctance, than with grudging acceptance, and finally with active encouragement by the Old Order Amish. The first mention of Ohio Amish tourism in the press came in 1957. Grace Goulder, in her Plain Dealer column, "Ohio Scenes and Citizens," described the area as a "delightful hinterland. Life is placid, paced to horse-and-buggy speed. Even if you get lost, you will enjoy yourself." However by the mid-1970s this slow-paced life was changing in some respects. Elaine Sommers Rich, as quoted by David Luthy in an essay on Amish tourism, wrote the following in the Mennonite Weekly Review in 1975: "You should see Holmes County these years – such tourists! Charter busloads as high as eight in one day during the summer. We local folk hardly find room to park in town when we need a loaf of bread." In the 1980 census, Berlin, Ohio, the hub of Holmes County tourism, had a population of only 400. Today that number has been expanded dramatically and visitors have increased exponentially. Traffic moves at a crawl through the swollen village during the busy weekend hours. Luthy said, "In 1989, it was estimated that one million tourists were visiting Holmes County each year and spending $45 million dollars." In 1989, Paul Locher, associate news editor of Wooster’s The Daily Record, wrote the following about the phenomenon:

While this assumption may have been true at some point in the past experience of the Old Order Amish it hardly seems true today. The Old Order Amish have swiftly adopted the success strategies of market capitalism. Tourism of Amish Country is thoroughly commercial, with the Amish acting as hosts, salesmen and manufacturers of quantitative cultural sale. By accepting the perception that Amish-made furniture is made with precision and conscientious high-quality, tourists have allowed the Old Order Amish to inflate the prices of their cultural artifacts by two or three times. Also the sheer numbers of tourists result in a seemingly inexhaustible market for their products. Old Order Amishman Roman Schlabach said occupations dependent on tourism and the market are more reliable then occupations that depend on nature. "If you work out in the shops you have the regular income. For young people it’s tougher to get started in farming, because it cost so much to get started and milk prices are so low." The Old Order quickly saw that manufacturing traditional Amish products – quilts, rocking chairs, furniture and eventually, sturdy houses and well-built barns – not only filled the void left by the lack of land in the immediate area, but also increased overall cash yield. For the first time in their existence as "pilgrims and strangers" in America, the Old Order Amish have become rich. In the eyes of more traditional Amish, they have collaborated with the root of all evil – the love of money.

None of this expansion of lifestyle could have been possible without first expanding the traditional Amish discourse. This of course can be seen most easily in the use of technology in the Old Order Amish system of practical life. An important event in the evolution of the Old Order was the discovery and use of natural gas in the mid-1950s. Ada Schlabach, an Old Order Amish woman in her 70s, said she remembers the first time she knew the Old Order Amish used natural gas. It was near Beck’s Mills south of Berlin in 1955, in the dead of winter she remembered going into a shed heated by natural gas while at a neighbor’s farm for church. "It was so nice and warm; I didn’t know what to think. The bishops didn’t like it much at first. I guess they liked all the dirt and ashes (of burning coal)." By having natural gas wells on their properties, the Old Order Amish were allowed free access to a nearly inexhaustible source of energy. This expansion of energy allowed for a change of mentality and lifestyle. By using gas-powered appliances, the Amish were able to compress time considerably. Now instead of relying on ice houses to provide for refrigeration during the summer, the Amish used gas-powered refrigerators. Instead of relying on wood or coal burning stoves to heat and cook, the Old Order used gas stoves to heat things quickly and efficiently. This translated into better hygiene as the Amish were now able to heat water easily with gas-powered water heaters. By piping gas throughout their houses, the Old Order Amish were able to supply gas burning lights and extend night-time production and relaxation. As a result, the Old Order Amish were no longer dictated by the rhythms of the rising and setting sun. The most important result of this technological advancement was not the cost efficiency of gas use, but the change in Old Order Amish perception of values. Although church authorities were at first suspicious of the new implementation, as they had been toward windmill-powered water pumps, gradually they determined that with the changing occupational environment it was important for families to be free to produce more within the community. This was not seen as dangerous to group stability because none of these technological advancements produced an added geographic mobility.

As a hierarchy of economic development was established, with some Amish working in shops producing cultural items and others working on farms, it became clear that it was less advantageous to be a traditional Amish farmer. This shift toward the Amish ideal of micro-enterprise produced two results. The Old Order Amish began to use modern farming equipment albeit without rubber tires or "air" tires, to dramatically increase agricultural production – thus reducing the role of the individual in production. As a whole, Amish farms are comprised of 100 or less acres, a space too small to compete with bigger more developed commercial farming operations. Even when agricultural occupations have been maintained, among the Old Order Amish there is an increased pressure to abandon traditional diversified farming geared toward subsistence or self-reliance in favor of specialization in cash crops. This in turn increased the dependence of the Amish on the larger American market. Over time, as noted previously, dairy prices dropped and space continued to be crowded. As a result many Amish began to build small shops on a corner of their farms, and rent their farms to more foolish and hardy individuals. This development has allowed some members of less conservative Amish groups such as the Swartzentrubers to cling to their farming tradition in Holmes County. The Old Order Amish do not wish to sell their farms because land is becoming increasingly scarce and valued as a commodity and because they continue to respect and value the security provided by the geography which contains much of their perceived history, traditions and future.

According to Polanyi, when attempting to understand the effect of the market economy on social relations one must realize the interconnected nature of relationship between economic structure on everyday life.

The crucial point is this: labor, land, and money are essential elements of industry; they also must be organized in markets; in fact, these markets form an absolutely vital part of the economic system. But labor, land, and money are obviously not commodities; the postulate that anything that is bought or sold must have been produced for sale is emphatically untrue in regard to them. In other words according to the empirical definition of a commodity they are not commodities. Labor is only another name for human activity which goes with life itself, which in turn is not produced for sale but for entirely different reasons, nor can that activity be detached from the rest of life, be stored or mobilized; land is only another name for nature, which is not produced by man; actual money, finally, is merely a token of purchasing power which, as a rule, is not produced at all, but comes through the mechanism of banking or state finance. Nevertheless, it is with the help of this fiction that the actual markets for labor, land, and money are organized. Any measures or policies that would inhibit the formation of such markets would ipso facto endanger the self regulation of the system.

In terms of their attitudes toward labor, land and money the Old Order Amish are largely regulated by the market. Rather than maintain their lifestyle, the Old Order Amish are ruled by the opportunity to expand their market share.

There are an estimated 2,800-3,000 Swartzentruber Amish in southern Wayne and Northern Holmes Counties. However, this is not a very accurate figure when attempting to determine the amount of Swartzentruber Amish who were born in the area in the past three generations. Because of their emphasis on shunning the world and self-reliance, many Swartzentruber Amish have moved from their geographic roots in Holmes County to sister Swartzentruber communities in Tennessee, Missouri, Michigan and New York as well as different parts of Ohio and other states around the country. Swartzentruber man John Stutzman said probably more of "their people" are outside of Holmes County than in it – a statement to their determination to retain their traditional time and space rather than their geographic roots. Although they seem to present a small demographic percentage in the Holmes County Amish community, the Swartzentrubers procreate quickly and exponentially. All Amish ordnungs or orders advocate very limited birth control and exponential procreation. Based on a Biblical command to be "fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth," most Swartzentruber Amish families produce ten or more children. The Swartzentrubers rightly assume "many hands make light work." Among the Old Order Amish of Holmes County, 40-50 percent of all children join and remain in the Amish church. In the Swartzentruber gemeinde this number is much higher – 60-80 percent. There are several reasons for this discrepancy, but all of them are rooted in censorship or shunning. To grasp the true consequences of this percentage, one must keep in mind that at least six to eight out of each Swartzentruber family will remain within the ordnung. Some Swartzentruber families have as many as 20 children.

Swartzentrubers do not practice day-light saving time. This is important in that it is a statement to their self-reliance and group smugness. The Swartzentruber Amish save more daylight than most Americans; however, they do not adjust their clocks to the market. The market is not nearly as important as the unity of the group. The Swartzentrubers are a group united in production of self-reliance. Rising at dawn, the Swartzentruber farmer and his ten children milk cows by hand and do other chores while women perform the arduous task of cooking without modern amenities. Again it is important that consumption is based directly in that which is produced within the group.

Many Swartzentruber farmers have natural gas reserves on their land in the same way as the Old Order Amish; however, church authorities have determined that using this unlimited energy resource would be detrimental to the maintenance of the life style of the Swartzentrubers. Therefore, while the Swartzentrubers can sell natural gas, they are not permitted to use it themselves. This has forced the Swartzentruber ordnung to maintain their dependence on ice for cooling, coal or wood for heating and kerosene lanterns for lighting. This in turn has allowed the Swartzentrubers to maintain their traditional ideas of time and space. Of course, it does not follow by necessity that the Swartzentrubers are slovenly in nature because they produce less than their Old Order cousins. Quite the opposite is true. Because they have maintained rather than compressed time, it takes the Swartzentrubers more time to do quantitatively less than the Old Order Amish, while, many would argue, they work harder. This can be seen in even the most basic necessities of life – while Old Order Amish have bathrooms inside their homes, the Swartzentrubers do not. Using an outhouse both elongates the time and preserves the traditional space of the Swartzentruber system of relief.

Another aspect of their maintenance of time and space is in their use of horse-and-buggy travel. The Swartzentrubers use hired transportation only in emergency or absolute necessity. Physician Nolan Byler tells many stories about Swartzentruber men traveling five or more hours to cover the 20 miles from Southern Wayne County to Massillon, Ohio, to visit their wives in the hospital. Former-Swartzentruber David Yoder tells of his family moving all their belongings 35 miles from Medina County to Wayne County in the dead of winter.

The Swartzentruber Amish use trains and public buses to visit "their people" in settlements around the country, but in everyday life within the community, they use only buggies. This forces the community to remain within a small geographic area, and in turn to possess a greater sense of group-reliance and self-reliance of the group.

The Swartzentruber Amish preserve their self-satisfaction through a variety of methods and ideas – all of which are centered on self-reliance within the group. Chief among these methods is the use of diversified agriculture, not because the Amish have a

strong affinity for animals or soil, but rather, because of their ideas of time and space and self-reliance within the group, agriculture is the default occupation. It is important to note that this agriculture is not motivated essentially by for-profit market values. The primary concern of the Swartzentruber farmer is to maintain and sustain his family – uniting the family in production not only of produce but also the larger Amish discourse of self-reliance. Although these small farms produce little income, they produce an abundance of labor opportunities. By using centuries-old farming techniques and ignoring current market trends, Swartzentrubers produce traditional Amish products not for sale, but for frugal use. Although there are exchanges of goods, this is done primarily within the community. Many Swartzentruber farmers sell their produce at the weekly livestock auction in Kidron, but this sale is done as farmers in need of resources not available on the farm, not as businessmen selling cultural objects at inflated prices.

The markets attended by Swartzentruber farmers are much like the five or 30 day markets of Confucian China. Swartzentruber markets unite the farmers in the immediate area every 7 days. Here the Amish farmers trade produce or sell their goods to non-Swartzentruber merchants. Once per month Swartzentruber farmers from a larger area make a longer journey to the horse sale in Mt. Hope or machinery sale in Kidron. At this sale, they purchase scarcer commodities such as draft horses or archaic hay binders. But in both of these commercial experiences, Swartzentrubers produce little for and consume little from the state, national or global market. On the other hand, the Old Order Amish produce almost exclusively for the state, national and global markets. As a latent consequence of this outside focus in production, the Old Order Amish are increasingly forced to consume products produced by the state, national and international markets as well. Because the Old Order Amish have less of a reason to attend these traditional commodity exchanges, there is less economic interaction between Amish groups than there has been in the past.

On the periphery of Swartzentruber economic method, there exist single men and young families who have not had the fortune to find a farm of their own. Some of these men rent farms from the Old Order Amish who have turned to industrialization; however, this situation is not completely advantageous because most Old Order families want to retain their buildings on the property and only rent the land. In addition, those who use modern farming equipment can out-bid and out-produce Swartzentruber farmers. Some of these Swartzentruber men work as day-laborers in Old Order factories making furniture or machine parts, but this practice is seen as a temporary situation in which the young man will continue to look for a more suitable occupation. A few of these men have started their own retail furniture businesses in which they make furniture which they sell to Old Order Amish at low cost. The Old Order Amish then inflate the prices and resell the furniture to tourists. Again the Swartzentrubers refrain from selling their culture; they believe that the "golden rule – doing unto others as you would have them do unto you" applies to all areas of life and therefore charge what they would want to be charged. In addition, the Swartzentrubers feel the temptation of material wealth is dangerous to the unity of the community. Some districts within the church have placed restrictions on Swartzentruber annual income at $30 thousand. Those who make more than this amount submit their excesses to the community to help less fortunate families and individuals become more self-sufficient by purchasing a farm. In this way, the Amish promote equality within the community.

A third solution to the rising cost of land in Holmes County is the migration of members of the Swartzentruber church to other states and counties where land is more affordable. Again it is important to remember that the Swartzentruber Amish are concerned with the preservation of traditions and identity, rather than strictly economic advantages. Since the mid-twentieth century, Swartzentruber Amish began to migrate –first to Kentucky and Tennessee and later to Missouri, Minnesota, Mississippi, Michigan and New York. Because tourism was less common in these new settlements and there was more land available in these areas, the Swartzentrubers quickly established self-supporting and self-sustaining communities across the Midwest. As a whole, because there is less competition and interaction with other Amish groups in these new settlements, Swartzentruber Amish are markedly more open to communicate with the secular world. These Swartzentrubers do not need to prove themselves different from other Amish groups. Because there are clear lines drawn between those who speak English – the world, and those who speak German – the Swartzentrubers – there is less liberalizing influence from within the Amish community.

Because the Swartzentrubers heavily emphasize their separation from the world, they have a certain degree of smugness or aloofness when dealing with individuals from outside of their church. While in the Old Order church this ideal of separation is tempered by economic exigencies, in the Swartzentruber system, the vast majority support the dominant idea of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. The Swartzentrubers are disciplined against excessive contact with the outside world and against individualism within their own world by a loving yet limiting restriction – their self-reliance is tempered by their group-reliance or identity-reliance. Based on their perceived history, Swartzentrubers see themselves as the representation of the body of Christ on earth. By working collectively to maintain this kingdom of God, they encourage each other to be self-reliant while at the same time they maintain their reliance on the group. This disjunctive motif results in increased isolation and smugness.

As a self-reliant farmer, a Swartzentruber man is free to be indifferent to unwanted guests. He and his family can meet intruders with a wall of silence. He is convinced of the relative advantage of his way of life. Olshan uses the concept of relative advantage as developed by Charlotte Wolf to support this claim. This relative advantage is defined as "a collective process by which a group of people come to define their situation, values, or character in reference to that of another group’s . . . in a manner which gives them a sense of satisfaction."

However, as Old Order Amish open stores and restaurants, Amish businessmen are forced to host outsiders and treat them with otherwise unwarranted respect. Olshan quotes Erving Goffman to propose Old Order market attachment accredits "any passerby that is inclined to stop." Goffman suggests this is the case by saying the Amish man and passing stranger are in "a state of talk – that is, they have declared themselves officially open to one another for purposes of spoken communication and guarantee together to maintain a flow of words." This openness is used "to initiate a spate of communication and as a means for the persons concerned to accredit each other as legitimate participants." It is important to note that this accreditation occurs in English, not in German. As Amish are forced to use English everyday, they lose some of their legitimacy as an ethnic German group. Of course, the Old Order Amish reserve the right to determine the legitimacy of the conversation – "common sense" and personal dignity allow for this – but as a whole, the Old Order Amish are becoming accomplished in defending their faith and legitimizing their lifestyle. Ada Schlabach, who has cooked meals for tourists in her home for the past 17 years, said she often describes her Old Order values for visitors. "They can see we are satisfied with what we have." Schlabach said she is happy to answer their questions because she loves to have visitors in her home; however, if she deems a question to be illegitimate, she will not give a legitimate response. "If it’s a decent question, we’ll give a decent answer." Nevertheless, because Schlabach is using her cultural background to sell her product, she is forced to smile and welcome even the most insensitive customer. This is not the case in the Swartzentruber system of values. By placing themselves in a compromising economic situation, the Old Order Amish are forced to eagerly satisfy the demands of the market. They have been forced to give up some of their ideas of satisfaction and the relative advantage of their lifestyle in order to serve their perceived role as tourism hosts.

The insensitive observer will notice differences of practice within the Holmes County Amish community, but will not recognize the significance of these differences. From this dispassionate perspective the Amish appear to be equally "backward," equally religious and equally Amish. However, within the community there exists strong incongruity toward this assumption. To assume an Old Order man is Swartzentruber is either a mark of ignorance or an egregious offense. Likewise, to assume a Swartzentruber man is Old Order is equally insulting. Because the Amish possess a common genetic history and as a result assume a common history to define their current circumstance and ideology, differences are greatly pronounced. Modern Amish identity, of necessity, is a set of historical discourses that both constructs and is constructed by the production of shared ideas of the integrity and permanence of Amish identity and culture.

David Harvey in his book Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference uses a theoretical construction of historical-geographical materialism to explain this phenomenon. Harvey’s theory rests on the idea of internal relations. This idea proceeds from the premise that everything in the world consists of smaller components, each in turn yielding more subcomponents. For example, a farm breaks down into buildings, and buildings into rooms, ad infinitum. Human beings can also be deconstructed, but unlike the rest of nature they have consciousness of their place in the broader hierarchy. Through our metabolic, social, political and cultural relationships, we internalize the world around us. Consequently, dialectical inquiry becomes the method which produces permanence – as in concepts, abstractions, theories, and institutionalized structures of knowledge – in the shifting landscape of politics and society. Starting from the individual perspective in the time-space continuum, we strive to uncover deeper, universal truths. For Harvey, this built environment is in fact the environment. Time and space exist only within the universe and are dependent on social construction. Harvey cannot separate ultimate reality from existential reality. If one can not separate them, then one is required to observe what people are saying about their ideas of reality, space, time and the environment in order to understand the geography of difference.

David Yoder describes his views of more liberal Amish as a Swartzentruber teenager in the early 1970s in his autobiography "Amish Deception":

In Wayne County we had seven different Amish churches, all with different beliefs. Some of these Amish had battery lights and mirrors on their buggies. They also had little windows on their buggy curtains. Some even had heaters. A lot of the churches were more modern than our church. For example, the women could buy their bras and panties, while we had to make all our clothes ourselves. They wore a lot shorter dresses than the women in our church did. Also, they had kerosene hot water heaters, and bathrooms in their houses. Some of them had couches and love seats in their home. The men had more modern equipment, such as chain saws and tractors. Most of them had to take the balloon tires off, and put steel wheels on. Their work harnesses and buggy harnesses were decorated with chrome plated buggies, snaps and white rings where the reins went through, while ours were plain, no chrome plated buggies, snaps or white rings. All our buggies, snaps and rings were painted black. Most of them had their barns white washed on the inside. On the outside, their barns were either red or white. They were also allowed to put up a lot of board fence and paint it. Their houses could be split levels, or, as a matter of fact any style they desired. Some also had electricity in their homes. When some of the higher classed Amish, turned sixteen or seventeen they decided not to help their parents on the farm anymore. They could then start working in public places, such as restaurants or factories. Usually they had someone who had a car to take them back and forth to work. The kids would stay at home free of charge, and would save up all their money to buy a car. They would no longer be dressed Amish. Usually for the first couple of months the parents made their kids park their cars at the end of their driveway, or behind the tool shed. After the parents got used to the kids having a car, they might even have their kids take them places. A couple of boys I went to school with were higher classed Amish. Their parents helped them buy a decent car. On weekends these boys usually picked up other boys who didn't have cars. Then they'd go out, get drunk, have fun, and listen to the radio. Sometimes, on a Saturday evening Amish boys and girls would get together with a horse and buggy, then go to Mt. Eaton, Ohio and tie their horses up behind the elevator, where they usually stashed an extra set of clothes. The girls would dress in a pair of jeans, and let their hair down. The guys would also dress up in different more stylish clothes. They’d go out, then come back in time to change clothes and be back home by morning, before their parents got up. I soon began socializing with these "higher classed" Amish. They had a live and let live attitude. Our church was the most backward church of all of them. We even had a nickname the other Amish called us, the "noodle pushers." Someone once told me we got that nickname for eating so many homemade noodles. We did so because it was inexpensive.

Because of the close geographic proximity of the Old Order and Swartzentruber Amish groups, interaction between the two groups is inevitable. Because of this interaction, maintenance of identity, particularly for the Swartzentruber Amish, is difficult. Although church authorities attempt to guard against interaction, because of land scarcity and other issues individuals on the margins of society are forced into daily contact. Yoder recalls his first interaction with "higher classed Amish" was encouraged by his father because he did not have enough work for him on their small farm near Maysville, Ohio.

Living close to Maysville, Ohio, we were surrounded by the less conservative Amish, which I did start working for, earning five dollars a day. I adapted very quickly. I was treated with respect and their lifestyle was somewhat easier. Dad would wake me in the morning, I would help do the chores, and then eat breakfast. Right after breakfast I took off through the fields to the neighbor who needed me the most. I got to the point where I wished I didn't have to go home. My neighbors all made me feel like I was a part of their family. They wouldn't send me home if we were working in the fields and it started raining. When we couldn't work in the fields for a day or two, sometimes we went to Kidron Livestock Auction. I liked that. They had the little windows, the storm fronts, the mirrors and the lights on their buggies. We'd let the storm front and curtains down on the buggy, and we would be nice and dry. Many of the less conservative Amish had horses from the racetrack, and they could really move. I always liked to pass up a Swartzentruber Amish and watch him get wet while I was nice and dry. Sometimes the weather was nice and they needed something in town, they'd tell me to hitch up a horse to a two-wheeled cart and go to town. I always kept my eye open for a Swartzentruber Amish, hoping for a race. I knew that most Swartzentruber Amish's horses were either overworked or not from the track. They wouldn't stand a chance against my fast horse.

As Swartzentruber boys are exposed to the alternative Amish lifestyle of the Old Order, often they begin to question Swartzentruber methods of preservation. Because of strict income restrictions, some Swartzentruber men accept as little as $3 per hour from Old Order employers. By viewing the affluence of other Amish groups, Swartzentruber Amish men begin to question the legitimacy of their own disciplined practice. Yoder says:

Working for these less conservative Amish, I began to wish I was one of them. They made me feel important. Their children also treated me well. We would sometimes sit down and talk about the difference in the Amish. Their girls wore shorter dresses, and I always thought they were cuter. If Dad had me work for less conservative Amish for a punishment, it sure back fired on him. I worked away from home like that for a couple of years.

However, although Swartzentruber men are allowed to work outside of the ordnung and adopt the time and space of more liberal Amish groups, they are not permitted to intermarry. Again in order for members of either group to treat the other as an equal they must accept the time and space of the other. To do otherwise is to invite shunning by the entire Swartzentruber social structure – the only world known by young Swartzentruber men. By promoting courtship at a young age, Swartzentruber men are again tied to the ordnung. Yoder said the following about his first encounter with "bed courtship," a practice common among the Swartzentruber Amish.

That fall I turned sixteen years old. I couldn't wait, because I knew that when you were sixteen you were old enough to start looking at girls. One Saturday evening, I asked Dad for a horse and buggy. Dad said I could have it to go and see a girl, but not to go to a bar, or any place like that. My brother Joe went with me.

As courtship becomes regular and young men and women develop emotional and sexual relationships, both men and women in many cases develop increased contentment with each other and the system. While a Swartzentruber man and Old Order woman or visa versa would inevitably join the more liberal ordnung, if both parties are socialized as Swartzentrubers, the alternative of shunning – complete abandonment of social stability, friends and family for both parties – becomes an impressive barrier.

Yoder recalls his view of Swartzentruber identity as a young man in the early ‘70s in terms of time and space, as well as the larger discourse of simplicity and separation from the world.

Milton Good, an Amish historian from Dalton, Ohio likens Swartzentruber identity to that of a "faceless doll." Ruth Wile, an enterprising Mennonite businesswoman, has been making faceless dolls for the Holmes County tourist market for more than the past decade. Old Order Amish born in the past two generations do not understand why these dolls do not have faces, the dolls their children have do. Good says that traditionally Amish dolls did not have faces and Swartzentruber dolls still do not have faces. This may seem like a trivial idiosyncrasy, but within the Swartzentruber social structure it is a symbol of the role of the individual within the group. Swartzentruber parents use their material culture to instill values in their children. In order for the individual to become faceless, the Swartzentruber emphasize the motif of "breaking the spirit." This "spirit" is in large part the spirit of individualism or rebellion depending on the situation. Yoder says, "Perhaps if I hadn't bought that sawmill with the propane engine and edger in it we wouldn't have been excommunicated. However, I'm convinced that the Amish bishop and preacher had one thing in mind: to break my spirit. I was convinced if I weren’t excommunicated for (having) the sawmill, there would have been something else later on." Yoder goes on to say that those who are either too slow or too quick are disciplined more heavily than those who work and think at the ideal Swartzentruber speed. The Swartzentruber ideal promotes the self-reliance of the group and the group-reliance of the individual.

The Old Order ideal, on the other hand, promotes individual thrift and capital management in accord with, but not exclusively within, the ordnung. Although the Old Order are somewhat united in production, their production serves the market rather than the group itself. The Old Order Amish are increasingly tied to the market rather than each other for their source consumption. In many ways, this slippage of Amish tradition has resulted in a movement toward the increasing "Protestantization" of their group identity and ethic. Max Weber quotes John Wesley when he says: "We ought not to prevent people from being diligent and frugal; we must exhort all Christians to gain all they can, and to save all they can; that is, in effect, to grow rich." Of course within the Biblical framework, excess riches are to be redistributed among the poor; however, because the Old Order Amish view themselves as the chosen people of God, and, as of yet, do not acknowledge other groups of Christians as completely legitimate, social justice in the "Kingdom of God" seems easily realized. Conversely, because of their increasing mobility and contact with poverty, many Old Order businessmen are beginning to notice injustice around the world and contribute their excess income under a veil of anonymity. Because the New Order Amish are evangelical in their approach to Christianity, many Old Order Amish united in production with these more liberal Amish are becoming more and more interested in Evangelical ideology.

This shift in ideology may have precipitated the utilitarian philosophy they have allowed to creep into their practical reality. The mantra "God helps those who help themselves," is clearly felt in the work ethic of the Old Order Amish and Mennonites of Holmes County, Ohio. Weber uses the mechanism of "piece-rate" incentives as a clear example of Protestant ethic the spirit of capitalism. However, Weber says "a peculiar difficulty has been met with surprising frequency: raising the piece-rates has often had the result that not more, but less, has been accomplished in the same time, because the worker reacted to the increase not by increasing but decreasing the amount of his work." Weber sites this as an example of traditionalism. A man "by nature" does not want to work more than he has to. He does not want to earn more money, "but simply to live as he is accustomed to live and to earn as much as is necessary for that purpose." These principles are clearly evident in a juxtaposition of the work ethics of the Swartzentruber and Old Order Amish. The Swartzentruber desire is to maintain their lifestyle which includes heavy manual labor. For most of them, time is not money; time is food on the table and assurance of maintenance of faith. Because the Old Order identity is increasingly attached to consumption and the secular market, it follows that their ethic often allows the following as the individual matures: sports cars, hunting trips, houses, farms and early retirement. If offered piece work or over-time wages, the Old Order laborer will work long and hard.

Conclusions

A 2004 issue of Ohio Magazine featured an advertisement for Homestead Furniture – an enterprise owned by Ernest Hershberger a member of the Old Order Amish church. The advertisement featured a sophisticated office desk named "The Manhattan." The theme of the advertisement was the meeting of the country and the city. Under the headline "Big city style in the heart of Amish country" is the following caption: "The best of both worlds. It seems incongruous. A family-owned and operated furniture store in the heart of Ohio’s Amish country with an office desk named the Manhattan. But it isn’t that at all. In fact, it is the merging of those two divergent cultures that have created the perfect workspace. City meets country at Homestead Furniture." Clearly this Old Order man is capitalizing on his culture, and its appeal to the secular market. The roll-top desks constructed of walnut sold at Homestead Furniture cost $15,000.

Ten miles north on the same road, state route 241, Sam Swartzentruber, a member of the Swartzentruber Amish church, makes roll-top desks as well. Although he does not sell the desks to tourists directly – he sells them to another Holmes County furniture store, Swartzentruber sells his desks for a tenth of the price of Hershberger. Rather than sell his culture and undermine Swartzentruber Amish time and space values, Swartzentruber is content with a modest income.

Based on Harvey’s ideas of the social creation of time and space, the geography of difference within the Amish community takes on new dimensions of understanding. This understanding is dependent on both modernist and post-modernist thinking. Ideas of Marxism and cultural relativism are blended to create a seemingly holistic approach to understanding time and space in social context.

For the Amish, ideas about "slow" and "fast" time seem to be indicators of economic and social construction of production values and methods. For the Old-order Amish who have used "fast" or "day-light saving" time since the mid-sixties, commerce, urbanization and industrialization has grown in leaps and bounds. Perceptions of high values and qualities of life have shifted to include capitalism, which crosses the boundaries of both the secular and religious communities. The Old Order Amish have de-emphasized the disjunction between separation from the world and production in the world that exists in their faith in order to include modernization as part of their lifestyle as children of God. To echo Weber in his treatment of the Protestant work ethic, time has become money.

For the Swartzentruber Amish who have attempted to maintain their traditional space and "slow" time, farming through the use of animal locomotion has remained the paramount occupation albeit not always in the same physical geographic locations. Swartzentrubers continue to value the stability provided by geographic isolation. Perceptions of essential values and critical qualities of Amish identity have not shifted to include secular interaction and production methods. In some cases, the Swartzentrubers have moved inward toward further isolation while the religious communities around them have moved outward toward more interaction. This movement has resulted in the creation of distinct difference in perceptions of time and space within the Holmes County Amish community. The Amish have created societies that are genetically nearly identical, yet drastically different in their understanding of practical life and governing faith. These differences in turn have shaped and are shaping the faiths of the Amish communities while at the same time the faiths of these Amish groups are shaping their perceptions of time and space.

Although at times overtly Marxist in his approach, Harvey states that orthodox Marxism may not fully explain the idea of myth as an accelerator of social production of time and space. Because the shared history of the Amish is comprised of discourses that at once both create and are created by the production of shared, but unlived, memories, the histories of the two Amish groups are certainly at least partially mythical in nature. Harvey quotes Norberg-Schulz when he says "‘(Marxism) does not arrive at a full understanding of dwelling, and fails in its attempt’ to recover from the human alienation which arises from ‘man’s loss of identification with the natural and man-made things which constitute his environment.’" However, Harvey argues there is a certain unity in the ideas of Marx and the ideas of those who acknowledge the mythic qualities of time and space creation. Harvey argues that Marx did recognize the mythic qualities of material experience in his thesis on the "fetishism of commodities." Although the ideas of Marx are dependent on commercial enterprise, capitalism and class struggle, for Marx "what we learn from sensuous interaction with what we touch and the processes we directly encounter is different from what we need to know to understand the processes of commodity production and exchange that put our global breakfast upon our tables." It is precisely Marx’ point that immediate experience is so authentic as to create reality grounded in existentialism.

In the end, Harvey assumes that the modernism of Marx and the post-modern ideas of relativism are dialectally opposed in that they are not mutually exclusive arguments, but oppositions which contain each other. Harvey blends and combines the two perspectives to produce a model of social construction in which "what goes on in a place cannot be understood outside of the space relations which support that place any more than the space relations can be understood independently of what goes on in particular places." Rather than resolving the issue through self-defeating cultural relativism, which permits itself to excuse even abhorrent differences, Harvey proposes a pluralism of cultures which presupposes a variety of means to an end, but not a variety of the ends themselves. This cultural pluralism would allow groups with common histories such as North and South Korea or the Swartzentruber and Old Order Amish to see each other as brothers despite apparent differences.

The Mediaeval conception of the individual was much more open in relation to the world. Rethinking of the individual and how an individual exists in the midst of socio-ecological processes is important in understanding the family of ideas that that comprise the nature of justice. One of the basic problems in finding satisfactory justice is that opposing groups of people are operating within the same paradigms of identity, property, space, and time. It seems ironic that conflict arises because individuals are speaking in very much the same language and systems of binary opposition. One looks from the outside and suggests that you can not resolve these conflicts unless individuals transcend that language and think about identity in a different way. Harvey assumes we must find a way of thinking "your gain is not necessarily my loss; your sense of property is not necessarily my sense of exclusion." If the Old Order Amish and Swartzentruber Amish could somehow recognize each other as valid and equally Amish without compromising basic human rights, perhaps some sense of harmony could be found. For the Swartzentruber Amish who continue to establish "stranger and pilgrim" societies throughout the United States apart from Old Order settlements, perhaps a sense of peace has been realized – isolated in the world of "their people," apart from the kingdom of this world. Amish on the margins of Swartzentruber and Old Order society engaged in interaction with each other must resolve to understand and appreciate their differences. This understanding may bring accompanying economic consequences, but it will also promote a sense of brotherhood within the Holmes County, Ohio, Amish community.