Jeffrey Longhofer

WRITING AMISH CULTURE INTO GENES: BIOLOGICAL REDUCTIONISM IN A STUDY OF MANIC DEPRESSION

Critical realism is used to explore the problem of reductionism in a classic (the Amish Study) andwidely-cited study of manic depression. Along withrelated ideas drawn from the works of R.C.Lewontin, Arthur Kleinman, and Byron Good, it isshown that natural and social scientists deployatomistic and holistic reductionism; this, in turn,leads to the construction of artificially ’closedsystems through the control of variables orexogenous forces. The psychiatric genetic studies ofthe Amish were predicated on the assumption thatAmish society is homogeneous and unchanging and,therefore, closed. We conclude by arguing thatinteractions between behaviors and genes, where theyexist, take place only within open systems, characterizedby multiple mechanisms – social andbiological – that together co-determineany event. To move forward, it is argued, behavior and generesearch requires recognition and resolution of thephilosophical conundrums that accompany reductionism.

The Imagined Death: Looking to the Past for Relief from the Present:

In the recent social theory and historiography, scholars have challenged us to scrutinize the ways that we use history in forming our concepts and constructing explanation. This article explores the hazards entailed in writing an oppositional history of death and dying, where we search for relief from the chaotic present by looking to an orderly past. It is argued that in sociology, bioethics, and history, the past is presented in terms of the present, through both the imposition of our current ideological preoccupations and our culturally biased categories. The result is a depiction of history that separates us from them, an idealized communal past from modern forms of social life; the community in contrast to the isolated and anonymous individual. This article encourages scholars to revisit the historical and ethnographic record with the aim of discovering the actual historical events, ruptures, and continuities that form, dissolve, and reform death events.

Old age and inheritance in two social formations: The Alexanderwohl Mennonites in Russia and the United States

Abstract Although many researchers have examined the relationship between old age and inheritance, few have succeeded at locating these in the context of the broader political economy. This article explores the differences between the Russian feudal and U.S. capitalist social formations to reveal how the Alexanderwohl Mennonites differentially arranged for inheritance and retirement. Using diaries, letters, family genealogies, photographs, census and land records, and interviews, the article will show how, as community production shifted to the private, independent household, the latter replaced the community institutions which had negotiated retirement and inheritance.

Nursing home utilization: A comparative study of the Hutterian Brethren, the old order Amish, and the Mennonites

Abstract Though many have claimed that industrialization resulted in the emergence of nursing homes, this conjunction of events remains to be explained. This article examines the differential use of the nursing home in three agricultural communities on the Great Plains: the Old Order Amish, the Hutterian Brethren and the Alexanderwohl Mennonite. Using life-history interviews, nursing home registries, data from fieldwork, and census records, the article demonstrates that the structure of the Mennonite ‘household formation’ required adjunct residential care for the elderly, while the Amish and Hutterian ‘community formations’ did not. This comparison shows that while all three groups experienced industrialization, only the Mennonites introduced the nursing home. The article argues that it is the internal structure of the formation that elderly are located within that accounts for the emergence of nursing homes, not the inexorable effects of industrialization.