Essay by Pavel Krotov, Richard F. Hoyt, Jr., and Sergei Sorokin
The Golden Prague of Pitirim Sorokin
Abstract
The Czech period was short but productive and decisive for Pitirim Sorokin. Expulsion from Russia proved to be in his best interest: Despite a factious and highly politicized environment among émigrés making up the group "Russia Abroad," he was able to publish "The Current State of Russia," a popular account of his over-10 year experience in the revolutionary movement in Russia. In addition he also completed a more theoretical treatise, "The Sociology of Revolution," aimed primarily at social scientists. This was published soon after Sorokin reached the United States. Besides advancing theoretical knowledge in this arena these books also touched the nerve of contemporary political discussions, and they established a pattern continued in Sorokin's later research work in which he sought to educate the general public about his main findings.
Review by Dr. Olga Yu. Kuzivanova
Pitirim Sorokin's Selected Writings: A Long Journey
Dr. Olga Yu. Kuzivanova, a Director of the Pitirim Sorokin Center "Heritage" (Syktyvkar, KOMI), presents an overview of a long-term publishing project with an expected 30-volume complete edition of Pitirim Sorokin's original writings. It has been almost a decade since the team of translators, scholars, and researchers commenced the project. It manages to publish at least one volume a year. Currently, there are nine volumes published and the tenth is on the way. At the point this is the most ambitious publishing project in the world that relates to the literary heritage of Pitirim Sorokin. In this review Dr. Kuzivanova overviews the history of the project and summarizes each volume in the edition.
The idea of publishing Pitirim Sorokin's writings as a Selected Writings Project in the Russian language had been discussed on many occasions during the 1990s; however, due to lack of financial support it remained just a proposal. With establishment of the Sorokin Research Center 'Heritage' in Komi, (Pitirim's motherland), followed by Komi Government sponsorship, this idea finally became a reality. An Editorial Board was set up at an early stage of the project including long-time researchers and activists within a " Sorokiniana movement" - Alexei Konyukhov, Pavel Krotov, Valery Markov, and Vadim Sapov. Blueprints for the project on Pitirim Sorokin's Selected Writings were drafted by 2013, when the project was first presented to the public. Vadim V. Sapov, Research Fellow from the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, was chosen as curator and also served as the translator of most of Pitirim's writings in English. It was he who proposed a 30-volume framework for Pitirim's works. Up to 2021 nine volumes have been published. These include most of the works from his Russian period which lasted until 1922, as well as a number of the most famous publications in the US.
Pitirim A. Sorokin’s Sociological Anarchism
GARY DEAN JAWORSKI. Pitirim A. Sorokin’s sociological anarchism In: HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES Vol.6 No.3; 1993 SAGE (London, Newbury Park and New Delhi)
Written some years ago, this article by Dr. Gary Jaworski examines the extent that anarchistic social theories from the late 19th and early 20th centuries may have influenced the thought of Pitirim Sorokin while these ideas were fresh and were being widely discussed by scholars in Europe, if not by many in the United States. At the time Sorokin was still in Russia and reading critically and very extensively as he was beginning to formulate valid sociological concepts that were later incorporated in his own particular system of sociology. Jaworski discusses anarchistic ideas of the time based on his own examination of archival materials in the special Sorokin Collection at the University of Saskatchewan. This collection contains a wealth of relevant materials on anarchism, more than are usually found in other New World archives, and so much may have been missed by researchers in North America who did not happen to visit the Saskatchewan archive or were unable to read Russian. Today, among the range of topics discussed in sociological writings from the post Soviet period, some still reflect a lingering appreciation of the social relevance of anarchist ideas and movements of the past.
" The present essay contributes in a modest way to this re-examination. It does not provide an analysis of Sorokin’s work in its entirety, which, given the extensiveness of his output, would be a monumental task (e.g. Cowell, 1952). Rather, the present study investigates an important but neglected strain in Sorokin’s oeuvre, the anarchistic dimension of his work. With few exceptions, such as Tiryakian’s (1968) encyclopedia article on Sorokin, most studies fail to mention Sorokin’s links to the anarchist tradition. Yet, my recent survey of Sorokin’s published writings and unpublished correspondence demonstrates the centrality of this tradition to his works.’ A re-examination of his writings along these lines is long overdue. In what follows I first establish the pertinence of this line of thought to an understanding of Sorokin’s work and, second, explore the ethical project of Sorokin’s writings and reveal its roots in ethical anarchism. In the conclusion, I draw implications for future Sorokin studies and for contemporary theorizing.
Interdisciplinarity in the Social Sciences Under Observation: Dissecting the Thought of Pitirim A. Sorokin.
Brief by Giuseppina Marsico and Jaan Valsiner
Emiliana Mangone. Social and Cultural Dynamic: Revisiting the Work of Pitirim A. Sorokin. ISSN 2192-8363 ISSN 2192-8371 SpringerBriefs in Psychology Psychology and Cultural Developmental Science ISBN 978-3-319-68308-9 ISBN 978-3-319-68309-6 (eBook)
There are many good reasons to be proud of hosting Emiliana Mangone's book, Social and Cultural Dynamics: Revisiting the Work of Pitirim A. Sorokin in the SpringerBriefs series, SpringerBriefs in Psychology and Cultural Developmental Science. We are here to celebrate the link between psychology and developmentally oriented sociology — and Sorokin's contributions were major tour de force in twentieth century sociology.
This is, as far as we know, the only one international book to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Sorokin's death, one of the forgotten giants in the history of sociology. And yet, the book is not a mere tribute to his vast production. Instead, it offers a critical and actualized look at Sorokin's theories, with which only very few scholars are familiar.
Review by Dr. Sergei P. Sorokin download print version;
Renewal: Inclusion of Integralism and Moral Values into the Social Sciences.
Colbert Rhodes, Editor, 246 pp., 2017. Hamilton Books 2017 (4501 Forbes Boulevard., Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706)
ISBN: 978-0-7618-6941-2 (cloth: alk. paper)—ISBN:978-0-7618-6942-9 (electronic)
This book presents an anthology of essays by five sociologists and a political scientist all concerned at the limited ability of present-day social sciences to bring about moral rehabilitation to contemporary society. Much of the problem lies in that research in these disciplines has for decades over-relied on an approach adapted from the methodologies of traditional physical science which are empirical, based on use of the sense organs, and decidedly free from moral considerations. Too frequently anything with a spiritual or ethical dimension has been regarded as part of some 'religion' and thereby unworthy of 'scientific' study.
The discussions here grow out of Pitirim Sorokin's concept of Integralism, which strives to reach an understanding of 'total reality,' the ideal standard from which to base judgments. Whatever the merit of discoveries resulting from reliance (1) on a materialistic approach (the 'Sensate'), (2) on rational thought, logic and mathematics (the 'Idealistic'), or (3) on supra-rational intuitions often imagined as coming from an unseen God (the 'Ideational'), Integralism contends that comprehension of reality is more complete after all three approaches are combined. Significantly, although love in its many manifestations touches the lives of multitudes, it is a primary attribute of an Ideational mentality but not a Sensate one (ref. 1). Somewhat similarly, in present-day criminal trials the moral or ethical attitudes of accuser or defendant occasionally come up in court and sometimes are considered useful as background to the case but hardly sufficient for reaching judgment. With the material evidence (if any) presented and the contentious 'rational' arguments in the courtroom, lawyers are able to obtain convictions or acquittals, but these tools are largely useless for dealing with a great many underlying ethical or moral issues. And so the popular saying lives on that the law has nothing to do with morality or even with true justice.
Review by Dr. Sergei P. Sorokin download print version
Pitirim Sorokin and the Modern World: Power and Morality Revisited.
Sorokin, Pitirim A. and Lunden, Walter A. Power and Morality, Who Shall Guard the Guardians? Boston, Porter Sargent Publisher, 1959
Abstract.
Power and Morality was written as the Cold War was building toward its height, at a time when the world was dominated by two great nuclear powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, both of which Pitirim Sorokin knew well. Collapse of the Soviet system in Russia brought with it a big change in the familiar world order. The United States was left alone on the top, and smaller states were abandoned largely to their own devices. The result has been the welter of vicious local and regional conflicts and the widespread sense of instability so familiar to all of us today. The present situation is now further complicated by the increasing unwillingness of states large and small to accept US hegemony and over all, of course, hangs the continuing threat of nuclear Armageddon.
Sorokin's analysis was substantially based on earlier studies showing that the sociocultural world we inhabit reflects the set of values we accept, whether predominantly materialistic (Sensate order) or predominantly other-worldly (Ideational order), and more rarely an ideal mixture of both worldly and otherworldly values mediated by reason (Integral order). Use of the "partial truths" from all three orders together yields the closest approximation of "true reality" accessible to humankind. When the "creative spring" of the accepted order is over, a period of instability sets in marked by sociocultural disorder and political strife until mankind adopts a new set of values, and with its accession, reassurance returns and a new creative period begins. Sorokin concluded that political instability during much of the 20th century marked passage through the declining phase of the Sensate order, and a glance at recent political events shows little amelioration, with mankind still adrift and our "guardian" governments still in a Machiavellian mode but now highly dependent on technology for their operation. Who shall guard the guardians? Science and technology being morally neutral, governments should be reconfigured to authorize persons of high moral and ethical standards to weigh in on important political decisions.
Igor I. Sikorsky: Rude force has become the arbiter of conflicts.
Igor Sikorsky (1889-1972), famed designer of the first large four-motor airships, the American Clipper seaplanes of the 1930's and 40's, and the first successful helicopter, was also deeply interested in religious and philosophical matters. In this excerpt from his "Notes from a Reading of Sorokin's Crisis of Our Age" Sikorsky considers the effect on our legal system from erosion of its traditional ethical and moral norms:
"In writing in 1941 Sorokin indicated that there was a crisis of transition between our culture which is dying and the coming of an ideational culture of the future. He prophesized that both Communism and Naziism were merely death agonies of the particular culture shock and cultural change. He also indicated that there have been repeated cycles of such cultural changes from idealistic cultural basis to sensate cultural basis down to the ideational cultural basis. We are now in the death of the sensate culture and in the beginning of a new form, and it is not the Hitlers, Stalins or other dictators who created the present crisis. Rather it is a ready existing enthrust upon the world by the historical process.
He points out that this crisis will also be reflected in the crisis of our law with the disintegration of our ethical and legal systems and the substitute of one initially of force. The essence of the crisis consists of a devaluation of the ethical and moral norms of the legal system. Legal norms are increasingly considered as a device of the group in power for exploiting other less powerful groups and have thus lost their moral prestige which had been given to them through the connection with the religious base for legal sanctions. Since legal sanctions are now not based on a religious support they sooner or later have to be based on rude force as the only controlling power in human relationship. Hence the contemporary "might is right" is an essential feature of the crisis of our legal system. This crisis did not originate either suddenly or recently but rather is a generational change as the present ethical system has decayed the religious base on which the earlier moral and legal system was based. The sensate ethics and law were inherent in the utilitarian and ultimately hedonistic relative law. Any value as soon as it is put on a relativistic and utilitarian foundation is bound to retrogress and become more and more relative, more and more conventional until it finally reaches a stage of bankruptcy. As pleasure, utility, happiness and even the economic system would differ with different persons and different groups one is entitled to pursue them in any way one pleases and there is no moral sanction. The absence of any moral sanctions leads to inevitable clashes of individuals and groups over the power with no common standard to serve as an arbitrator. The ultimate result is the emergence of rude force assisted by fraud as the supreme and sole arbiter of conflicts.
When limitless relativism was introduced into the world of moral values their arbitrariness engendered conflict and struggle. This in turn produced hatred and hatred led to the use of brute force and bloodshed as the ultimate solution.
This is not just something that happened and is not just something that occurred because individuals such as Hitler or Stalin or Marx came along. It is rather the inevitable end result of the sensate ethics which prepared its own surrender to coercion. By liberating itself from a religious basis, from all absolutes and categorical moral imperatives, it became the victim of undisguised physical coercion and fraud."
In our present-day conflicted world it seems that legal decisions of international reach are valid only when advanced by the strongest nations.