Amish Community Within the Amish community, they have very strict ordinances for everyone within their group. It describes rules for everything from the length of a woman’s dress to a man’s hairstyle, and the brim of his hat. There are rules such as, no buying or selling on Sunday and no bright colors or fine fabrics to be used in clothing. They cannot even sing in a different tone or use any instruments or radios, electronics, or even automobiles. These are just some of the Ordnung, which are the Amish rules for living. It is an essential part of the Amish charter, showing how they must live their lives. It will impact every Amish individual’s way of life, and should they disobey, they will be punished by “bann und Meidung” or excommunicated. This means they will be excluded from everything and everyone, even friends and family. There are many taboos in the Amish community from wearing a mustache to taking part in violence and war. These taboos are symbolic to them by keeping the outer wold ways away from their own, and if they commit an act of taboo they are shunned because it goes against their way of life. Even the idea of thinking they have been given salvation by God and predestination before a certain point is taboo to the Amish. These ways of life give their community a strong sense of identity because no one else would choose to live this way with modern technologies, it separates their community from the rest of the world. These customs are very symbolic to them but not to the outside world because we can’t see how strongly they affect the Amish, it is just their way of life and it is all that they know. While I was in the Army I was under very strict dress codes and had to shave every morning, keep hair cut short, and keep a clean neat standard. This helped us be disciplined in all other things and would show right away if we weren’t squared away with our uniform and equipment. These standards just showed that we are a strict military and that we maintain these standards with our clothing, equipment, and our skills. If we did not follow these standards we were definitely not shunned, but we would have to spend extra time getting things ready and have more supervision if we did not do these things on our own. People would often mess up at first and have to do push ups or run laps which would teach us