Barry V. Johnston
Pitirim Sorokin is one of the most erudite, stimulating, and controversial figures in the history of sociology.1 His works opened new fields of study, broadened traditional sociological concerns, and wrestled with the ultimate questions of life. In a career that spanned six decades, Sorokin made substantial contributions to the study of rural sociology, social mobility, war and revolution, altruism, social change, the sociology of knowledge, and sociological theory. In many of these areas, his works defined the field at the time.
Sorokin’s sociology is characterized by change. Sorokin the scientist becomes Sorokin the historical and moral philosopher as his objective detachment seems to give way to passionate involvement. His own view was that he moved beyond the traditional confines of social science by integrating the best of empiricism into his philosophy of history. In a career that was largely out-of-step with the sociological community, he was viewed by some as a leader and by others as an outcast. Regardless, he explored the path from the partial truths of science to the unified truth of Integralism. His search was for a body of ideas, founded on historical and sociological understanding, that could address the crises of modernity and provide principles and strategies for human emancipation.
Sorokin began life among the Komi people in northern Russia in 1889. The Komi are at least bilingual, frequently speaking Komi, Russian, and Finnish. Most work as farmers and hunters. Although a rural society, they are the third most literate group in Russia and are wellknown for their contributions to the arts, sciences, and humanities. Additionally they are independent, hardworking, and deeply religious people. Many of these traits would shape Sorokin’s character.
Sorokin learned independence and responsibility early in life. His mother died when he was three, and at eleven he and his older brother separated from their father. Vassily and Pitirim were itinerant artisans working in churches and regularly moving from one village to another.
It is easy to view Sorokin’s early life as impoverished, difficult, and lonely. However, it was much more than that. The Komi territories were vast and beautiful, and the people lived at one with nature. From his shaman uncle Sorokin learned about the forest, animals, and plains. Much of his childhood was spent under the stars as he moved about in search of work. Komi folklore was rich with spirits that controlled the forest, winds, and night. His naturalistic knowledge of the woods and its creatures was infused by this transcendent pagan mythology and intensely felt by the young brothers as they huddled around fires to keep off the cold and fears that came with the night. Such memories stayed with Sorokin and shaped his early beliefs about the natural and supernatural.
The Orthodox religion became an important element in Sorokin’s character. All his early life was spent around priests and churches. His hands had formed rizas and icons, and there were daily dialogues with Orthodox clergy. Church doctrine intertwined with pagan mythology to form Pitirim’s aesthetic sense and spirituality. Orthodox ceremonies stimulated his love of music and provided profound insights into the emotional and social power of ritual. As an acolyte and later a religious teacher, his values were strongly influenced by the message and rites of the Church. His faith so deeply moved him that he often retreated to the forest for periods of fasting and prayer, living as an early Christian ascetic. These experiences brought together the spirits of nature, and those of the deity and the saints, to forge a sensitivity of life that transcended the senses. For this young man, knowing was more than an empirical process; it was one of superconsciousness. Man’s reality was not confined to the material. There were the deeper, more mysterious truths of spiritual life.
Sorokin probed for the ties between the mystical and material that made life a unity. While secular studies trained his mind, the drama of the Mass, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Redemption disciplined his spirit. These mysteries, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Christian Beatitudes, would guide his life. Religion, education, and Komi traditions integrated and crystallized his philosophy deeper than he could then know. They were the forces that shaped his personality and would drive his scholarship toward Integralism.
Sorokin also became involved in politics. By fourteen he was a part of the active resistance to the Czar. At seventeen he was in a Czarist jail. From 1906 to 1917 he spent many months in prison for his political work. Political activism coincided with academic advancement. Sorokin won scholarships to both the Psycho-Neurological Institute and the University of St. Petersburg. By 1915 he had graduated from the University and earned a Magister of Criminal Law degree. He then moved on to study for the Ph.D. in sociology.
In July 1917, after the fall of the Czar, Sorokin became prominent in the command structure of the struggling and failing Kerensky government. When the Bolsheviks overthrew his party, he was again a political enemy. Sorokin was frequently arrested for opposing Lenin and served three such jail sentences. On one, in late 1918, he expected daily to be executed. Only the intervention of important political figures convinced Lenin to pardon him and in September 1922, Sorokin and his wife Elena were voluntarily exiled to Czechoslovakia.
Sorokin immigrated from Prague to the U.S. in 1923. He came at the invitation of Edward C. Hayes and Edward A. Ross to give a series of lectures on the Russian Revolution. Arriving at Vassar, he worked on his English and prepared his lectures. He then rode the circuit of midwestern colleges, giving his talks and looking for employment. Through Ross and F. Stuart Chapin, he landed a job at the University of Minnesota. Sorokin stayed at Minnesota for six years and published six books: Leaves from a Russian Diary (1924), The Sociology of Revolution (1925), Social Mobility (1927), Contemporary Sociological Theories (1928), Principles of Rural-Urban Sociology (1929) (with Carle C. Zimmerman), and the first of three volumes of A Systematic Source-Book in Rural Sociology (1929) (with Zimmerman and Charles J. Galpin). Reviews of the first two books showed Sorokin to be controversial, but a scholar not to be ignored. His works on social mobility, rural sociology, and sociological theory defined their respective fields at the time and established him as a force to be dealt with in American sociology.
These books also define another significant period in Sorokin’s intellectual development. In each of them he absolutely insists on empirical sociology as the only adequate and satisfactory paradigm for the discipline. This was forcefully demonstrated both in Social Mobility and the works on rural sociology. It was on the basis of these books that Abbott Lawrence Lowell invited Sorokin to Harvard in 1930 as the founding chairman of its sociology department. Lowell was looking for a scientist to take Harvard to a position of leadership in sociology. In Sorokin he felt he had found such a scholar.
This period marks Sorokin’s most intense involvement with the scientific method as the way to reach truth. At Minnesota, empiricism and positivism shaped his domain assumptions about the study of order in the life world.2
Sorokin’s early Harvard years witness another shift in his intellectual development and sociology. His first major work there was Social and Cultural Dynamics (1937-41). Though it contained a massive amount of comparative statistical data, it was not a work in scientific sociology. The four volumes were an exercise in the combination of a largely original model of social change with a philosophy of history, one in which Sorokin began to formalize his Integral philosophy and advance a theory of ultimate reality and meaning.
Sorokin’s theory of ultimate reality began with an analysis of social order. In the first three volumes of Dynamics, he articulated the patterns of social change in art, science, philosophy, religion, and ethics over a period of 2,500 years. Masses of data were used to capture the major historical fluctuations in these and other phenomena. Like Comte, his search for a theory of change began with a study of order.
Sorokin’s analysis of history isolated three major types of culture. The pure forms are Ideational and Sensate. The third, a mixture of the two, is Idealistic. The most important characteristic of the cultural types are the principles of ultimate truth and reality that shape their institutions and fuse their character, meaning, and personality. In Ideational cultures, ultimate reality flows from nonmaterial everlasting Being. The prime needs and ends of individuals and society are spiritual and realized through our supersensory capacity. Sensate cultures believe ultimate reality to be revealed by our senses. The supersensory does not exist and agnosticism pervades the culture. Human needs are physical and satisfied by exploiting the environment. Sensate is the opposite of Ideational and lacks strong values. It follows any instrumental route to satisfaction. Sorokin held Sensate cultures in less esteem than Ideational ones. Between the Sensate and Ideological was the true Idealistic culture, in which reality was many sided and human needs were both spiritual and material with the former dominating. The vitality of this cultural form sprang from its multidimensional orientation to reality. The known world is that which results from the interplay of rational, spiritual, and empirical truths.
Sorokin searched the histories of Greco-Roman and Western civilizations, and to a much lesser extent, those of the Middle East, India, China, and Japan for actual examples of these cultural types, and described the changes in their truth systems, art, scientific discoveries, and other social institutions. From this search, he concluded that cultures move through Ideational, Idealistic, and Sensate periods separated by transitional times of crises. For the last 2,500 years, Western culture has followed this rhythm, passing through the process twice and now living in the third Sensate epoch.
Sorokin next asked why these changes happened as they did. The answer advanced his Integral philosophy and theory of ultimate reality. The character of a culture is determined by the principle that underlies its system of truth and reality. Historical analysis revealed that Ideational systems rested on intuitive truth, Sensate systems on the authority of the senses, and Idealistic cultures on the truths of reason. None of these principles alone, however, gives us absolute truth. Each, however, contains necessary elements for the adaptation of humanity to the physical, social, and cosmic milieu. Truth systems change because each type of knowledge has strengths and weaknesses. When one dominates, it forces out others and prohibits holistic understanding of the world. The longer a mentality dominates, the more anomalies accrue. That is, people become increasingly aware that their system is too narrow to explain important aspects of life, and the authority and usefulness of the dominant mentality is called more into question. Soon other means are needed to address those aspects of culture and cosmos not satisfactorily handled by the dominant mentality. Unhappily, the superrhythms of Ideational, Idealistic, and Sensate mentalities could go on forever without humans realizing ultimate truth.
Sorokin’s solution to this endless cycle was the pursuit of Integral truth. This form of knowing “is not identical with any of the three forms of truth, but embraces all of them” (Sorokin 1941, 762-63). It contains the empirical truths of the senses, the rational truths of reason, and the superrational truths of faith. Integral truth gives us a more complete and valid grasp of reality. It also broadens our understanding and deepens our knowledge of the other forms of knowing.
In Integral philosophy, Sorokin brings together the religious, scientific, and rational aspects of his own experience. Cultures change out of a need for a more adequate knowledge for dealing with life’s major questions. Sensate knowledge gives us science, technology, and physical comfort, but tells us little of the spirit. The truths of faith address those issues, but leave us relatively helpless in the face of nature. As each type of culture tries to provide what is missing, they change. Integralism, however, binds the truth of science, reason, and intuition into a comprehensive whole. It is our means of obtaining a satisfying framework to comprehend life, cosmos, and the role of humanity in each (Sorokin 1941, 746-61). Sorokin felt that Integral philosophy, in a Sensate age, would be difficult for many to accept. People acknowledged mathematics and logic as fruits of reason, and natural science as the product of the senses. However, the truths of intuition, inspiration, and revelation were more questionable. Sorokin addressed this barrier by pointing out the role of intuition in other forms of knowledge. Drawing on histories of science, mathematics, technology, art, and religion, he documented the role of intuition in the great discoveries of mathematicians, scientists, major creative artists, and religious leaders. For each discipline he clearly demonstrated the role of intuition in the discoveries of their great thinkers.
Sorokin concluded Dynamics with a plea for an Integral model of understanding and a dismal prediction about the future of Western society:
Every important aspect of life, (in) Western society is in an extraordinary crisis. We are seemingly between two epochs; the dying Sensate of our magnificent yesterday, and the coming Ideational or Idealistic culture of the creative tomorrow. We are living, thinking, and acting at the end of a brilliant six-hundred-year-long Sensate day. But the light is fading, and the night of the transitory period begins to loom before us, with its nightmares, frightening shadows, and heartrending horrors. (Sorokin 1937b, 535)
Sorokin saw before us a period of increased conflicts, revolutions, and wars. A major change in our values and understanding of the world was necessary to survive and progress. Accordingly, his research focused on the transition and he published: “A Neglected Factor of War” (1938), The Crisis of Our Age (1941), Man and Society in Calamity (1942), “The Causes and Factors of War” (1942), and “The Conditions and Prospects of a World Without War” (1944).
In The Crisis of Our Age, Sorokin asked what could be done about our situation. The remedy “demands a fundamental transformation of our system of values, and the profoundest modification of our conduct toward other men, cultural values and the world at large” (Sorokin 1941, 321). The new mentality must involve an Integral synthesis that fuses the truth of reason, faith, and science. A new Integral value system that treats truth, goodness, and beauty as integrated absolutes is essential for the new age (Sorokin 1941, 317). The Integral transformation of worldview and values is insufficient, however, unless it becomes part of human action, social relationships, and social organization. Sorokin was unsure how this might happen. He simply suggested replacing “the present compulsory and contractual relationships with purer and more godly familistic relationships” (Sorokin 1941, 320). While Crisis lacks a satisfying solution to current problems, Integralism becomes more developed as the strategy.
Sorokin continued to seek a solution in Man and Society in Calamity. This work explored the effects of hunger, disease, and war on mind, behavior, and social organization. Again, Sorokin had no satisfying remedies but found a promising direction (Sorokin 1942b, 296-307). To resolve our crisis we must develop an Integral culture. To do this we must transform Integral knowledge and values into personal and collective action. The mechanism for such a transformation was altruism. Sorokin argued that all other solutions were inadequate:
None of the prevalent prescriptions against international and civil wars can eliminate or notably decrease these conflicts. By these popular prescriptions I mean, first, elimination of wars and strife by political changes, especially by democratic political transformations. Tomorrow the whole world could become democratic, and yet wars and blood strife would not be eliminated because democracies happen to be no less belligerent and strife-infected than autocracies.
The same goes for education in its present form as a panacea. Tomorrow all grown-up persons in the world could become Ph.D.‘s, and yet this enormous progress in education would not eliminate wars and bloody conflicts. Since the tenth century, education has made enormous progress and yet the international wars, the bloody revolutions, and the grave forms of crimes have not decreased. On the contrary, in the most scientific and most educated twentieth century they have reached an unrivaled height and made this century the bloodiest among all the preceding twenty-five centuries of Graeco-Roman and European history.
The same goes for religious changes...if by religious revival and moral rearmament are meant only ideological and speech-reactional transformation. The same goes for Communist, Socialist, or Capitalist economic remedies, when these are not backed by increased altruization of persons and groups. Without a notable increase of unselfish, creative love (as ideally formulated in the Sermon on the Mount) in overt behavior, in overt interindividual and intergroup relationships, in social institutions and culture, there is no chance for a lasting peace and for interhuman harmony, internal or external (Sorokin 1942b, 271-73).
The solution to the crisis is the altruization of humanity.
Sorokin’s concern with altruism signaled another major career shift. Mainstream sociology was becoming increasingly empirical, methodologically dominated, and moving in directions he considered sterile. Furthermore, his situation at Harvard had changed. Talcott Parsons successfully led a movement that did away with the Department of Sociology in 1946, and incorporated it as a “wing” in the new Department of Social Relations. This department was chaired by Parsons and held little interest or opportunity for Sorokin. However, as this change was in the making Sorokin received a letter from the pharmaceutical entrepreneur and Indianapolis philanthropist Eli Lilly. Lilly stated that on the basis of reading Sorokin’s work he thought him one of the few scholars who could “fruitfully study the problems of the moral and mental regeneration of today’s confused and largely demoralized society” (Sorokin 1963a:276). Toward that end he offered Sorokin a $20,000 grant to continue his work. With the award Sorokin wrote The Reconstruction of Humanity (1948), which was his first major statement on altruism. After its publication Lilly asked to meet with him. Lilly was surprised that only $248 of the $20,000 grant was spent on The Reconstruction of Humanity. He suggested that Sorokin expand the scope and increase the intensity of his work. To help Lilly promised an additional $100,000 to be paid at $20,000 per year for the next five years.
With the grant money Sorokin established the Harvard Center for Creative Altruism in February 1949, and reduced his Harvard teaching to half time. By 1950, Sorokin’s increased productivity was evident: Social Philosophies in an Age of Crisis (1950), Altruistic Love (1950), and Explorations in Altruistic Love and Behavior: A Symposium (1950) were all published that year. In 1951, S.O.S.: The Meaning of Our Crisis came out and was followed by Forms and Techniques of Altruistic and Spiritual Growth: A Symposium (1954), The Ways and Power of Love (1954), and Power and Morality (1959). These books and many articles resulted from Lilly’s support.
The guiding assumptions of the Center originated from Sorokin’s Integralism. Man was an Integral creature. His senses tied him to the physical world; he was a rational thinker; and through his spirit/soul was linked to the transcendental. Man was also a creator. Through him a new realm of reality had been added to the cosmos:the cultural world. To the inorganic and organic, man had added the superorganic realm of culture. Culture ties man to the infinite world of total reality. It is through culture that he seeks the supreme Integral value: the unity of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. With its realization comes peace, harmony with nature, and the growth of the soul. The means to this end is altruism. How to make mankind altruistic was the task of the Center.
The Center’s research focus was further shaped by a dual premise. First, peace must begin and be reinforced by the altruization of individuals, groups, institutions, and cultures. Secondly, unselfish creative altruism represents a potentially tremendous power. “If we know how to transform individuals and groups into more altruistic and creative beings, who feel, think and behave as real members of mankind united into one intensely solidary family then we have discovered an enormous creative and therapeutic possibility” (Sorokin 1963a:273). It was toward these ends that the Center directed its activities. The goal was to develop a positive science capable of harnessing the creative forces of the human spirit and maximizing freedom and humanity. The Center’s first task was to define the types of altruism. Sorokin wrote of altruism as a continuum stretching between genuine altruism and egoism. The intermediate forms were nonaltruistic and pseudoaltruistic behavior. A goal of altruization was to develop authentic prosocial behaviors guided by the desire to help others. True altruism involved a willingness to share another’s frustration, sorrow, and pain. In its extreme form one would freely sacrifice oneself for another.
Altruism also varied in extensiveness, or scope. At the top of the altruistic scale are those who are free of anti- and nonaltruistic impulses and extend their love to all of humanity. They not only love their brothers, but their enemies. Here, as examples, we find Gandhi, Jesus, St. Francis of Assisi, and the Buddha. Altruism for most, however, is limited to family and their primary groups. Sorokin called these people ingroup altruists, out-group egoists. A practical problem was how to make their altruism reach larger groups of people.
For Sorokin real altruization must occur at three interrelated levels: the personal, cultural, and social. Individual change would precede social and cultural change. Sorokin argued that all mindful persons must begin with themselves. Specifically, they must allow their superconsciousness increasing control of their consciousness. Superconsciousness is our capacity to see and become one with the eternal. This capacity can be more fruitfully developed through meditation than education. Indeed, much of the Center’s work was on meditation as means of spiritual growth and altruization.
With the growth of our spirit (superconsciousness) altruization can be intensified, first by the performance of small tasks that require that awareness be transformed into action. Quietly, the individual begins to feel and express the power of love by following the Buddha or practicing the small acts of altruism suggested by The Sermon on the Mount and Christianity. The Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes3 forecast religious happiness for those who are largely without wealth or position on earth.
Sorokin saw more than biblical injunctions in these passages; he saw the prescription for a good life and a good society. If one wanted to eliminate social problems and evil, then fashion better people. The Sermon told us how to do this by incorporating these values into our social roles. For example, as a parent one takes care of children in ways that are beneficial to their nature and development. As an artist or politician one stops producing vulgarized trash or unjust legislation. As a scientist or inventor one should work for the common good rather than on a destructive arsenal that pushes us closer to nuclear madness. As a teacher one creates in students a quality of mind that seeks truth and good, rather than producing mindless entities whose expertise is found only in the blind application of a paradigm to problems that may be destructive to mankind. As a businessman, a laborer, mechanic, or a clerk, individuals perform their roles either directed by altruism or egoism and thus contribute to the prosocial or antisocial climate of society. Sorokin viewed the total fabric of culture as the product of millions of trifling acts and individual deeds. If each of us simply avoids the selfish abuse of our functions, then the world is improved. But if we each attempt to altruize our actions, then the world is enriched.
The modification of social and cultural institutions occurs through the concerted efforts of individuals acting in groups organized, integrated, and merged into federations and associations. These groups develop methods for increasing altruism. They also devise plans for the transformation of society. It is their function to convince ever larger segments of society of the urgency and feasibility of the Integral reconstruction of humanity. Their integrated activities will progressively transform Integral values, norms, and ideas into cultural, social, and personal realities. Through these bodies pressure is put on nation states and international organizations to change in the desired direction. Thus individual behavior, cultural values, and social institutions are modified in an orderly fashion and in compliance with Integral values. Eventually the entire sociocultural system becomes more peaceful and creative (Sorokin 1948, 235-36).
This reconstruction of society was based on the pursuit of Integral truth. Humanity sought Integral truth by becoming more altruistic, and through altruism the ultimate Integral value became part of humanity and society. In turn, a new Integral culture evolves, which gives us a better grasp of ourselves and the cosmos. Through this culture we move to perfect our nature and advance toward a world at peace.
1 This paper is a revision of “Integralism and the Reconstruction of Society: The Idea of Ultimate Reality and Meaning in the Work of Pitirim A. Sorokin,” Ultimate Reality and Meaning 13, 2 (June 1990):96-108. This paper received the URAM Award for Creativity and Excellence in Scholarly Writing for 1991.
2 Sorokin had also received substantial training by Pavlov and Bechterev at the Psycho-Neurological Institute. Several of his early works, particularly The Sociology of Revolution, are in the behavioristic tradition.
3 The Beatitudes, part of the Sermon on the Mount, specify characteristics of the social and spiritual world that, when possessed, yield religious rewards. To paraphrase the words of Jesus: “Blessed are the poor, the sorrowful, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the faithful, the peacemaker, and the pure of heart, for they shall all be comforted and rewarded” (Matthew 5:3-10).
The remainder of the Sermon points to prescriptions and proscriptions for living a good spiritual and social life: overcome anger, conquer lust, love your enemies, be pure of intention, do not lie, fast to be purified, seek true riches, do not judge others, pray, and follow the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you). In this sermon, Jesus also gave his followers the Lord’s Prayer.