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Culture in Crisis: The Visionary Theories of Pitirim Sorokin

Introduction

Pitirim Sorokin, a leading 20th century sociologist, is someone you should know about. Consider this quote of his:

The organism of the Western society and culture seems to be undergoing one of the deepest and most significant crises of its life. The crisis is far greater than the ordinary; its depth is unfathomable, its end not yet in sight, and the whole of the Western society is involved in it. It is the crisis of a Sensate culture, now in its overripe stage, the culture that has dominated the Western World during the last five centuries….

Shall we wonder, therefore, that if many do not apprehend clearly what is happening, they have at least a vague feeling that the issue is not merely that of “prosperity,” or “democracy,” or “capitalism,” or the like, but involves the whole contemporary culture, society, and man? …

Shall we wonder, also, at the endless multitude of incessant major and minor crises that have been rolling over us, like ocean waves, during recent decades? Today in one form, tomorrow in another. Now here, now there. Crises political, agricultural, commercial, and industrial! Crises of production and distribution. Crises moral, juridical, religious, scientific, and artistic. Crises of property, of the State, of the family, of industrial enterprise… Each of the crises has battered our nerves and minds, each has shaken the very foundations of our culture and society, and each has left behind a legion of derelicts and victims. And alas! The end is not in view. Each of these crises has been, as it were, a movement in a great terrifying symphony, and each has been remarkable for its magnitude and intensity. (P. Sorokin, SCD, pp. 622-623)

Background

Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (1889–1968) was born in Russia to a Russian father and an indigenous (Komi, an ethnic group related to Finns) mother. Like other intellectuals of his age, he was swept up in the revolt against the tsarist government. He held a cabinet post in the short-lived Russian Provisional Government (1917), and had the distinction of being imprisoned successively by both tsarist and Bolshevist factions. Eventually sentenced to death, he was pardoned by Lenin, emigrated, and came to the US. There he enjoyed a long and distinguished academic career, much of it at Harvard University, where he served as head of the sociology department.

His experience and acute observations of Russian politics left him uniquely suited for understanding the transformational forces of the 20th century. By 1937 he published the first three volumes of his masterpiece, Social and Cultural Dynamics, but he continued to refine his theories for nearly three more decades.

Based on a careful study of world history – including detailed statistical analysis of phases in art, architecture, literature, economics, philosophy, science, and warfare – he identified three strikingly consistent phenomena:

1. There are two opposed elementary cultural patterns, the materialistic (Sensate) and spiritual (Ideational), along with certain intermediate or mixed patterns.  One mixed pattern, called Idealistic, which integrates the Sensate and Ideational orientations, is extremely important.
2. Every society tends to alternate between materialistic and spiritual periods, sometimes with transitional, mixed periods, in a regular and predictable way.
3. Times of transition from one orientation to another are characterized by a markedly increased prevalence of wars and other crises.

Main characteristics of the Sensate, Ideational, and Idealistic cultural patterns are listed below. (A more detailed explanation of alternative cultural orientations, excerpted from Sorokin’s writings, can be found here.)

Sensate (Materialistic) Culture

The first pattern, which Sorokin called Sensate culture, has these features:

• The defining cultural principle is that true reality is sensory – only the material world is real. There is no other reality or source of values.
• This becomes the organizing principle of society. It permeates every aspect of culture and defines the basic mentality. People are unable to think in any other terms.
• Sensate culture pursues science and technology, but dedicates little creative thought to spirituality or religion.
• Dominant values are wealth, health, bodily comfort, sensual pleasures, power and fame.
• Ethics, politics, and economics are utilitarian and hedonistic. All ethical and legal precepts are considered mere man-made conventions, relative and changeable.
• Art and entertainment emphasize sensory stimulation. In the decadent stages of Sensate culture there is a frenzied emphasis on the new and the shocking (literally, sensationalism).
• Religious institutions are mere relics of previous epochs, stripped of their original substance, and tending to fundamentalism and exaggerated fideism (the view that faith is not compatible with reason).

Ideational (Spiritual) Culture

The second pattern, which Sorokin called Ideational culture, has these characteristics:

• The defining principle is that true reality is supersensory, transcendent, spiritual.
• The material world is variously: an illusion (maya), temporary, passing away (“stranger in a strange land”), sinful, or a mere shadow of an eternal transcendent reality.
• Religion often tends to asceticism and moralism.
• Mysticism and revelation are considered valid sources of truth and morality.
• Science and technology are comparatively de-emphasized.
• Economics is conditioned by religious and moral commandments (e.g., laws against usury).
• Innovation in theology, metaphysics, and supersensory philosophies.
• Flourishing of religious and spiritual art (e.g., Gothic cathedrals).

Integral (Idealistic) Culture

Most cultures correspond to one of the two basic patterns above. Sometimes, however, a mixed cultural pattern occurs. The most important mixed culture Sorokin termed an Integral culture (also sometimes called an idealistic culture – not to be confused with an Ideational culture.) An Integral culture harmoniously balances sensate and ideational tendencies. Characteristics of an Integral culture include the following:

• Its ultimate principle is that the true reality is richly manifold, a tapestry in which sensory, rational, and supersensory threads are interwoven.
• All compartments of society and the person express this principle.
• Science, philosophy, and theology blossom together.
• Fine arts treat both supersensory reality and the noblest aspects of sensory reality.

Western Cultural History

Sorokin examined a wide range of world societies. In each he believed he found evidence of the regular alternation between Sensate and Ideational orientations, sometimes with an Integral culture intervening. According to Sorokin, Western culture is now in the third Sensate epoch of its recorded history. Table 1 summarizes his view of this history.

Table 1
Cultural Periods of Western Civilization According to Sorokin

Period	Cultural Type	Begin	End
Greek Dark Age	Sensate	1200 BC	900 BC
Archaic Greece	Ideational	900 BC	550 BC
Classical Greece	Integral	550 BC	320 BC
Hellenistic – Roman	Sensate	320 BC	400
Transitional	Mixed	400	600
Middle Ages	Ideational	600	1200
High Middle Ages, Renaissance	Integral	1200	1500
Rationalism, Age of Science	Sensate	1500	present

Based on a detailed analysis of art, literature, economics, and other cultural indicators, Sorokin concluded that ancient Greece changed from a Sensate to an Ideational culture around the 9th century BC; during this Ideational phase, religious themes dominated society (Hesiod, Homer, etc.).

Following this, in the Greek Classical period (roughly 600 BC to 300 BC), an Integral culture reigned: the Parthenon was built; art (the sculptures of Phidias, the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles) flourished, as did philosophy (Plato, Aristotle). This was followed by a new Sensate age, associated first with Hellenistic  (the empire founded by Alexander the Great) culture, and then the Roman Empire.

As Rome’s Sensate culture decayed, it was eventually replaced by the Christian Ideational culture of the Middle Ages. The High Middle Ages and Renaissance brought a new Integral culture, again associated with many artistic and cultural innovations. After this Western society entered its present Sensate era, now in its twilight. We are due, according to Sorokin, to soon make a transition to a new Ideational, or, preferably, an Integral cultural era.

Cultural Dynamics

Sorokin was especially interested in the process by which societies change cultural orientations. He opposed the view, held by communists, that social change must be imposed externally, such as by a revolution. His principle of immanent change states that external forces are not necessary: societies change because it is in their nature to change. Although sensate or ideational tendencies may dominate at any given time, every culture contains both mentalities in a tension of opposites. When one mentality becomes stretched too far, it sets in motion compensatory transformative forces.

Helping drive transformation is the fact that human beings are themselves partly sensate, partly rational, and partly intuitive. Whenever a culture becomes too exaggerated in one of these directions, forces within the human psyche will, individually and collectively – work correctively.

Crises of Transition

As a Sensate or Ideational culture reaches a certain point of decline, social and economic crises mark the beginning of transition to a new mentality. These crises occur partly because, as the dominant paradigm reaches its late decadent stages, its institutions try unsuccessfully to adapt, taking ever more drastic measures. However, responses to crises tend to make things worse, leading to new crises. Expansion of government control is an inevitable by-product:

“The main uniform effect of calamities upon the political and social structure of society is an expansion of governmental regulation, regimentation, and control of social relationships and a decrease in the regulation and management of social relationships by individuals and private groups. The expansion of governmental control and regulation assumes a variety of forms, embracing socialistic or communistic totalitarianism, fascist totalitarianism, monarchial autocracy, and theocracy. Now it is effected by a revolutionary regime, now by a counterrevolutionary regime; now by a military dictatorship, now by a dictatorship, now by a dictatorial bureaucracy. From both the quantitative and the qualitative point of view, such an expansion of governmental control means a decrease of freedom, a curtailment of the autonomy of individuals and private groups in the regulation and management of their individual behavior and their social relationships, the decline of constitutional and democratic institutions.” (MSC p. 122)

But, as we shall consider below, at the same time as these crises occur, other constructive forces are at work.

Trends of our Times

Sorokin identified what he considered three pivotal trends of modern times. The first trend is the disintegration of the current Sensate order:

In the twentieth century the magnificent sensate house of Western man began to deteriorate rapidly and then to crumble. There was, among other things, a disintegration of its moral, legal, and other values which, from within, control and guide the behavior of individuals and groups. When human beings cease to be controlled by deeply interiorized religious, ethical, aesthetic and other values, individuals and groups become the victims of crude power and fraud as the supreme controlling forces of their behavior, relationship, and destiny. In such circumstances, man turns into a human animal driven mainly by his biological urges, passions, and lust. Individual and collective unrestricted egotism flares up; a struggle for existence intensifies; might becomes right; and wars, bloody revolutions, crime, and other forms of interhuman strife and bestiality explode on an unprecedented scale. So it was in all great transitory periods. (BT, 1964, p. 24)

The second trend concerns the positive transformational processes which are already at work:

Fortunately for all the societies which do not perish in this sort of transition from one basic order to another, the disintegration process often generates the emergence of mobilization of forces opposed to it. Weak and insignificant at the beginning, these forces slowly grow and then start not only to fight the disintegration but also to plan and then to build a new sociocultural order which can meet more adequately the gigantic challenge of the critical transition and of the post-transitory future. This process of emergence and growth of the forces planning and building the new order has also appeared and is slowly developing now….

The epochal struggle between the increasingly sterile and destructive forces of the dying sensate order and the creative forces of the emerging, integral, sociocultural order marks all areas of today’s culture and social life, and deeply affects the way of life of every one of us. (BT, 1964, pp. 15-16)

The third trend is the growing importance of developing nations:

“The stars of the next acts of the great historical drama are going to be – besides Europe, the Americas, and Russia – the renascent great cultures of India, China, Japan, Indonesia, and the Islamic world. This epochal shift has already started…. Its effects upon the future history of mankind are going to be incomparably greater than those of the alliances and disalliances of the Western governments and ruling groups. (BT, 1964, pp. 15-16)

Social Transformation and Love

While the preceding might suggest that Sorokin was a cheerless prophet of doom, that is not so, and his later work decidedly emphasized the positive. He founded the Harvard Research Center for Creative Altruism, which sought to understand the role of love and altruism in producing a better society. Much of the Center’s research was summarized in Sorokin’s second masterpiece, The Ways and the Power of Love.

This book offered a comprehensive view on the role of love in positively transforming society. It surveyed the ideals and tactics of the great spiritual reformers of the past – Jesus Christ, the Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi, Gandhi, etc. – looking for common themes and principles.

We need, according to Sorokin, not only great figures like these, but also ‘ordinary’ individuals who seek to exemplify the same principles within their personal spheres of influence.  Personal change must precede collective change, and nothing transforms a culture more effectively than positive examples. What is essential today, according to Sorokin, is that individuals reorient their thinking and values to a universal perspective – to seek to benefit all human beings, not just oneself or ones own country.

A significant portion of the book is devoted to the subject of yoga (remarkable for a book written in 1954), which Sorokin saw as an effective means of integrating the intellectual and sensate dimensions of the human being. At the same time he affirmed the value of traditional Western religions and religious practices.

The Road Ahead

Sorokin’s theories supply hope, motivation, and vision. They bolster hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that it may not be too far distant. The knowledge that change is coming, along with an understanding of his theories generally, enables us to try to steer change in a positive direction. Sorokin left no doubt but that we are at the end of a Sensate epoch. Whether we are headed for an Ideational or an Integral culture remains to be seen. It is clearly consistent with his theories that an Integral culture – a new Renaissance – is attainable and something to actively seek.

One reason that change may happen quickly is because people already know that the present culture is oppressive. Expressed public opinion, which tends to conformity, lags behind private opinion. Once it is sufficiently clear that the tide is changing, people will quickly join the revolution. The process is non-linear.

The West and Islam

Viewed in terms of Sorokin’s theories, the current tensions between the West and Islam suggest a conflict between an overripe ultra-materialistic Western culture, detached from its religious heritage and without appreciation of transcendent values, against a medieval Ideational culture that has lost much of its earlier spiritual creativity. As Nieli (2006) put it:

“With regard to the current clash between Islam and the West, Sorokin would no doubt point out that both cultures currently find themselves at end stages of their respective ideational and sensate developments and are long overdue for a shift in direction. The Wahabist-Taliban style of Islamic fundamentalism strays as far from the goal of integral balance in Sorokin’s sense as the one-sidedly sensate, post-Christian societies of Northern and Western Europe. Both are ripe for a correction, according to Sorokin’s theory of cultural change, the Islamic societies in the direction of sensate development (particularly in the areas of science, technology, economic productivity, and democratic governance), the Western sensate cultures in the direction of ideational change (including the development of more stable families, greater temperance and self-control, and the reorientation of their cultural values in a more God-centered direction). Were he alive today, Sorokin would no doubt hold out hope for a political and cultural rapprochement between Islam and the West.” (Nieli, p. 373)

The current state of affairs between the West and Islam, then, is better characterized as that of mutual opportunity rather than unavoidable conflict. The West can share its technological advances, and Islam may again – as it did around the 12th century – help reinvigorate the spirit of theological and metaphysical investigation in the West.

Individual and Institutional Changes

Institutions must adapt to the coming changes or be left behind. Today’s universities are leading transmitters of a sensate mentality. It is neither a secret nor a coincidence that Sorokin’s ideas found little favor in academia. A new model of higher education, perhaps based on the model of small liberal arts colleges, is required.

Politics, national and international, must move from having conflict as an organizing principle, replacing it with principles of unity and the recognition of a joint destiny of humankind.

A renewal in religious institutions is called for. Christianity, for example, despite its protestations otherwise, still tends decidedly towards an ascetic dualism – the view that the body is little more than a hindrance to the spirit, and that the created world is merely a “vale of tears.” Increased understanding and appreciation of the spiritual traditions of indigenous cultures, which have not severed the connection between man and Nature, may assist in this change.

Sorokin emphasized, however, that the primary agent of social transformation is the individual. Many simple steps are available to the ordinary person. Examples include the following:

• Commit yourself to ethical and intellectual improvement. In the ethical sphere, focus first on self-mastery. Be eager to discover and correct your faults, and to acquire virtue. Think first of others. See yourself as a citizen of the world. Urgently needed are individuals who can see and seek the objective, transcendent basis of ethical values.
• Read Plato and study Platonism, the wellsprings of integral idealism in the West.  For a warm-up, read works of Emerson — Platonism come to America.
• Cultivate your Intellect and encourage others to do likewise: read history, literature, and poetry; listen to classical music; visit an art museum.
• Practice yoga.
• Be in harmony with Nature: plant a garden; go camping; protect the environment.
• Reduce the importance of money and materialism generally in your life.
• Turn off the television and spend more time in personal interaction with others.

A little reflection will doubtless suggest many other similar steps. Recognize that in changing, you are not only helping yourself, but also setting a powerfully transformative positive example for others.

The Supraconscious

Sorokin’s later work emphasized the role of supraconscious intuition — a Higher Self or consciousness that inspires and guides our rational mind. Religions and philosophical systems universally recognize such a higher human consciousness, naming it variously: Conscience, Atman, Self, Nous, etc. Yet this concept is completely ignored or even denied by modern science. Clearly this is something that must change. As Sorokin put it:

By becoming conscious of the paramount importance of the supraconscious and by earnest striving for its grace, we can activate its creative potential and its control over our conscious and unconscious forces. By all these means we can break the thick prison walls erected by prevalent pseudo-science around the supraconscious. (WPL, p. 487)

The reality of supraconscious intuition is a cause for hope and humility: hope, because we are confident that its transpersonal source is providential, guiding culture through history with a definite plan; and humility, because it reminds us that our role in the grand plan is achieved by striving to rid ourselves of preconceived ideas and selfishly motivated schemes, and by increasing our capacity to receive and follow inspiration. It is through inspiration and humility that we achieve a “realization of man’s unique creative mission on this planet.” (CA, p. 326).

New:  Part 2. Sorokin’s solutions: Techniques for the altruistic transformation of individuals and society

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References and Reading

• Coser, Lewis A. Masters of Sociological Thought. 2nd ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.

• Cousin, M. Victor. Classification of philosophical systems. In: Cousin, Course of the History of Modern Philosophy. 2 vols. Vol.1. Tr. O. W. Wright. New York: Appleton, 1852 (repr. 1866); pp. 343-364. French philosopher, Victor Cousin (1792–1867), somewhat like Sorokin, saw a recurring historical pattern of alternation among philosophical schools of Sensualism, Idealism, Skepticism and Mysticism — all rooted in human nature and hence perennial.

• Nieli, Russell. “Critic of the sensate culture: rediscovering the genius of Pitirim Sorokin“. The Political Science Reviewer (Intercollegiate Studies Institute), 2006, 35: 264-379.

• Sorokin, Pitirim A. Social and Cultural Dynamics. 4 vols. 1937 (vols. 1-3), 1941 (vol. 4); rev. 1957 (reprinted: Transaction Publishers, 1985). [SCD]

• Sorokin, Pitirim A. The Crisis of Our Age. E. P. Dutton, 1941 (reprinted 1957). [CA]

• Sorokin, Pitirim A. Man and Society in Calamity. E. P. Dutton., 1942 (reprinted: Transaction Publishers, 2010). [MSC]

• Sorokin, Pitirim A. The Reconstruction of Humanity. Beacon Press, 1948. [RH]

• Sorokin, Pitirim A. The Ways and Power of Love. 1954 (reprinted: Templeton Foundation Press, 2002). [WPL]

• Sorokin, Pitirim A. The Basic Trends of Our Times. Rowman & Littlefield, 1964. [BT]

• Suburban Emergency Management Project. “Influence of Catastrophes on Political Organization: The Sorokin Perspective.” Biot Report #467: October 11, 2007.  Accessed: 9 August 2010.

• Uebersax, John S. Materialism, Idealism, and Higher Education in California. Californians for Higher Education Reform. April 2013 (2013a).

• Uebersax, John S. What is Materialism? What is Idealism? Californians for Higher Education Reform. August 2013 (2013b).

• Uebersax, John S. Pitirim Sorokin and the Transformation of Society by the Power of Love. satyagraha.wordpress.com. January 2014.

• Uebersax, John S. Pitirim Sorokin’s Personality Theory. satyagraha.wordpress.com. February 2015.

updated 11 March 2015

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John F. Kennedy: We Must Avert Backing Russia into a Corner

THE most famous peace speech of President John F. Kennedy was a commencement address delivered at the American University in Washington, D.C. on June 10, 1963.  Selections from the speech particularly relevant to the present world crises are shown below:

I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived — yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.

What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children   not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn. …

I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war — and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.

Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament — and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude — as individuals and as a Nation — for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward — by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.

First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable — that mankind is doomed — that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.

We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade — therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable — and we believe they can do it again.

I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal.

Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace — based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions — on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace — no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process — a way of solving problems.

With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor — it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.

So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.

Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. …

No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements — in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.

Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other. And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union suffered in the course of the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and farms were burned or sacked. A third of the nation’s territory, including nearly two thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland — a loss equivalent to the devastation of this country east of Chicago.

Today, should total war ever break out again — no matter how — our two countries would become the primary targets. It is an ironic but accurate fact that the two strongest powers are the two in the most danger of devastation. All we have built, all we have worked for, would be destroyed in the first 24 hours. And even in the cold war, which brings burdens and dangers to so many nations, including this Nation’s closest allies — our two countries bear the heaviest burdens. For we are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty, and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counterweapons.

In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours — and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest.

So, let us not be blind to our differences — but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

Third: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the cold war, remembering that we are not engaged in a debate, seeking to pile up debating points. We are not here distributing blame or pointing the finger of judgment. We must deal with the world as it is, and not as it might have been had the history of the last 18 years been different.

We must, therefore, persevere in the search for peace in the hope that constructive changes within the Communist bloc might bring within reach solutions which now seem beyond us. We must conduct our affairs in such a way that it becomes in the Communists’ interest to agree on a genuine peace. Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy — or of a collective death-wish for the world.

Source: John F. Kennedy, Commencement Address at American University, Washington, D.C., June 10, 1963.

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Benjamin Franklin on War

Portrait of Benjamin Franklin, Anne-Rosalie Bocquet Filleul (attr.), 1778 or 1779

ASELECTION from the letters of Benjamin Franklin expressing his views on the folly and evils of war.

First, Franklin’s letter to Dr. Richard Price, in 1780. This was in the very midst of the war, and Dr. Price was a London clergyman, a subject of King George; but Franklin and he remained warm friends throughout, and this letter is one of many which Franklin sends from Paris:

We make daily great improvements in natural, there is one I wish to see in moral philosophy: the discovery of a plan that would induce and oblige nations to settle their disputes without first cutting one another’s throats. When will human reason be sufficiently improved to see the advantage of this? When will men be convinced that even successful wars at length become misfortunes to those who unjustly commenced them, and who triumphed blindly in their success, not seeing all its consequences?

In 1782, in a letter from Franklin to Dr. Joseph Priestley upon man’s common inhumanity to man, occurs the following famous passage:

In what light we are viewed by superior beings may be gathered from a piece of late West India news, which possibly has not reached you. A young angel of distinction, being sent down to this world on some important business, for the first time, had an old courier spirit assigned him for his guide ; they arrived over the seas of Martinico, in the middle of the long day of obstinate fight between the fleets of Rodney and De Grasse. When through the clouds of smoke he saw the fire of the guns, the decks covered with mangled limbs, and bodies dead or dying; the ships sinking, burning, or blown into the air; and the quantity of pain, misery and destruction the crews yet alive were thus with so much eagerness dealing round to one another; he turned angrily to his guide and said: “You blundering blockhead! you undertook to conduct me to the earth, and you have brought me into hell!” “No, sir,” says the guide,” I have made no mistake; this is really the earth, and these are men. Devils never treat one another in this cruel manner; they have more sense, and more of what men vainly call humanity.”

The next year, 1783, the treaty of peace was signed which recognized the independence of the United States; and Franklin writes as follows to Sir Joseph Banks:

I join with you most cordially in rejoicing at the return of peace. I hope it will be lasting, and that mankind will at length, as they call themselves reasonable creatures, have reason enough to settle their differences without cutting throats; for, in my opinion, there never was a good war or a bad peace. What vast additions to the conveniences and comforts of life might mankind have acquired, if the money spent in wars had been employed in works of public utility! What an extension of agriculture, even to the tops of the mountains; what rivers rendered navigable, or joined by canals; what bridges, aqueducts, new roads, and other public works, edifices and improvements, rendering England a complete paradise, might not have been obtained by spending those millions in doing good, which in the last war have been spent in doing mischief in bringing misery into thousands of families, and destroying the lives of so many working people, who might have performed the useful labors.

In the same year he wrote from Paris to David Hartley in London:

I think with you that your Quaker article is a good one, and that men will in time have sense enough to adopt it. … What would you think of a proposition, if I should make it, of a compact between England, France and America? America would be as happy as the Sabine girls if she could be the means of uniting in perpetual peace her father and her husband. What repeated follies are these repeated wars! You do not want to conquer and govern one another. Why then should you be continually employed in injuring and destroying one another? How many excellent things might have been done to promote the internal welfare of each country; what bridges, roads, canals and other public works and institutions, tending to the common felicity, might have been made and established with the money and men foolishly spent during the last seven centuries by our mad wars in doing one another mischief! You are near neighbors, and each have very respectable qualities. Learn to be quiet and to respect each other’s rights. You are all Christians. One is The Most Christian King, and the other Defender of the Faith. Manifest the propriety of these titles by your future conduct. “By this,” says Christ, “shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another.” “Seek peace and ensue it.”

In 1783, when peace was uppermost in his thoughts, he wrote also to Mrs. Mary Hewson:

All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones. When will mankind be convinced, and agree to settle their differences by arbitration? Were they to do it even by the cast of a die, it would be better than by fighting and destroying each other.

Four years later, in 1787, just after the close of the Constitutional Convention, he wrote the following impressive letter to his sister, Mrs. Jane Mecom:

I agree with you perfectly in your disapprobation of war. Abstracted from the inhumanity of it, I think it wrong in point of human providence. For whatever advantages one nation would obtain from another, whether it be part of their territory, the liberty of commerce with them, free passage on their rivers, etc., etc., it would be much cheaper to purchase such advantages with ready money than to pay the expense of acquiring it by war. An army is a devouring monster, and when you have raised it you have, in order to subsist it, not only the fair charges of pay, clothing, provision, arms and ammunition, with numberless other contingent and just charges, to answer and satisfy, but you have all the additional knavish charges of the numerous tribe of contractors to defray, with those of every other dealer who furnishes the articles wanting for your army, and takes advantage of that want to demand exorbitant prices. It seems to me that if statesmen had a little more arithmetic, or were more accustomed to calculation, wars would be much less frequent. I am confident that Canada might have been purchased from France for a tenth part of the money England spent in the conquest of it; And if, instead of fighting with us for the power of taxing us, she had kept us in a good humor by allowing us to dispose of our own money, and now and then giving us a little of hers by way of donation to colleges or hospitals, or for cutting canals or fortifying ports, she might easily have drawn from us much more by our occasional voluntary grants and contributions than ever she could by taxes. Sensible people will give a bucket or two of water to a dry pump that they may afterwards get from it all they have occasion for. Her Ministry were deficient in that little point of common sense; and so they spent one hundred millions of her money, and after all lost what they contended for.

To Alexander Small, in England, he wrote in 1787:

You have one of the finest countries in the world, and if you can be cured of the folly of making war for trade (in which wars more has been always expended than the profits of any trade can compensate) you may make it one of the happiest. Make the most of your own natural advantages, instead of endeavoring to diminish those of other nations, and there is no doubt but that you may yet prosper and flourish. Your beginning to consider France no longer as a natural enemy is a mark of progress in the good sense of the nation.

Finally, in 1788, he wrote as follows to M. Le Veillard in France:

When will princes learn arithmetic enough to calculate, if they want pieces of one another’s territory, how much cheaper it would be to buy them than to make war for them, even though they were to give a hundred years’ purchase? But if glory cannot be valued, and therefore the wars for it cannot be subject to arithmetical calculation, so as to show their advantage or disadvantage, at least wars for trade, which have gain for their object, may be proper subjects for such computation; and a trading nation, as well as a single trader, ought to calculate the probabilities of profit and loss before engaging in any considerable adventure. This, however, nations seldom do, and we have had frequent instances of their spending more money in wars for acquiring or securing branches of commerce than a hundred years’ profit or the full enjoyment of them can compensate.

Source: Mead, Edwin D. Washington, Jefferson and Franklin on war. World Peace Foundation Pamphlet Series. Boston, May 1913; pp. 7−10.

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What Ended the Golden Era of Peace Activism (1810−1850)?

THE period from 1810 to 1850 can be truly called a golden age of peace activism in the United States and England. In response to the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the War of 1812 in America, many articles and pamphlets began to appear that denounced war. From about 1815, calls appeared to for creation of local peace societies. Eventually hundreds of such such societies emerged, the most influential being the Massachusetts Peace Society, the London Peace Society and the American Peace Society.

The movement as a whole had many notable achievements, including getting serious attention by government officials, shaping public opinion, organizing large protests, and eventually sponsoring three international congresses. However after 1850, in both the US and England, the movement began to lose force and never fully recovered. Today relatively few people — even antiwar activists — are familiar with this important part of history.

The historian Merle Curti, in a book devoted to this movement, mentions several possible reasons why the movement effectively ended. These are of more than mere historical interest: they should be considered in relation to the need to create a similarly effective organized movement today.

Briefly, the reasons for the movement’s waning include:

Reliance on charismatic leaders. The main figures in the peace movement — for example Noah Worcester and William Ladd in the US — were driven by immense passion and conviction and were tireless workers. Ladd, in particular, sacrificed not only his fortune but his health in his efforts. When this generation of leaders died, the movement lost force. Such is probably the pattern of many social movements.

Aging membership. Along with this was a gradual aging of the movement’s original members. It couldn’t replenish its ranks by interesting younger people to join.

Disillusionment. In England the bloody Crimean War first shook activists’ confidence, and then war piled upon war. Some became disillusioned; others succumbed to the growing war spirit.

Conflict with other ideals. Curti suggests that nationalism and liberalism became stronger ideals than peace. These movements not only drew away potential antiwar activists, but (as in the case of nationalist revolutions) sometimes made war seem justified. This remains a consideration today, as many people whom one might expect to support the cause of peace consider things like “democracy” and “social justice” legitimate reasons for aggression.

American Civil War. The Civil War effectively ended the peace movement in the US. For many, slavery was considered an evil sufficiently great to justify war.

Indifference of churches. Despite the fact that the founders of the movement were Christian and, at least initially, based their position on Christian teachings, they were never able to interest Christian churches at large. Unfortunately, the same remains true today.

Pendulum effect. Partly this occurred as an inevitable return swing of the pendulum. Any new social or intellectual movement meets with resistance. The struggle for peace cannot be accomplished quickly. One can only hope that over time gains will be greater than losses.

Internal friction. From the outset the movement was divided on the issue of defensive wars. Strict pacifists insisted that all war was wrong. Others contended that war in self-defense was legitimate. Pacifists countered that any war could be justified if one grants the principle of defensive war. There never was any solution to this split and it weakened the movement as a whole.

While the movement didn’t last, Curti also notes two important accomplishments. First, it produced solid arguments against war:

Perhaps the most striking contribution of early organized pacifism was the development of a body of brilliant arguments against war. By 1860 practically every argument against war now familiar had been suggested, and almost every current plan for securing peace had been at least anticipated. While the arguments against war in the earlier years were chiefly religious, moral, and philanthropic, they tended to become less and less an expression of the general spirit of liberalism and romanticism. They tended to become increasingly realistic and to make greater use of economic and political considerations. This was in part due to the working alliance of the free traders and peace men in England and to the influence of French socialist thought on the opponents of war. Increasing attention was given, for example, to the wastefulness of war and to the burdens it inflicted on the working classes. Much emphasis was put on the desirability of developing closer economic ties, bankers’ agreements for the refusal of war loans, workingmen’s international associations, and other types of economic federations. By 1850 Elihu Burritt had urged that an organized general strike of the workers of the world against war was the only possible alternative to a court and congress of nations. (Curti, p. 225)

Second, they developed practical plans for the achievement of peace:

A fourth important contribution of the early crusade for peace was the working out of definite practical plans looking toward the ultimate establishment of world peace. The plan for the inclusion in international treaties of stipulated arbitration clauses was first advanced by an American, William Jay, and was vigorously supported both here and abroad. The most important practical plan, however, was William Ladd’s scheme for a court and congress of nations …. Plans were also made for the codification of international law, for disarmament, and for the development of internationalism through educational and other projects. (Curti, p. 226)

On this web page are some of the more important essays and sermons produced by the movement, along with a bibliography.

Bibliography

Uebersax, John. Essays and Speeches from the Antebellum Era (c.1800–1850) Peace Movement (online collection, with bibliography)

Curti, Merle Eugene. The American Peace Crusade 1815-1860. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1929.

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The Congress−Military−Industrial Complex

WAR is not only the greatest moral evil, but the greatest economic evil as well.
Why do wars continue? We must ask the question, cui bono — who benefits?  The answer is clear:  US defense contractors reap billions of dollars annually producing advanced weapons.  If we stopped war, these huge corporations would go out of business.  They exert immense political leverage to control the foreign policy of the US to promote wars and a climate of international mistrust and fear.

But members of Congress all too willingly play along.  They receive millions of dollars annually from companies like Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman in the form of campaign contributions.  Then they boast to their constituents about how many jobs are being created to build aircraft carriers and nuclear missiles.

This book, The Politics of Defense Contracting by Gordon Adams is a seminal study of the Congress−military−industrial complex, or the iron triangle:

This is the first systematic study of the relationship between government and defense contractors, examining in detail the political impact of the eight most powerful defense contractors. It details ways in which Boeing, General Dynamics, Grumman, McDonnell Douglas, Northrop, Rockwell International, and United Technologies influence government, from their basic contract activity, corporate structure, and research efforts, to their Washington offices, Political Action Committee campaign contributions, hiring of government personnel, and membership on federal advisory committees. Adams concludes with specific recommendations for changes in disclosure requirements that would curb some of the political power corporations can wield. It also suggests specific ways in which the Iron Triangle can be made subject to wider congressional and public scrutiny.

You can browse the book at Amazon.com.

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A Week − Thoreau’s Spiritual Odyssey

Mount Greylock (highest point in Massachusetts)

“Bear in mind. Child, and never for an instant forget, that there are higher planes, infinitely higher planes, of life than this thou art now travelling on. Know that the goal is distant, and is upward, and is worthy [of] all your life’s efforts to attain to.” (Journal, vol. II, 497)

HENRY DAVID THOREAU, alas, is too often seen as almost a one-hit-wonder. Walden is revered as a great work of literature. His second most famous work, On Civil Disobedience, is respected, but almost more as a political manifesto than as literature per se. Few read his poems, journals or essays.

Yet there is good reason to regard A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers as a literary masterpiece equal to, if not even surpassing Walden.

It was not received well on its initial publication, and Thoreau re-wrote it twice. Even the third version, published at his own expense, fared poorly: the publisher sent 3/4 of the volumes back to him unsold.

The work was plainly a labor of love for Thoreau. He spent nearly a decade on it. Emerson thought highly of it, but the critics did not. They complained of its unorthodox style — a travel narrative interspersed with various anecdotes, poems and ‘stray’ philosophical thoughts.

In the 20th century a more favorable view emerged. People began to see that everything in A Week was connected. There is a sublime unity, and the theme is spirituality. It is not a literal narrative of a journey up and down a river, but  a parable for the soul’s journey, its immortal destiny. Lawrence Buell devotes a chapter to it, referring to Thoreau’s aim “to immortalize the excursion, raising it, in all its detail, to the level of mythology,” and calling it the “most ambitious literary work the Transcendentalist movement produced” (p. 144).

Thoreau used the story of his trip with his brother John — who died tragically not long after the events — to work through his grief, and arrive at a firm hope in a life beyond this one. Moreover, as artist, poet and prophet, he wished to communicate a deep message to his readers.

Whether A Week is a great work, whether he succeeded like the ancient Greek poets he so admired in producing an immortal work, I leave it up to you to decide. But it is a beautiful and haunting work in any case. The spiritual dimension is superbly revealed by Klaus Ohlhoff in his master’s thesis. I have never seen a thesis more insightful and artistically composed than this. Chapter 2 ought to have been published as a standalone essay, but apparently never was.

Trust me. If you love Thoreau (and many do, of that I am certain), you will appreciate this Ohlhoff’s chapter. I will not spoil it by quoting from it, nor cite or relevant passages from A Week. If you’ve ever read A Week or ever plan to — I would simply urge you to read Ohloff’s study.

References

Adams, Raymond W. Thoreau and Immortality. Studies in Philology, vol. 26, no. 1, 1929, pp. 58–66.

Bishop, Jonathan. The Experience of the Sacred in Thoreau’s Week. ELH, 33, March 1966.

Buell, Lawrence. Literary Transcendentalism: Style and Vision in the American Renaissance. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973; Chapter 8, Thoreau’s A Week (pp. 208−238).

Ohlhoff, Klaus W. Thoreau’s Quest for Immortality. Diss. Lakehead University, 1979; Chapter 2 (pp. 63–144).

Paul, Sherman. The Shores of Africa: Thoreau’s Inward Exploration. Urbana; University of Illinois Press, 1958.

Thoreau, Henry David. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. New York: Crowell, 1911.

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Inspired Literature (reposted)

Simone Cantarini, Saint Matthew and the Angel, Italian, 1612 – 1648, c. 1645/1648, oil on canvas.

IN ONE of his more famous writings, William Ellery Channing addressed the topic of developing a uniquely American intellectual tradition. His message is important today in several respects.  One of his chief concerns was to counter the growing tide of materialism in Europe and America.  This, he believed, could only end in, at the individual level, unhappiness, and, at the collective level, dehumanizing institutions and dysfunctional government. Sound literature, he maintains, is founded on genius, which is itself activated when our hearts and minds are aligned with our moral and spiritual nature.  Genius does not manifest itself in a vacuum, however: inspired writers write inspiredly when there is an audience capable of receiving an inspired message.  Hence our first need is to morally prepare the public.  This, Chandler, argues, is the proper role of religion.  But religion itself must be of a higher quality.  Instead of religion based on formality, authority, dogma or superstition, we need one based on personal spiritual experience and authentic moral consciousness. . . .  read full article here (re-posted from my Christian Platonism blog)

Transcendentalism Timelines

HERE are two timeline charts that relate to New England Transcendentalism.The first, above, shows the dates of major figures in the movement.  Not everyone may agree with my choices here.  For example, Walt Whitman, and even more, Emily Dickinson, are not usually considered part of the main Transcendentalist movement.  However my own opinion is that poetry (as Emerson many times emphasized) is so important to the message of Transcendentalism that we can risk erring in the direction of potential over-inclusion of poets.

The second figure, below, summarizes key 18th century European influences on New England Transcendentalism.  As shown, these include German idealism (Kant, Schelling, etc.), German Romanticism (Goethe, De Stael), ‘English’ Transcendentalism (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Carlyle [these are not really “18th century” influences]), and Swedenborg.

The first figure shows some interesting things.  One is the high proportion of Unitarian ministers.  Many of these were Christian Unitarians.  This somewhat contradicts the ‘received opinion’ that Transcendentalism was fundamentally non- or even anti-Christian.  The relationship between Transcendentalism and Christianity is a highly nuanced issue that has been insufficiently studied.  Second, we see a definite ‘golden age’ of Transcendentalism between roughly, 1836 and 1855.  This period contains most of the publications emblematic of the movement.  However Emerson remained a popular and active lecturer into the 1870’s (even travelling to California).  Moreover, Amos Bronson Alcott’s Concord School of Philosophy operated up to the last decade of the 19th century.

Another interesting detail is that, although there is a tendency to think of Whitman as a more modern figure than Thoreau, they were born only a year apart, and Leaves of Grass appeared the year after Walden.

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Dial (1840−1844) − Complete Edition

THE seminal New England Transcendentalist periodical Dial, published from 1840 through 1844, is a milestone in the history of American literature, philosophy and intellectual life.  It’s something not only of historical interest, but a living part of American consciousness.  The ideas were to lofty to have much direct impact then, but they await and invite rediscovery by new generations.

To the best of my knowledge, the complete four volumes have never been printed in their entirety, except for a very limited edition in 1902.  Moreover, many of the fine essays and poems do not exist in machine readable form. I have hopefully met the need by taking four scanned volumes available from Google Books, converting them with optical character recognition to machine readable form, placing them in a single, bookmarked pdf file, and adding author information not in the original volumes.  The free pdf ebook can be downloaded here.

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What American Transcendentalism is Not

Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1859

THERE is today in the United States a severe cultural crisis that involves a loss of morale, hope and meaning.  This probably affects most of all young adults, who have their whole lives ahead of them, and yet must face problems like student loan debt, lack of adequate jobs, unaffordable housing,  and completely dysfunctional politics, coupled with an absence of meaningful creativity in literary and artistic sectors of society.

Behind all these problem is a more fundamental one: that the cultural mentality in the West today is one of radical materialism — and materialism, by its very nature, robs life of true meaning.  If radical materialism is the malady, then a return to cultural Idealism is the remedy. No only common sense, but also — as we have often discussed at Satyagraha — the theories and historical research of the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin give us some grounds for optimism that a more Idealistic society may emerge from modern materialism.

One way to promote a return to Idealism is to re-familiarize ourselves with the great tradition of American Transcendentalism.  This has several advantages.  First, Transcendentalism[1] is an indigenous, Americanized Idealism, peculiarly suited to our own unique circumstances, history and potentials as a nation.  Second (and partly for the preceding reason), while it has faded from view, it has merely been submerged rather than entirely eliminated from the collective consciousness — as evidenced by such examples as that, even if nobody bothers to read them, we still name streets after Emerson and Thoreau and their portraits hang in the halls of university English Departments.

Young adults today, then, ought to understand what American Transcendentalism is.  Then they will at least know there is a coherent and achievable alternative to a materialistic culture.  One obstacle, however, is that explaining Transcendentalism (or even defining the term) is notoriously difficult.  Part of the problem is that we are dealing with a cultural mentality, including states of consciousness, which are by their nature ‘intangible’ and therefore inherently difficult to literally define.

However perhaps we can be clever here, and approach the issue indirectly.  That is, let’s try here not to define what Transcendentalism is, but what it isn’t.  That will get us partway to the goal, and in the process can help eliminate certain specific misconceptions that may impede gaining a proper understanding.

Turning, then, to that supremely authoritative source of misinformation, the Google search page, we see that in response to the question “What is American Transcendentalism” it says: “Key transcendentalism [sic] beliefs were that: (1) humans are inherently good but can be corrupted by society and institutions; (2) insight and experience are more important than logic; (3) spirituality should come from the self, not organized religion; and nature is beautiful and should be respected.”

Let’s look at each statement in turn and examine how it is true, false, incomplete, or potentially misleading.

Humans are inherently good but can be corrupted by society and institutions.

The bland statement ‘humans are innately good’ is something more like Rousseau would say. Transcendentalists held much stronger beliefs: that humans are divine, with immortal souls and godlike potentials. We are, as Emerson put it, ‘gods in ruins.’  That is, we fail to live up to our divine potential.  The proper remedy is moral, intellectual and spiritual self-culture. Each individual has a solemn moral duty for such self-cultivation.

To say that human beings’ corruption comes from society and institutions is, again, Rousseauian.  For Transcendentalists, it is we are ourselves who are to blame for our failures.  In a characteristically Platonic fashion (Plato is the dominant philosophical influence on Transcendentalists), the human soul is understood as fallen — not because of external forces, but from insufficient personal virtue and wisdom.   Transcendentalists certainly wished to reform and make more just government and society. But this supposes that a free individual can elevate himself or herself to be an agent of change, despite the opposing influences of current institutions.

Insight and experience and more important than logic.

This is basically true, but incomplete. Transcendentalists saw themselves as reacting to the narrow rationalist mentality associated with John Locke and his followers. This empirical/rationalist worldview became increasingly dominant throughout the 18th and into the 19th century.  It created, in the opinion of Transcendentalists, a mechanical perspective of life — a utilitarian society where money counts more than meaning, the end always justifies the means, and atheism displaces religion in human affairs.

It is also true that Transcendentalists highly valued ‘experience.’  They saw modern man as living life abstractly — one step removed from reality (as Emerson put it, “living second-hand.”)  We respond not to things as they are, about according to rational theories that are, by their nature, limiting and distortive.

Similarly, insight was vital for Transcendentalists. This is an essential feature of Idealism, generally.  Insight pertains to realms of knowledge we have that have no connection with the sensory or material world, but instead concern what we see about our own nature by looking within.

Spirituality should come from the self, not organized religion.

Implicit in this statement — but it needs to be stated explicitly — is that Transcendentalists staunchly affirmed that spirituality ought to be central in our lives.  As to the view of organized religion, Transcendentalists were divided on this point.  Some, like Emerson and Thoreau, had little use for organized religion.  Others, however, maintained affiliations with the Unitarian and, in some cases, Congregational or Episcopal denominations.

The central issue is not organized religion, but dogmatized religion. The essential point Transcendentalists wished to affirm (which is the same affirmation made by mystics of all religious throughout the ages) is that personal spiritual experience matters more than imposed literal doctrine.  A preacher or catechism can insist, “God is Love” — yet that carries far less force than having the direct experience of God as Love.  In the final analysis, doctrine and personal experience are not mutually exclusive.  Doctrine can be useful in order that, as St. Augustine taught, belief may lead to experience.  However what is clear — and is the real issue here — is that an overemphasis on doctrine has the potential to crowd out and lessen the potential for direct religious experience. 

Nature is beautiful and should be respected.

Again, this is a weak and even revisionist version of what Transcendentalists actually believed.  To say that ‘nature is beautiful’ would hardly distinguish them from any other movement or segment of humanity.  What they actually believed — and what does make them relevant today — are stronger propositions: (1) that Nature has a spiritual basis; (2) that it is a manifestation of God, and of God’s Goodness and Love; (3) that it is also an externalization of our own soul; (4) and that Nature is like a book, intended in every detail to teach us spiritual lessons.

Therefore Nature should indeed be ‘respected’ — but not merely in the sense of that modern environmentalists might understand this.  We should most respect Nature precisely because it is a means of understanding (and relating to) God and ourselves.  This necessarily implies a strong commitment to protect the natural environment; indeed, it increases our incentive to do so.

Moreover, we must not only respect Nature, but experience it.  So, for example, while we should preserve forests and wildernesses, part of the reason for doing this is so that we can visit and receive inspiration from them.  To merely preserve and completely isolate from all human contact some natural area, while something a modern environmentalist may consider, would make much less sense to a Transcendentalist.

In sum, the main difficulty here is that any 20th or 21st ‘official’ definition (such as might appear in an online article or university text) of Transcendentalism will necessarily be revisionist.  Materialism is so strongly engrained in the modern cultural mentality that one cannot explain Idealism without sounding superstitious or atavistic.  There is some kind of unwritten consensus that we are not allowed to conduct serious public discussions on the premises that God exists and the human soul is immortal. Yet without these premises Transcendentalism and Platonic Idealism cannot be understood or  appreciated.  American Transcendentalism, then, is a great challenge to modernism: it starkly confronts us with the arbitrariness of the assumptions of materialism and atheism. It shows us that a great generation of thinkers were able to develop from these premises a philosophy of life both meaningful and with far-reaching practical significance.

Another important issue with the simplified description of Transcendentalism we’ve considered here is the omission of any reference to the literary interests of this group.  These were not people who merely had ecstatic nature experiences.  Almost without exception they applied themselves to make significant contributions to literature and education, and to the moral edification of others.  Integral to the Transcendentalist personality was the notion of harnessing the creative inspirations and energies of ‘innate genius’ in productive ways to actively contribute to the positive transformation of society.

In the near future I hope to try again to write a brief post dedicated to positively defining the key beliefs of Transcendentalism, but let this suffice for now.  Ultimately, the main way to understand it is to read main works of Transcendentalist literature.  Some recommended selections may be found in the Bibliography of this earlier article.

Note. 1. Herein for convenience the terms ‘American Transcendentalism’ and ‘Transcendentalism’ are used interchangeably; there are, of course, other versions of transcendentalist or Transcendentalist philosophy.

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Flowers — Stars of the Earth

THIS wonderful eulogium on flowers — arguably the best ever written — was excerpted many times throughout the 19th century, but never with the author’s name. Today well known quotes from it are wrongly attributed to Clara Lucas Balfour and others. A little research has found that the original author is William Pitt Scargill (1787–1836), an English Unitarian minister and writer.  The is published below in its entirety for the first time since 1853.

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A Chapter on Flowers

WHAT is the use of flowers? Why cannot the earth bring forth the fruits that feed us, and the sweet flavours that provoke our appetite, without all this ostentation? What is it to the ponderous cow, that lies ruminating and blinking hour after hour on the earth’s green lap, that myriads of yellow buttercups are all day laughing in the sun’s eye? Wherefore does the violet, harbinger of no fruit, nestle its deep blueness in the dell, and fling its wanton nets of most delicious fragrance, leading the passenger by the nose? And wherefore does the tulip, unedible root, shoot up its annual exhibition of most gaudy colour and uninterpretable beauty? Let the apple-tree put forth her blossom, and the bean invite the vagrant bee by the sweet annunciation of coming fruit and food; — but what is the use of mere flowers — blossoms that lead to nothing but brown, withered, curled-up, vegetable fragments? And why is their reign so short? Why does the gum-cistus drop its bright leaves so regularly at such brief intervals, putting on a clean shirt every day? Who can interpret the exception to the rule of nature’s plan of utility? For whom are flowers made, and for what? Are they mere accidents in a world where nought else is accidental? Is there no manifestation of design in their construction? Verily they are formed with as complete and ingenious a mechanism as the most sensitive and marvellous of living beings. They are provided with wondrous means of preservation and propagation. Their texture unfolds the mystery of its beauty to the deep-searching microscope, mocking the grossness of mortal vision. Shape seems to have exhausted its variety in their conformation; colour hath no shade, or combination, or delicacy of tint, which may not be found in flowers; and every modulation of fragrance is theirs. But cannot man live without them? For whom, and for what, are they formed? Are they formed for themselves alone? Have they a life of their own? Do they enjoy their own perfume, and delight themselves in the gaudiness of their own colours and the gracefulness of their own shapes? Man, from the habitual association of thought, sentiment, and emotion — with eyes, nose, and mouth, and the expression of the many-featured face, cannot conceive of sense or sentiment subsisting without these modifications, or some obvious substitute for them. Is there nothing of expression in their aspect? Have they not eyeless looks and lipless eloquence? See the great golden expanse of the sun-flower winding, on its tortuous stem, from east to west; praising, in the profuseness of its gaudy gratitude, the light in which it lives and glories. See how it drinks in, even to a visible intoxication, the life-giving rays of the cordial sun; while, in the quiet of its own deep enjoyment, it pities the locomotive part of the creation, wandering from place to place in search of that bliss which the flower enjoys in its own bed; fixed by its roots, a happy prisoner, whose chains are its life. Is there no sense or sentiment in the living thing? Or stand beneath the annual canopy that o’ershadows a bed of favourite and favoured tulips, and read in their colours, and their cups, the love they have for their little life. See you not that they are proud of their distinction? On their tall tremulous stems they stand, a11 it were, on tiptoe, to look down on the less favoured flowers that grow miscellaneously rooted in the uncanopied beds of the common garden. Sheltered and shielded are they from the broad eye of day, which might gaze on them too rudely; and the vigour of their life seems to be from the sweet vanity with which they drink in admiration from human eyes, in whose milder light they live. Go forth into the fields and among the green hedges; walk abroad into the meadows, and ramble over heaths; climb the steep mountains, and dive into the deep valleys; scramble among the bristly thickets, or totter among the perpendicular precipices; and what will you find there? F1owers — flowers — flowers! What can they want there? What can they do there? How did they get there? What are they but the manifestation that the Creator of the universe is a more glorious and benevolent Being than political economists, utilitarians,  philosophers, and id genus omne?

Flowers — of all things created most innocently simple  and most superbly complex: playthings for childhood, ornaments of the grave, and companions of the cold corpse in the coffin! Flowers — beloved by the wandering idiot and studied by the deep-thinking man of science! Flowers — that of perishing things are most perishing, yet of all earthly things are the most heavenly! Flowers — that, in the simplicity of their frailty, seem to beg leave to be, and that occupy, with blushing modesty, the clefts, and corners, and spare nooks of earth, shrinking from the many-trodden path, and not encroaching on the walks of man; retiring from the multitudinous city, and only then, when man has deserted the habitation he has raised, silently, and as if long waiting for implied permission, creeping over the grey wall and making ruin beautiful! Flowers — that unceasingly expand to heaven their grateful, and to man, their cheerful looks: partners of human joy, soothers of human sorrow; fit emblems of the victor’s triumphs, of the young bride’s blushes; welcome to crowded balls and graceful upon solitary graves! Flowers — that, by the unchangeableness of their beauty, bring back the past with a delightful and living intensity of recollection! Flowers — over which innocence sheds the tear of joy; and penitence heaves the sigh of regret, thinking of the innocence that has been! Flowers are for the young and for the old; for the grave and for the gay; for the living and for the dead; for all but the guilty, and for them when they are penitent. Flowers are, in the volume of nature, what the expression, “God is love,” is in the volume of revelation. They tell man of the paternal character of the Deity. Servants are fed, clothed, and commanded; but children are instructed by a sweet gentleness; and to them is given, by the good parent, that which delights as well as that which supports. For the servant there is the gravity of approbation or the silence of satisfaction; but for children there is the sweet smile of complacency and the joyful look of love. So, by the beauty which the Creator has dispersed and spread abroad through creation, and by the capacity which he has given to man to enjoy and comprehend that beauty, he has displayed, not merely the compassionateness of his mercy, but the generosity and gracefulness of his goodness.

What a dreary and desolate place would be a world without a flower! It would be as a face without a smile — a feast without a welcome. Flowers, by their sylph-like forms and viewless fragrance, are the first instructors to emancipate our thoughts from the grossness of materialism; they make us think of invisible beings; and, by means of so beautiful and graceful a transition, our thoughts of the invisible are thoughts of the good.

Are not flowers the stars of earth, and are not stars the flowers of heaven? Flowers are the teachers of gentle thoughts — promoters of kindly emotion. One cannot look closely at the structure of a flower without loving it. They are emblems and manifestations of God’s love to the creation, and they are the means and ministrations of man’s love to his fellow-creatures;  for they first awaken in the mind a sense of the beautiful and the good. Light is beautiful and good: but on its undivided beauty, and on the glorious intensity of its full strength, man cannot gaze; he can comprehend it best when prismatically separated and dispersed in the many-coloured beauty of flowers; and thus he reads the elements of beauty — the alphabet of visible gracefulness. The very inutility of flowers is their excellence and great beauty; for, by having a delightfulness in their very form and colour, they lead us to thoughts of generosity and moral beauty detached from and superior to all selfishness; so that they are pretty lessons in nature’s book of instruction, teaching man that he liveth not by bread or for bread alone, but that he hath another than an animal life.

It is a pretty species of metaphysics which teaches us that man consists of body, soul, and spirit, thus giving us two parts heavenly for one that is earthly, the intermediate leading us by a gentle ascent to the apprehension and enjoyment of the higher part of our nature; so taste and a love of the beautiful leads us to the aspiring after virtue, and to regarding virtue as something far sublimer than mere calculation of physical enjoyment. Is not the very loveliness of virtue, its disinterestedness, its uncalculating generosity, its confiding freeness, its apprehension of a beauty beyond advantage and above utility — above that utility which ministers merely to the animal existence? In its highest and purest sense, utility is beauty, inasmuch as well-being is more than being, and soul is more than body. Flowers, then, are man’s first spiritual instructors, initiating him into the knowledge, love, and apprehension of something above sensualness and selfishness. Children love flowers, childhood is the age of flowers, of innocence, and beauty and love of beauty. Flowers to them are nature’s smiles, with which they carl converse, and the language of which they can comprehend, and deeply feel, and retain through life; so that when sorrow and a hard lot presses on them heavily in after years, and they are ready to think that all is darkness, there springs up a recollection of an early sentiment of loveliness and recollected beauty, and they are reminded that there is a spirit of beauty in the world, a sentiment of kindness that cannot be easily forgotten, and that will not easily forget. What, then, is the use of flowers? Think of a world without flowers — of a childhood that loves them not-of a soul that has no sense of the beautiful — of a virtue that is driven and not attracted, founded on the meanness of calculation, measuring out its obedience, grudging its generosity, thinking only of its visible and tangible rewards; think of a state of society in which there is no love of beauty, or elegance, or ornament; and then may be seen and felt the utility of ornament, the substance of decoration, the sublimity of beauty, the usefulness of flowers.

~ William Pitt Scargill, 1832.

Bibliography

Dwight, John Sullivan. The Religion of Beauty, Dial, July 1840,  pp. 17-22.

Plotinus. Enneads 1.6 (On Beauty), tr. Stephen McKenna, 1917.

Scargill, William Pitt. A Chapter on Flowers. Amulet, vol. 7, 1832, 151−158.

Uebersax, John (ed.). Florigelium: 100 Best Inspirational Quotes About Flowers and Their Beauty. 2022.

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