Transformation of Society by the Power of Love

Each year on Martin Luther King Day I try to write something related to the principles Dr. King stood for.  This year the topic concerns the work of the sociologist Pitirim A. Sorokin.  Sorokin devoted much of the latter part of his career to what he called amitology, that is, a science of love — work which he pursued at the Harvard Center for Creative Altruism. This work was dismissed by the social science establishment as eccentric and unimportant.  But perhaps the time has come to re-examine Sorokin’s contributions and to consider whether he may have been ahead of his time.

The best literary production of this phase of Sorokin’s career is a book titled, The Ways and Power of Love.  The book has many important features, several of which I’d like to mention here.

The first is Sorokin’s theory that love can be understood and studied as a real force or energy.  This notion may seem like a silly or simple-minded idea – one  more fit for a pop song than for scientific discussion. But in Sorokin’s hands the concept is substantial and credible.  As to whether love is a cosmic, metaphysical force, perhaps we cannot know or determine with certainty scientifically.  But we can at least say with some confidence that  in many important and objective ways love functions in the same way that forces and energies act.  Love motivates activity.  Love can be transmitted.  Love is cumulative.  All of these concepts can be operationally defined and demonstrated in objective, observable ways.  We can remain fully scientific and still assert that love is, at the very least, something like a force or energy.

Transformation From a Hate Culture To a Love Culture

A second noteworthy principle of Sorokin’s amitology follows from the first: if love is something like an energy, then we can meaningfully consider the ways in which this energy may be (1) produced, (2) accumulated, and (3) distributed.  These considerations have very practical implications for the kind of cultural transformation needed  in the world today.  We clearly must do something (or at least try) to change the present cultural orientation away from hatred, anger, fear, and conflict as organizing principles.  Much as we might want this transformation to occur, merely wishing for it is not enough.  Something tangible must happen to produce the change.  There must be actual sources of the opposite energy — that is, love — creating and placing this positive energy into the social and cultural milieu.

Clearly the most  obvious way for this to happen is for individuals to become emitters of love energy in their immediate surroundings.  Such an idea is scarcely new.  This was talked about in the 60’s, but without much lasting success. However, if, following Sorokin’s lead, we allow ourselves to see this as a scientific issue, new possibilities emerge.  One example is to see the problem in terms of mathematical chaos theory. We could quite plausibly suppose that the rate of positive cultural change in relation to the number of love emitters is something like exponential.  Imagine certain individuals who see it as their task to go out into their communities spreading love – through their own actions, by setting positive examples, and by teaching others about love.  One or two people alone can accomplish only so much.  But at some point, as the number of love emitters increases, a critical mass is reached, and suddenly the entirely social fabric of the community changes direction — no longer being conflict-, competition-, and fear-based, but love based.

Because such a transformation process is non-linear, the benefits of each additional love-emitter are that much more important.  That is, if you choose to become a love emitter, your added contribution might make the crucial difference; there might already be nine love emitters in your community, but if you become the tenth, the total number may achieve critical mass at which a transformative revolution takes off.

Love and Social Media

It also occurs to me how this principle could be applied to such social media as Facebook.  Unfortunately, the networking potential offered new social media has, thus far, all-to-often been directed negatively. People of every political stripe use Facebook and email for hate campaigns.  Someone will post a derogatory picture and comment about some political figure.  Then others will forward it to a dozen of their contacts.  Within a day thousands of copies are circulating — the negative energies of hate, anger, resentment spreading exponentially across the web and around the world.  This scenario is being played out perhaps many thousands of times every day.

But now consider an opposite scenario.  What if people began spreading love and positive energies in precisely the same way?  What if it became our ‘custom’ not to send a hate email to five or ten contacts, but some article concerning love, compassion, generosity, and optimism?

A third noteworthy aspect of Sorokin’s science of love is the importance, and perhaps the central role, of groups and organizations. As a sociologist, Sorokin had a keen awareness of the interplay between society and the personality of the individual.  In place of Freud’s primitive tripartite model of human personality (id, ego, superego), Sorokin understood human personality as a dynamic interplay between a large number of alternative egos or sub-egos within the same person.  Among these egos, Sorokin gave prominent place to those associated with our social roles.  Each group we belong to, and each stratum or role we occupy within that group, has associated with it in our psyche a separate ego.  Thus, for example, as members of a religion, say the Catholic Church, one may have a “Catholic ego.”  And as American citizens, we have a “US citizen ego”, and so on.  To the extent that our social institutions themselves conflict (as when Catholic moral principles teach that war is wrong, but national pride or competitiveness urges a war), then this conflict necessarily manifests itself within our own personalities.  Until such time as our social institutions are themselves harmonized with each other, we will be individually conflicted; and because of these conflicts, we will continually be a cross-purposes within ourselves, never being able to rally all our mental, emotional, and physical resources to accomplish anything productive.

There is much more to this part of Sorokin’s theories, but the main point is that if we wish to increase the number of love emitters in our society, we should give some thought as to how we might develop new social institutions, or adapt old ones, to organize this effort.

Fourth and finally, Sorokin explained how love and altruism should be understood as creative activities — in just the same way that we understand art, literature, and (to some extent at least) scientific activity to be creative.  True creativity comes from a source other than our individual egos and rationalistic minds.  It comes, rather, Sorokin insisted, from a higher source — what he called the supraconscious.  Whether we understand the supraconscious in a religious sense of a grace or inspiring energy from God, or as coming from some kind of collective unconscious, or something else entirely is unimportant.  The mere fact that we have such works as those of Shakespeare, Plato, Beethoven, Mozart, and Michelangelo proves without doubt there is such a thing as creative genius.  And just as there are creative geniuses in art and literature, there are creative geniuses in morality and ethics — people like Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and Mother Teresa.

Moreover, each one of us can creatively assist in the growth and spread of love. Our best ethical contributions, however, come not from our egoistic strivings and rationalistic schemes.  No.  If we are to be agents of a ‘love revolution’, then it is essential that we surrender our egoistic plans to a higher source of inspiration.  Great accomplishments require great humility.

Such then, are several if the key points of Sorokin’s science of love and social transformation.  Does it sound unrealistic?  If so, maybe that’s due to heavy conditioning by our cynical and materialistic culture.  Nobody can be happy in a hate- and conflict-dominated culture.  A change is necessary.  And how else could a cultural transformation occur except by the means outlined by Sorokin?

Bibliography

Mangone, E.; Dolgov, A. Sorokin’s altruistic creative love: genesis, methodological issues, and applied aspects. Human Arenas 3, 6–22,2020.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331716540

Sorokin, Pitirim A. Altruistic Love: A study of american good neighbors and Christian saints.  Boston: Beacon Press, 1950.
http://books.google.com/?id=qkABAAAAMAAJ

Sorokin, Pitirim A. (ed.). Forms and Techniques of Altruistic and Spiritual Growth. Boston, Beacon Press, 1954; repr. New York, Kraus, 1971.
https://archive.org/details/formstechniqueso0000soro

Sorokin, Pitirim A. The ways and power of love: types, factors, and techniques of moral transformation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1954; repr. Templeton Foundation, 2002.
http://books.google.com/?id=DGCleCxTkbIC

 

 

 

Quotes from Martin Luther King, “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution”

Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr., “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.” Delivered at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., on 31 March 1968.

[Note:  We should bear in mind that what Dr. King calls for is radical new attitudes and ways of doing things, not to merely to repeat the errors of the past.   Revolution in sense of violence, hatred, divisiveness, and tearing down is not the solution.  King stood for a revolution of Love — including love of enemies.  The revolution begins, in other word, when you decide to renounce all forms of violence and hatred.]

“One of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution.”

“No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution.  The world in which we live is geographically one. The challenge that we face today is to make it one in terms of brotherhood.”

“For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.  And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.”

“Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”

“We are challenged to rid our nation and the world of poverty. ”

“Something within me cried out, ‘Can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned?’ And an answer came: ‘Oh no!’ Because the destiny of the United States is tied up with the destiny of India and every other nation.”

“We must find an alternative to war and bloodshed.”

“God grant that we will be participants in this newness and this magnificent development. If we will but do it. “

On the Responsible Use of Cannabis

Advocates of cannabis legalization have understandably tended to minimize the dangers of cannabis abuse.  While not physically addictive, clearly cannabis has the potential to create psychological dependence — to use it excessively, or as a crutch or escape.

When I visited Amsterdam cannabis shops in the 2000’s, one thing that impressed me is that with each sale they included ‘Tips for Sensible Use’ of marijuana and hashish.  The idea of getting vendors involved in preventing abuse or misuse of cannabis seems particularly sound: the more the cannabis community regulates itself, the less need there is for laws and external regulation.

These cards and brochures were produced by the Dutch Trimbos Institute. The following are 10 example guidelines.

_____________________

Tips:  Marijuana and Hashish

What You Know | What You Don’t Know!

For centuries, throughout the world people from various cultures have used marijuana and hashish. But just like other substances, usage is not without risk. Here are some tips for sensible use.

Both marijuana and hashish are derived from the cannabis plant. The main active substance is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Its effects last for from 2 to 4 hours. Cannabis usually makes people feel relaxed. Some people become talkative under its influence, others more withdrawn. Some become more active, others calmer. Cannabis also contains cannabidiol (CBD), which  is experienced as producing relaxation, and many other cannabinoids.  Effects of cannabis vary from one strain to another.

1. Different kinds of marijuana and hashish can vary considerably in potency. Make sure you are well informed about this by cannabis shop staff.

2. Never sell the cannabis you buy, and especially not to minors under the age of 18. Among other things, this could lead to the closure of “your” cannabis shop.

3. Recreational cannabis is meant to be enjoyed and not to remove stress or make you feel more sure of yourself. You won’t solve problems by smoking a joint.

4. Cannabis and hashish can negatively affect your memory and powers of concentration. Don’t use them before school or going to work.

5. Cannabis can affect your reaction speed, so you should not drive. You will have a greater risk of accident and pose a potential hazard to yourself and others.

6. Alcohol in combination with cannabis or hashish is a poor choice.

7. When a joint is smoked, harmful substances are released, such as tar and carbon monoxide. It is therefore not a good idea to inhale deeply or for long periods. In fact, you won’t need to, because the active substances in cannabis are rapidly absorbed by the lungs.

8. Don’t smoke cannabis during pregnancy or if you have mental health problems. If you use other medications, consult your physician.

9. Cannabis can sometimes make you feel bad. You might feel nauseous, anxious, or paranoid. If this happens, don’t panic: find a quiet spot and eat or drink something sweet. The worst will be over in an hour.

10. There’s more to life than pot!  It’s better not to use recreational cannabis every day.  To avoid psychological dependence, don’t use for seven days in a row.

Pitirm Sorokin – The Conditions of Lasting Peace

Pitirim A. Sorokin, “The Conditions of Lasting Internal and International Peace.”  From: Pitirim A. Sorokin, Society, Culture, and Personality: Their Structure and Dynamics.  New York: Harper, 1947;  Chapter 32, Part III (pp. 514–522).

Chapter 32. Fluctuation of Peace and War in Intergroup Relationship

 III. The Conditions of Lasting Internal and International Peace

1. No Lasting Peace Within Decaying Sensate Culture, Society, and Man

Within the framework of the contemporary (sensate) culture [1], society, and man, no elim­ination, even no substantial weakening of national and international group tensions — eco­nomic, racial, ethnic, occupational and others — is possible, because this framework is shot through by a multitude of irreconcilable clashes of values. Neither most intensive sensate propaganda nor sensate education, nor political and economic measures, so far as they remain within the framework of sensate society and culture, can perform this task. At the best, they may shift the center and loci of the ten­sions, may change their color and concrete forms, but that is all they can do. Taken as a {p. 515} whole they are utterly inadequate to achieve the purpose, because they neither touch nor eradicate the deep cause of the intergroup tensions and conflicts.

The first reason for this somewhat pessi­mistic statement is the predominant nature of the contemporary culture and society and, as their resultant, of contemporary man. Their sociocultural nature incessantly generates a multitude of tensions and conflicts and cannot help doing that.

(a) They all are permeated by the spirit, ethos, and pathos of rivalry, competition, and desire of victory over the rivals and others in all fields of sociocultural activity, from science, football, fine arts, and business up to the “im­perialistic superiority” of religions and their Gods and followers. This spirit ceaselessly gen­erates a striving for superiority, power, and prestige of the competitors over their rivals, and a deep desire for their defeat and ‘lower place” in the universe. This passion leads to a cultivation of the “fighting spirit” and an inde­fatigable and never ceasing fight with the rivals. An unavoidable result of such a sit­uation is a multitude of intergroup antagonisms and clashes between the rivals, the victors, and the vanquished, “the superior and the inferior” (in politics, business, science, arts, religion, etc.), “the parties of success and of failure.” In other words, interindividual and intergroup conflicts are an inseparable, immanent, or in­herent trait of the contemporary culture, so­ciety, and man. These are inherently belliger­ent in their sociocultural nature.

(b) To the same result these lead through their assigning paramount importance to the sensory, material, hedonistically-utilitarian values in their total scale of values. Notwith­standing the hypocritical, half-mechanical preaching of the values of “the Kingdom of God,” the contemporary culture, society, and man, in their actual functions, make the sensory, material, hedonistic values paramount — the supreme goal of human aspirations, ambitions, and desires. These values range from money, wealth, material comfort, mate­rial security, and conspicuous consumption up to the kisses, copulation, popularity, fame, power, and prestige. As these values are scarce and limited in their quantity and cannot be spread in unlimited abundance among all in­dividuals and groups, the paramount value given to them by our culture and society pro­duces ceaselessly a never ending, intense, often bloody and antisocial struggle of every group with every other competing group for as large a share of these values as can be obtained at the cost of others. This results again in tensions and conflicts.

(c) The same result is generated by the contemporary culture, society, and man through their dominant hedonistic and egocentrically utilitarian ethics, law, and mores, and especially through the excessive relativization of all norms and values devoid of any universal binding. This atomization leads to moral, mental, and social anarchy and to cynicism in which each rival group regards itself as the supreme arbiter entitled to use any means for its victory. As a consequence, the emergence of rude force masked by fraud and other more subtle screens becomes in­evitable. Force becomes the supreme judge. “The weapon of criticism turns into the criti­cism by the weapon of force.” Tensions and clashes follow.

(d) Incessant clashes are also generated by the dominant — sensate — man of our time. He is, first of all and most of all, a fighter, intoxi­cated by lust for victory, power, influence, fame, pleasure, and sensate happiness. “To suppose that men who are filled individually with every manner of restlessness, maddened by lust of power and speed, votaries of the god Whirl, will live at peace whether with them­selves or others, is the vainest chimera,” rightly remarks one of the eminent American humanists. [2]

(e) This conflagration of war and violence is hastened along by the general degradation of man’s value by sensate culture. Quite consistently with its major premise, that true reality and value are sensory, it views man as a mere empirical “electron-proton complex,” a “reflex mechanism,” a mere “animal organism,” a “psychoanalytical bag filled with libido,” devoid of anything supersensory, sacred, or divine. No wonder that in such a culture man is treated in the same manner as we treat all the other sensory “complexes,” “mechanisms,” {p. 516} and “animals”; any individual or group that hinders the realization of one’s wishes is elim­inated in the same way in which we liquidate a mosquito or a snake or “neutralize” any organic or inorganic object that impedes the fulfillment of our desires. This explains why, in spite of all the vociferous claims by our culture as to its humanistic, humane, and humanitarian mission, it is, objectively, in its decadent phase, one of the most inhuman of all cultures, killing, mutilating, and degrading human beings by the tens of millions.

(f) Similarly, the basic institutions of con­temporary society are permeated by the same militarism and are incessantly generating inter­individual, civil, and international conflicts. Private property, with its inevitable differenti­ation into the excessively rich and the utterly miserable, generates persistent criminality, class antagonism, and class war. The state with its naked power policy of the Machiavellian raison d’état is an openly militaristic institution unrestrained by any of the ethical norms that are obligatory for private conduct. The same is true of our political parties: first and fore­most they are fighting machines, using the spoils system, bribery, vituperation, murder, and civil war as instruments in their struggle for spoils and power. Our occupational unions, beginning with labor unions and ending with capitalists’ associations, are organized primarily for militant purposes, namely, the successful defeat of antagonistic organizations by what­ever means may be necessary, whether there be strikes and lockouts or revolution and civil war. Even the family, so far as it imbues the children with the cult of family egotism, power, and “success,” is shot through with the same militaristic spirit. Finally almost all our in­stitutions glorify sensate power and success as the highest virtues. They methodically incul­cate a “fighting spirit” into everyone from the day of his birth to the day of his death. Our heroes are invariably fighting persons who suc­cessfully crush their rivals, whether on the football field, in cut-throat business rivalry, on a battlefield, in political machinations, or in class war; and they are typified by our “world champions” in tennis, swimming, coffee-drink­ing, pole-sitting, and jitter-bugging. Even our “Superman” is the superman only because he “is faster than a bullet, more powerful than a locomotive,” and more militant than Mars; he is forever in a fighting mess.

Thus, whether we study the objective move­ment of war and revolution that has grown with the emergence and growth of modern culture or whether we study the essential char­acteristics exhibited by it and the society and man expressing it, we cannot fail to see their preeminently militant sociocultural nature, especially in its decaying phase. War in its vari­ous forms, and especially the war for sensory values, is their ethos, soul, and heart. Within the framework of sensate culture, society, and man, no lasting national or international peace has ever been or ever will be possible.

This means also that most of the contem­porary plans for a lasting peace are doomed to failure so far as they hope to achieve it within this framework by a mere job of re-patching. Elementary inductive considerations will show this unequivocally. As patented panaceas against war, these plans offer an enlightened self-interest; a specious “utilitarian rationality”; emancipation from religion and absolutistic ethics; a greater and more extreme relativism of all values; a still greater dose of positivism, empiricism, materialism, utilitarian­ism, and mechanisticism in all their varieties; a further expansion of literacy, schools, uni­versities, newspapers, magazines, movies, the radio, and other “educational” instrumentali­ties; a still more rapid increase in scientific discoveries and technological devices; a re­placement of all monarchies by republics, of all autocracies by democracies, of capitalism by communism, socialism, and other sensate “isms”; dismemberment and disarmament of the vanquished; a bigger and better “balance of powers” and various “Unions Now” in the form of diverse double, triple, and quadruple alliances, on up to the United Nations, armed with a crashing military and police force; a higher economic plane of living, at least for the victorious nations; a more just distribution of natural resources, and so on and so forth. The hopelessness of all these hopes is unques­tionably shown by “an ugly fact,” that with the emergence and growth of our modern cul­ture and society from the thirteenth on to the twentieth century all these panaceas have been growing also; and yet their growth has been paralleled during these centuries by an in-­ {p. 517} crease of war and revolution rather than by the decrease for which the plans contend. From such a “concomitant variation” only an idiot can conclude that these panaceas are suffocat­ing war and that, when applied in a still greater dose, they could kill it forever. The only sound conclusion is that either the pan­aceas are perfectly impotent in the eradication of war and revolution or that, within the framework of this modern culture, society, and man, they work in favor of war and revolution, rather than against it. For this reason these plans, especially those that call themselves “practical,” “realistic,” and “scientific,” are nothing but an illusion and self-delusion. Within a different framework, as we shall see, some of these measures can be helpful; within the contemporary one, they cannot and will not build a temple of enduring peace.

2. The Culture and Society Necessary for an Enduring Peace and Order

These gloomy conclusions do not mean that an enduring peace is generally impossible. They signify only that for its realization a new culture, with an appropriate kind of society and man, different from the contemporary one, is in order. The essential characteristics of these can be briefly summed up. [3]

(a) The new culture must put less em­phasis upon purely sensory reality-value and more upon the truly rational and upon the supersensory-metarational reality-value, view­ing the true reality-value as an infinite mani­fold with three main aspects: sensory, rational, and supersensory-metarational, each within its sphere being a true reality and a true value. This conception of the true reality-value, spon­sored by Plato and Aristotle, Erigena, Thomas Aquinas, and Nicholas of Cusa, to mention but a few names, must replace the major premise of our sensate culture. Accordingly, the new culture must be an articulation of this new major premise in all its main compartments: in its science, philosophy, religion, fine arts, ethics, law, and forms of social organization on up to the manners, mores, and ways of living of its individual and group members.

(b) Its science must study, through sensory observation, the empirical aspects of the in­finite manifold; its philosophy must investigate through mathematical and syllogistic logic the rational and logical aspects of the true reality-value; its intuitive wisdom must give us the notion of the supersensory-metalogistic aspects of it through the intuition of great religious and ethical seers, great scientists like Sir Isaac Newton, great philosophers like Plato, great artists like Beethoven and Shakespeare, and great technological inventors inspired to their achievements by intuition. [4] The history of human knowledge is a cemetery filled with wrong empirical observations, false logical rea­sonings, and misleading intuitions. This means that, taken separately, each of these ways of cognition is fallible and that if it is to achieve validity it must have the cooperation and mutual verification of the other two ways of cognition. The outlined integralist system of truth gives us precisely this organic integration, cooperation and mutual verification of all three ways of cognition. As such, it promises to give a more valid, richer, and better-tested truth than that which the dominant, one-sided sensory cognition can give. It eliminates also the contemporary antagonism between, and mutual undermining of, science, philosophy, and religion.

(c) Instead of the excessively relativized and atomized utilitarian and hedonistic pseudo-norms of our culture—devoid of their universal binding-power, transgressed at every suitable occasion, and degraded to the level of mere Paretian “derivations,” Freudian “rationaliza­tions,” Marxian “ideological beautifications” of the economic, sexual, and other sensate “resi­dues,” “complexes,” “drives,” and “interests”— the ethics and law of the new culture in accordance with its major premise must be embodied in a set of universal norms binding and effectively controlling the behavior of all, unquestioned and undisputed in their ethical prestige by any other conflicting norms. In their content these universal norms must be a variation of the main ethical norms of prac­tically all great religions and moral codes, from the elementary Golden Rule and Ten Commandments on up to the norms of the Sermon on the Mount as their sublimest ex-{p. 518} pression. Such an ethics and law will stop the atomization of moral values, eliminate ethical and legal cynicism, and abolish the dictatorship of rude force and fraud as the supreme arbiters of human conduct.

(d) Instead of the spirit of rivalry and cult of success over the others, human relations must be permeated by the spirit of “oneness,” of all groups and persons, by the psychology of the free and real “we,” extended over humanity. Instead of incessant stimulation of “fighting spirit” to overcome the rivals, they must be filled with the pathos of mutual service, by profound ethics of humility and sac­rifice, by love at its noblest and best. Instead of glorification of “success” and the successful champions they must inculcate a sincere, wholehearted teamwork without the superiors and inferiors, the heroes, and the failures. The spirit of a good family in which every member is honestly doing his work, according to his ability, and where nobody thinks of a superi­ority and inferiority, is a rough approximation to this spirit of the culture and society neces­sary for the elimination of tensions, revolu­tions, and wars.

(e) Again in accordance with its major premise, the painting and sculpture, literature and music, drama and architecture, of the new culture must be quite different from contem­porary fine arts. Integralist beauty must be reunited with truth and goodness, so that the new fine arts will become a value-laden art instead of being an empty art for art’s sake. Instead of debunking the immortals, the new art must immortalize the mortals, ennoble the ignoble, and beautify the ugly. Instead of being negativistic, centered around the police morgue, criminal’s hideouts, insane asylums, and sex organs, it would reflect mainly the eternal values, positive ideals, heroic events, and great tragedies and dramas. Like the com­parable art of Greece in the fifth century B.C. and of Europe in the thirteenth century A.D., it must be an inspiring, ennobling, educating, and truly beautifying art instead of a degrad­ing, demoralizing, and enervating cult of social pathology, as contemporary art largely is.

(f) In such a culture man will again be regarded as an end-value, as an incarnation of the divine manifold rather than as a mere biological   organism,   reflex-mechanism, or psychoanalytical libido, as he is usually re­garded now. The value of man must again be lifted far above the utter degradation into which he is now thrown. Accordingly, the prac­tices, institutions, and relationships that turn man into a mere means for predominantly sensate ends will largely disappear.

(g) Most of the social institutions that con­tradict the total character of this new culture must be eliminated. The dominant form of social relationships in such a society must be neither contractual nor compulsory, but familistic. The economic and political regimes of such a society must be neither capitalistic, communistic, nor socialistic, but familistic. The enormous contrast between multimillion­aires and paupers, the rulers and the ruled, must disappear. Private property shall be limited and turned into a kind of public trusteeship. A decent minimum of the neces­sities shall be secured for all. The main motives for a socially useful economic and political life should be neither profit nor power but the motive of creative service to the society, similar to the motivation of great artists, religious leaders, scientists, and true philanthropists. Social institutions that contradict these pur­poses shall largely disappear, those that serve them will be established and reinforced.

The practical consequences of the establish­ment of such a culture and society will be im­mense, especially in the field of human men­tality, conduct, and interrelationships. The new system of values and truth will abolish the contemporary antagonism between science, philosophy, and religion; they will all be in­separable organs of a unified system of truth, all pointing toward the same verities, validities, and values. The contemporary atomization and relativization of truth, goodness, and beauty will have been terminated. With this there will be an end to the contemporary mental, moral, and social anarchy. An age of certitude will re­place our present age of uncertainty. Liberated from the gnawing tortures of uncertainty, the sapping poison of contradictions, and the weariness of confusion, the human mind will once more regain an inner harmony, peace, and happiness. With these qualities its creative vigor, self-confidence, and self-control will be restored. In such conditions most of the con­temporary psychoneuroses will evaporate. Uni­- {p. 519} versalized truth will unite into one mind all of mankind.

The general devaluation of that which is purely sensate will greatly weaken the con­temporary struggle for existence and for mate­rial values and will reinforce the quest for the rational and metarational values. As a result interindividual and intergroup antagonisms will greatly decrease, their brutal forms will wither, and man’s conduct will be ennobled and made truly social. The same result will follow from the universalized ethical norms rooted into the heart and soul of men. Not so much by external sanctions as by inner power they will inhibit most of the antisocial actions and relationships, particularly the bloody mistreatment of man by man, of group by group. The most brutal forms of crime, civil strife, and international warfare cannot thrive in such a cultural climate and will greatly decrease. The same is true of brute force and fraud as the arbiters of human con­duct.

The new fine arts will contribute their share to the same effect. By virtue of their positive beauty they will educate, inspire, instruct, fascinate, and control human beings fully as much as the new science and religion, philoso­phy and ethics. Primarily devoted to eternal beauty, the fine arts will serve also, as a by­product, the task of true socialization of homo sapiens. In this way they will contribute gen­erously to an elimination of antisocial activities, relationships, and institutions in the human universe.

Finally, through its regained harmony, peace, and happiness of mind the new culture will make human beings less egoistic, irritable, quarrelsome, violent, and antisocial. Through a release of new creative forces in all fields of sociocultural activity it will make everyone a partner and participant in the most sublime form of happiness, the happiness of a creative genius.

In these and thousands of other ways the new culture will develop a new man, happy, generous, kind, and just to himself and to all his fellowmen. Within the framework of such a culture, society, and man neither interin­dividual war (crime), nor civil war, nor inter­national war can flourish. If they do not dis­appear entirely, they will certainly decrease to the lowest minimum known in human history.

Such are the essential traits of the culture, society, and man necessary for an enduring peace in interindividual, intergroup, and inter­national relationships. Without this framework as the main condition of peace, all the other panaceas against war and revolution are futile. With it, many of these will facilitate its realization. For instance, with this sociocul­tural foundation the United Nations and other forms of superstate government will faithfully and fruitfully serve the cause of peace. With­out it, such a superstate government will be either as impotent as the defunct League of Nations or, what is still worse, may turn into a world tyranny as cruel as some of the “world empires” of the past or will lead to an in­crease of civil wars. [5] Without it the military and police forces of such a world govern­ment will certainly be misused and will even­tually serve the cause of war instead of the cause of peace. With it, all the state and super­state governments, no matter what may be their technical forms, will be true familistic democracies. As such they will actively facili­tate the maintenance of peace. Without it, no formal republican or democratic regime, even if universally diffused, can ever help—no more so than in the past, when the democratic and republican countries were at least as belligerent as the monarchical and autocratic nations and when the growth of republican and demo­cratic regimes for the last few centuries has been followed by an increase, rather than by a decrease, of war. Without this framework the further increase of scientific discoveries and technological inventions will be of just as little avail as in the past, during which, begin­ning with the thirteenth century, they have steadily and rapidly increased up to the present {p. 520} time and have been followed by an almost parallel increase of war and revolution. The same is true of the development of schools, universities, books, magazines, papers, movies, radio, theaters, and all the other means of contemporary education. Beginning with the thirteenth century, they have been steadily in­creasing without any resulting decrease of war, revolutions, or crime. This is still more true in regard to such panaceas as a more equitable distribution of the natural resources or a higher material standard of living or a more en­lightened self-interest and utilitarian “rational­ity.” Without the foregoing framework any truly equitable distribution of the natural re­sources throughout all mankind is impossible, just as it has been impossible in the past. The states and nations will remain as egotistic and rapacious as they have hitherto been. Those who believe that a diffusion of democratic forms of government would change this forget that the so-called democracies of the past and the present have been fully as imperialistic as the autocracies. They forget also the unpleas­ant but unquestionable fact that almost all such democracies, beginning with the Athenian and ending with the contemporary ones, have been based upon the severest exploitation of colonies and “spheres of influence” or have consisted of a vast layer of semifree and un-free population many times larger than the full-fledged citizenship of such democracies.

Likewise an “enlightened self-interest” and utilitarian “rationality” have been growing ever since the thirteenth century, without being accompanied by any decrease of war. One of the reasons for this is the fact that from a deeper standpoint this self-interest turns out to be a blind egotism, and utilitarian “rationality” a most irrational illusion. Util­itarian rationality is defined as the use of the most efficient means for the realization of an end desired. Typically, it has in view only the rationality of the means, and it neglects the rationality of the ends. The present war, which uses the most efficient and scientific means available for the defeat of the enemy, is perfectly rational from this standpoint; so also is the activity of a gang of efficient mur­derers, armed with the best techniques of murder, which is never caught or punished. These considerations show clearly that the truly rational action is that in which the ends as well as the means are rational. An action that uses rational means to irrational ends is particularly irrational. For this reason the utilitarian rationality of our society cannot re­gard war or revolution as irrational, and still less is it able to achieve the abolition of both.

Likewise, without this framework, the pan­aceas suggested for the eradication of crime, rioting, revolution, and civil war cannot be effective. These irrational phenomena will re­main and may even grow in spite of the pan­aceas, just as they have remained and grown during the centuries of the domination of modern culture. Notwithstanding the fact that these panaceas have been applied with especial liberality in the twentieth century, the glaring fact remains that neither crime, rioting, nor revolution has decreased; nor has the family become any better integrated; nor have suicide and mental disease declined; nor has the in­tensity of the interindividual and intergroup struggle for existence diminished; nor, if we can measure happiness by the movement of suicide, has man become any more happy. If anything, the objective results have been exactly opposite to what might be expected from the application of the panaceas.

The net result of the preceding analysis is that the suggested framework of the new cul­ture, society, and man is not the manifestation of a preacher’s complex, nor is it the “im­practical” indulgence of an armchair philoso­pher in his pet preoccupation, but rather is it a most practical, scientific, and matter-of-fact indication of the necessary conditions for a realization of the objective — a lasting peace. Without it, all the other means to building a temple of lasting peace and order are bound to be impotent or will only produce even bigger and more terrible wars and revolutions.

3. Prospects

To this conclusion may be raised the objec­tion that the new sociocultural framework is itself unrealizable and Utopian. If such an ob­jection were valid, it would only mean that an enduring peace is impossible. In that case all rational persons should stop fooling them­selves and others with the Utopia of a mankind without war, bloody revolution, and crime and should resignedly accept them as inevitable in {p. 521} the same manner in which we accept death. However, after a careful scrutiny, the objec­tion turns out to be far less axiomatic and unquestionable than it appears at first glance. In other words, the chances for a realization of the new framework, with the enduring peace that it implies, are not at all nil.

First, if mankind is going to live a creative life and is not going to sink either into the somnolence of “a benumbed and ruminating human herd” or into the tortuous agony of de­cay, the new framework is the only way that is left. The existing framework is so rotten and is progressively becoming so destructive and painful that mankind cannot creatively and contentedly live within it for any length of time. If it cannot be replaced by the new framework, then the end of mankind’s creative history, in one of the two ways just indicated, is inescapable, and science, having invented its atomic bomb, will hasten it. But such a conclusion is not inevitable; in spite of the gravity of many of the great crises that have beset mankind throughout history, human beings have always been able somehow to create new forms of culture and society that have eventually terminated the crisis. For the present there is no unquestionable evidence that a new sociocultural renaissance is im­possible.

Second, the shift from a withered sensate culture to a form of culture somewhat akin to that just outlined has happened several times in the history of Greco-Roman, western, and certain other great cultures. If it has been possible of occurrence in the past, there is every reason to suppose that it can recur in the future.

Third, if the birth of the new culture were dependent entirely upon contemporary “util­itarian rationality,” its emergence and growth would be uncertain indeed. But fortunately such is not the manner in which one form of culture is ordinarily replaced by another. The replacement is usually a result of the historical process itself, of gigantic, impersonal, spon­taneous forces immanent in a given sociocul­tural framework; and only at a later stage does it become facilitated by truly rational forces that plan and endeavor to build the new cul­ture with all available scientific means. The spontaneous forces immanent in our modern culture have already brought about its phase of decline and crisis; they have already under­mined its prestige and fascination to a con­siderable degree; they have already alienated from it a considerable portion of the popula­tion; they have robbed it of most of its charms — its security, its safety, its prosperity, its material comfort, its happiness, its sensate freedom, and all of its main values. Not in the classroom but in the hard school of life millions of people are being incessantly taught by these forces an unforgettable and indelible lesson, comprehensible to the plainest human being, that the existing framework is going to give them “stones” and bullets instead of bread; gigantic destruction in place of creative construction; misery instead of prosperity; regimentation in lieu of freedom; death, mu­tilation, and suffering instead of security of life, integrity of body, or bigger and better pleasure. With these charms progressively evaporating, this modern culture of ours has no other great values by which to hold the allegiance of humanity. Like a pretty woman whose bodily charms have gone, it is destined to lose more and more the adherence of human­ity until it has been entirely forsaken and de­throned from its dominant position in favor of a different sociocultural framework. This point has about been reached by our culture. Its magnificent creativeness, its prestige, and its charms are about over.

Parallel with this defection of humanity from contemporary culture, the same spontaneous forces are generating and increasing the quest for a different sociocultural framework, one which is more creative and adequate and less destructive and painful. This quest is at the present moment the main item in the order of the day; almost everyone is busy with the problems of the future society and culture. Only a few, who nothing forget and nothing learn, still cherish ideas of a restoration of the past and a revitalization of a withered frame­work. The overwhelming majority understand —if not by calculation and logical analysis, then by plain horse sense — that that is impos­sible. They recognize the necessity of some framework different from that which we have now.

At this stage the truly rational forces enter the play and take a guiding hand in it. With {p. 522} all the available wisdom and knowledge and with a sense of supreme duty they endeavor to create various systematic blueprints of the new sociocultural framework, to test and im­prove them, rejecting the less adequate ones and perfecting the better ones. New plans with their philosophies, ideologies, and ways and means of realization, multiply, become more and more coordinated, more and more diffused, continually accumulate a momentum and an ever increasing legion of adherents, until they become a tangible social force. This force grows and in thousands of ways begins significantly to influence human mentality and conduct, science and religion, philosophy and ethics, fine arts and social institutions. The process is slow, develops erratically from day to day, and has many deviations, mistakes, and miscarriages of its own. Altogether, it takes several decades, even a few centuries, for its full realization. Sooner or later, however, it terminates in a dethronement of the socio­cultural framework that was previously domi­nant, and in a rise to ascendancy of the new framework.

In the case of our contemporary culture we have reached the point at which the rational forces are about ready to enter the play. To­gether with the spontaneous forces of the his­torical process itself, they may be able to create a new sociocultural framework that will be a rough approximation to the one outlined above. When this objective has been reached, the utopia of a lasting peace and order will become a reality. If this is not achieved, apoca­lyptic catastrophe is ahead.

Notes:

[1] (“Sensate” is Sorokin’s term for the materialistic cultural orientation, one of Sorokin’s three main cultural types; see “Culture in Crisis: The Visionary Theories of Pitirim Sorokin” — JSU.)

[2] Irving Babbitt, “The Breakdown of Interna­tionalism” (a reprint from the Nation, June, 1915). p. 25.

[3] See a more detailed analysis of this new cul­ture, society, and man in my paper, “The Task of Cultural Rebuilding,” F. E. Johnson (ed.), World Order (New York, 1945).

[4] Cf. on rule of intuition further, Chapter 35.

[5] From 500 B.C. up to 1925 A.D. there were in the history of the Greco-Roman and western societies some 967 international and 1623 civil wars. Great civil wars were as bloody and destructive as big international wars. A mere replacement of international wars by civil wars does not give any decrease of war and increase o£ peace. Hence — the futility of a mere establishment of the world government, without the other conditions necessary for a real peace. Cf. on number of wars and revolutions Social and Cultural Dynamics, Vol. III.