Pitirim Sorokin
Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (born on January 21, 1889, in a village of Turya, in northern Russia - died Fabruary 11, 1968) was an important figure in the 20th century American sociology, and a founder of the department of sociology at Harvard University.
Life
A son of an icon maker, Pitirim Sorokin grew up in a rather poor family of the pre-communist Russia. After a death of his wife, Sorokin’s father became an alcoholic, often turning to rage and violence against his own children. Such experience probably bared mark on Sorokin, who later became famous for his fierceness in the academic field. Sorokin received formal education in criminal law and sociology. During his young adulthood he became an activist against Tsarist government, and was subsequently jailed several times. After the Bolshevik revolution and the raise of communism, Sorokin started to teach and write, publishing his first book in criminology. He soon after established the first Department of Sociology at Petrograd University in 1919-20. However, he soon came under the attack by the Soviet police, after fiercely criticizing the government of ineffectiveness and corruption. Sorokin and his wife, Elena, whom he married in 1917, left Russia in September 1923 and moved to Prague. However, Sorokin soon after escaped and settled in America where he continued to teach and do research.
Sorokin soon became famous and rather respected scholar. In 1924 he was invited by the head of the sociology department to teach at the University of Minnesota, where he stayed for six years and wrote six books. Sorokin soon became one of the founders of the Department of Sociology at Harvard, where he continued to teach from 1930 to 1955. He became a 55th president of the American Sociological Association in 1965. In his later life Sorokin, however, became somewhat isolated and neglected by his contemporaries. That didn’t bother him though. He continued to work on his own projects, directing his Research Center in Creative Altruism until his retirement at the end of 1959 at the age of seventy. He died on February 11, 1968 surrounded by his wife and two sons, all of whom were successful scientists.
Works
Sorokin’s started to gain reputation after his work at the University of Minnesota. There he wrote six books, four of them rather controversial for their time: Social Mobility (1927), Contemporary Sociological Theories (1928), Principles of Rural-Urban Sociology (1929) with Carle C. Zimmerman and the first of the three volume work A Systematic Source Book in Rural Sociology (1929) with Zimmerman and Charles J. Galpin. It was the fame of those books based on which Sorokin was invited to became the first chair of the newly formed Department of Sociology at Harvard. Influenced by the ideas of Pavlov and the operant conditioning, Sorokin based his approach to sociology in a more practical oriented, positivistic manner. With that he set himself in direct opposition to more philosophical schools – Chicago School and Social Darwinists – which dominated American sociology of the first half of 20th century. Sorokin’s sharp language and iron determinism brought him under severe criticism of several influential scientists - Talcott Parsons and his followers. The clash between the two views lasted for decades, and the exact nature of the disagreement is still a matter of debate among sociologists today.
During his thirty years at Harvard, Sorokin turned from scientific sociology toward philosophy of history. In his Social and Cultural Dynamics he tried to find out the basic principles of social change. He analyzed and compared the history of art, ethics, philosophy, science, religion and psychology. Based on those general principles of human history, in his Dynamics Sorokin predicted modern civilization moving toward bloody period of transition. That period will be characterized with wars, revolutions, and general conflict. Sorokin spent almost twenty years of his life studying human conflict, but also the means to reduce that conflict – integralism and altruism. Sorokin believed that through understanding past and present human condition, we could understand how to prevent social violence. Sorokin’s approach to that was rather broad. He wanted to include all spheres of knowledge to find the ultimate answer. He believed that science alone cannot give the answer, but that knowledge must be integrated, based on empirical, rational, and supersensory input. Truth thus is multidimensional, consisting of sensory, mental, and spiritual parts. With this combination of Eastern and Western philosophical traditions, Sorokin challenged purely empirical scientific method, what ultimately draw severe criticism from the scholar community and subsequent Sorokin’s isolation. Furthermore, Sorokin claimed that sociologists needed to study how to improve human condition, and not only to observe it. That can be achieved through teaching people be more loving and compassionate. Sorokin spent more than ten years in researching human altruism, and eventually established the Harvard Center for Creative Altruism. He published numerous books on altruism. When in 1963 he became the president of the American Sociological Association, Sorokin finally became acknowledged as one of the greatest figures in 20th century American sociology.
Legacy
The legacy of Pitirim Sorokin is multifaceted. His studies on social mobility, social conflict, and social change have secured him worldwide recognition. In his work, Sorokin always tried to take integrative approach, broadening the concept of scientific method by including not only empirical and sensory knowledge, but also arguing for the acceptance of supersensory, or spiritual dimension of it. Although being criticized for those ideas, Sorokin remained faithful to them. He also influences many important scholars of 20th century sociology - Robert Merton, Wilbert Moore, Kingsley Davis, Robert Bierstedt, Robin Williams, Charles Tilly and Edward Tiryakian. Sorokin’s studies on altruism and how to improve human condition can be seen as an overture to a modern humanistic psychology.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Cuzzort, R. P. and King, E. W. (1995). Twentieth-Century social thought (5th ed.). New York, NY: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
- Mills, C. W. (2000). The sociological imagination. New York, NY: The Oxford University Press
- Sorokin, P. A. (1970). Social and Cultural Dynamics. Boston, MA: Porter Sargent Publishers.
- Sorokin, P. A. (1992). The crisis of our age. Chatam, NY: Oneworld Publications, Ltd
- Sorokin, P. A. & Lunden, W. A. (1959). Power and morality: who shall guard the guardians? Boston, MA: Porter Sargent Publishers.
Credits
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