Pitirim Sorokin

Pitirim Aleksándrovich Sorokin (Russian: Питири́м Алекса́ндрович Соро́кин) (Turya, near Syktyvkar, 21 January^Jul./ February 2, 1889^greg. - Winchester, February 10, 1968) was an American sociologist of Russian. Expelled from the Soviet Union in 1922 on the ships of the philosophers, he emigrated to the United States in 1923, after having participated in the Russian Revolution together with his comrades from the Social Revolutionary Party. He was a deputy of the Russian Constituent Assembly for Vologda dissolved by the Bolsheviks. He was the founder of the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. Like C. W. Mills, he strongly opposed the theories of Talcott Parsons.

Background

Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin was born in 1889, in the Turya, a small village in the Yarensky Uyezd, Vologda Governorate, Russian Empire. (present-day Knyazhpogostsky District, Komi Republic, Russia), second son of a Russian father and a Komi mother. Sorokin's father, Alexander Prokopievich Sorokin, was from Veliky Ustyug and an itinerant craftsman specializing in gold and silver. His mother, Pelageya Vasilievna, was a native of Zheshart and belonged to a peasant family. His older brother Vasili was born in 1885, and his younger brother Prokopy was born in 1893. Sorokin's mother died on March 7, 1894 in the village of Kokvitsa. After her death, Sorokin and his older brother, Vasily, stayed with his father, traveling with him through the villages in search of work. At the same time, Prokopy was taken in by his aunt, Anisya Vasilievna Rimsky. She lived with her husband, Vasily Ivanovich, in the town of Rimia. Sorokin's childhood among the Komi was complicated, but enriched by a religious and moral upbringing. The moral qualities (such as piety, firm belief in the good and love) cultivated in him at that time would bear fruit in his subsequent work (his mythology and his call to overcome the crisis of modernity).

Pitirim's father and his older brother developed alcoholism. As a result, his father suffered severe anxiety and panic attacks, to the point of physically abusing his children. After a brutal beating that left a scar on Pitirim's upper lip, Pitirim, at the age of eleven, along with his older brother, decided that he wanted to be independent and no longer be under the care of Pitirim's father. he.

In the early 20th century, supporting himself as a craftsman and clerk, Sorokin attended the Imperial Saint Petersburg University in Saint Petersburg, where he earned his graduate degree in criminology and became a professor.

Sorokin was an anti-communist. During the Russian Revolution he was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, a supporter of the White Movement, and secretary to Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky. After the October Revolution, Sorokin continued to fight against communist leaders and was detained by the new regime on several occasions before finally being sentenced to death. After six weeks in prison, Sorokin was released and returned to teaching at Saint Petersburg University, becoming the founder of the university's sociology department. As he had been a leader among the democrats leading up to the Russian Revolution, he was wanted by Lenin's forces after Lenin consolidated his power.

Accounts of Sorokin's activities in 1922 differ; he may have been arrested and exiled by the Soviet government, or may have spent months in hiding before escaping the country. After leaving Russia, he immigrated to the United States, where he was naturalized in 1930. Sorokin was sought after. personally to accept a position at Harvard University, founding the Department of Sociology and becoming a critic of his colleague, Talcott Parsons. Sorokin was an ardent opponent of communism, which he considered a "plague of man". 34;, and was a deputy of the Russian Constituent Assembly.

People considered Sorokin a leader, but some saw him as an outcast, which may be why he was exiled. At that time, people did not understand his ideas that promoted emancipation and change, and these theories that he contributed were not always well accepted.

Sorokin was a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota from 1924 to 1929, when he accepted an offer of a position from the president of Harvard University, where he continued to work until 1959. One of his students was the writer Myra Page.

Inspiration

In 1910, young Sorokin was shaken by the death of the great Russian writer LN Tolstoy. In the article "LN Tolstoy as a philosopher" (1912) he carried out a reconstruction of Tolstoy's religious and moral teaching, which he considered the philosophical representation of a harmonious and logical system (Sorokin, 1912: 80-97). Tolstoy's teaching surpassed the usual limits of traditional philosophy and blossomed into a certain type of moral philosophy, which appealed to Sorokin immensely. He delimited the structure of Tolstoy's teaching by basing it on "the tradition of four great philosophical problems: the essence of the world; the nature of the ego; the problem of cognition and the question of values" (Johnston et al., 1994: 31). According to Tolstoy, God is the basis of our existence and love is the path to God. Sorokin formulated the main principles that form the basis of Tolstoy's Christian ethics: the principle of love, the principle of non-violent resistance to evil, and the principle of not doing evil. He adhered to these principles throughout his life, which is demonstrated in the course of this article.

Works and interests

Pitirim Sorokin.

Sorokin is the author of works such as The crises of our time and Energy and Morals, although his most relevant work is Social and cultural dynamics (1937-1941). His unorthodox theories contributed to the development of the theory of social cycles, which had great continuity among sociologists.

In his work Social and cultural dynamics he classified societies according to their cultural mentality, which can be ideational (spiritual reality), sensitive (material reality), or idealistic (synthesis of both). He characterized contemporary Western civilization as sensitive, dedicated to technological progress, and predicted its decline and the emergence of a new ideational or idealistic age. In his work "Personality, culture and society", from 1947, the author defines it as "Sorokin in a single book", so it can be interpreted as a synthesis of the rest of its production.

Before his achievements as a professor in the United States, in 1924 he published his work Leaves from a Russian Journal (E.P. Dutton & Co.), in which he gave a daily, and sometimes hourly, account of of the Russian Revolution. It began in February 1917, where he led the creation of a provisional government, only to see it unravel and lose power to the Bolsheviks in October 1917. In 1950, Sorokin published an appendix to the book entitled Thirty years later. It is a personal and brutally honest account of the revolution and his exile.

His controversial theories on the social process and the historical typology of cultures are set out in Social and Cultural Dynamics (4 vol., 1937-41; rev. and abridged ed., 1957) and in many other works. Sorokin also took an interest in social stratification, the history of sociological theory, and altruistic behavior.

Sorokin's work follows a pattern over time from an early period of miscellaneous writing, sociocultural dynamics and social criticism, and then altruism. He believed that altruism had a lot of scientific support. After going to Harvard in 1930, Sorokin found his calling and began his famous study of world civilization which led to the work for which he is best known, Social and Cultural Dynamics. This work set the tone for the condemnation of our sensible culture, which has been prominent in all of Sorokin's writings since 1937. This condemnation is part of the reason why he was always questioned because people were not ready or accepting of the idea of change. and no one was willing to take responsibility for their actions. Sorokin's extensive study convinced him that our civilization is excessively materialistic, disorganized, and in imminent danger of collapse. He spent the next twelve years warning the public of the danger and looking for a way out and a way to change society.

One of his works, "Russia and the United States" (1944) is considered war for peace propaganda. Sorokin argues that American and Russian cultures have so much in common that these two nations, destined to be the major postwar centers of power, will have a secure basis for friendship. Both nations exemplify unity in diversity. Their cultures favor open-mindedness, cosmopolitanism and a healthy self-esteem tempered by tolerance towards other societies.

His works are timeless because they were able to open up new fields of study and give way to more innovative ways of thinking. His works covered a wide variety of topics, from rural sociology, war, revolution, social mobility and social change. However, he remained faithful to his works and part of the reason he was able to fight for so many changes and reforms was his commitment to his religion. He was of Komi descent and they were considered one of the hardest working and most religious people in Europe.

Three main types of cultural integration

Sorokins' magnum opus is considered by many to be Social and Cultural Dynamics. He classifies societies according to their 'cultural mindset'. This can be "ideational" (reality is spiritual and immaterial), "sensible" (truth is material and all things are in flux), or "idealistic" (a synthesis of the two).

He suggested that significant civilizations evolve from a conceptual mindset to an idealistic one and finally to a sensible mindset. Each of these phases of cultural development not only attempts to describe the nature of reality, but also stipulates the nature of human needs and goals that must be satisfied, the degree to which they must be satisfied, and the methods of satisfaction. Sorokin has interpreted contemporary Western civilization as a sensible civilization, dedicated to technological progress, and has prophesied its fall into decadence and the rise of a new ideational or idealistic age. In Fads and Foibles, he criticizes Lewis Terman's research Genetic Studies of Genius, showing that his selected group of high-IQ children did as well as a group random selection of children from similar family backgrounds.

Five Dimensions of Love

According to Pitirim A. Sorokin, a pioneer of balanced altruism research, the energy of love has at least five dimensions: Intensity, Extension, Duration, Purity and Adequacy of its manifestation in objective actions, in relation to its inner purpose. In intensity, love oscillates between zero and the highest possible point, arbitrarily denoted as infinity. In extension, love goes from the zero point of love for oneself only, to love for all humanity, all living creatures and the entire universe. In duration, love can range from the shortest possible moment to years or the entire life of an individual or a group. As for purity, love goes from love motivated solely by love, without the taint of a "dirty motive" of utility, pleasure, advantage or benefit, up to "dirty love", in which love is nothing more than a means to achieve a utilitarian or hedonistic end or of another type, in which love is just the thinnest trickle in a muddy stream of selfish aspirations and purposes. In the adequacy of love, it is based on the expectation of each person to show love, be kind and understand the consequences of their actions.

In his work on love, "Altruistic Love," Sorokin hopes to take the first steps in discovering what kinds of people are likely to become saints or fellow men, and eventually lay the groundwork for producing more people who fit this profile for the betterment of society. To do this, she studied the lives of saints, neighbors, and others based on their sex, gender, race, and socioeconomic status.

Social differentiation, social stratification and social conflict

Sorokin's work addressed three significant theories: social differentiation, social stratification, and social conflict. The idea of social differentiation describes three types of social relations. The first is the familiarist, which is the type we generally aspire to. It is the most supportive relationship, in which the values of all those involved are taken into account and in which there is great interaction.

Social stratification refers to the fact that all societies are hierarchically divided, with upper and lower strata and an unequal distribution of wealth, power, and influence among the strata. There is always some mobility between these strata. Individuals or groups can move up or down the hierarchy, gaining or losing their power and influence.

Social conflict refers to Sorokin's theory of warfare. Whether in the internal sphere of a nation or internationally, peace is based on the similarity of values between a country or between different nations. War has a destructive phase in which values are destroyed and a declining phase in which some of them are restored. Sorokin thought that the number of wars would decrease as solidarity increased and antagonism decreased. If the values of a society emphasized altruism instead of selfishness, the incidence of war would decrease.