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Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (; "Sorokin". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. ; – 10 February 1968) was a Russian American Sociology and political activist, who contributed to the social cycle theory.
Sorokin was a professor at Saint Petersburg Imperial University, three times imprisoned by the Czarist regime for "revolutionary activity." His active opposition to the led, after they were in power, to his arrest and sentence to death. Only with the help and intervention of friends, including Thomas Masaryk and Edouard Benes, was his sentence commuted to permanent exile, which led Sorokin to flee to Czechoslovakia.
Moving to the United States, he became a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota in 1924, and, in 1930, he was hired as head of the newly formed department of sociology at Harvard University.
Pitirim's and his older brother's father developed alcoholism. Because of this, their father had severe anxiety and panic attacks to the point where he was physically abusive to his sons. After a brutal beating that left a scar on Pitirim's upper lip, Pitirim, at the age of eleven, along with his older brother, decided that he wanted to be independent and no longer under their father's care.
Sorokin was anti-Czarist. He was arrested at the age of 17. He was arrested twice more for his anti-Czarist activities.
In the early 1900s, supporting himself as an artisan and clerk, Sorokin attended the Saint Petersburg Imperial University in Saint Petersburg, where he earned his graduate degree in criminology and became a professor.Allen Phillip, J. (1963). Pitirim A. Sorokin in Review. Durham N.C. Duke University Press
Sorokin was an Anti-communism. During the Russian Revolution he was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, a deputy of the Russian Constituent Assembly, V.I. Lenin, "The Valuable Admissions of Pitirim Sorokin", 21 November 1918. a supporter of the White movement, and a secretary to Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky. After the October Revolution, Sorokin continued to fight Communism leaders and was arrested by the new regime several times before he was eventually condemned to death. After six weeks in prison, Sorokin was released and went back to teaching at the University of Saint Petersburg, becoming the founder of the sociology department at the university. As he had been a leader among the Democrats leading up to the Russian Revolution, he was sought by Vladimir Lenin's forces after Lenin consolidated his power.
Accounts of Sorokin's activities in 1922 differ; he may have been arrested and exiled by the Soviet government, or he may have spent months in hiding before escaping the country. After leaving Russia, he emigrated to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1930. Sorokin was personally requested to accept a Harvard University position, founding the Department of Sociology and becoming a vocal critic of his colleague, Talcott Parsons.Jeffries, Vincent. "Sorokin, Pitirim," Encyclopedia of Social Theory. California: Sage Publications.In "Fads and Foibles," Sorokin accuses Parsons of borrowing his work without acknowledgement.
Sorokin was an ardent opponent of communism, which he regarded as a "pest of man". People viewed him as a leader, but some viewed him as an outcast which can be reason to why he was exiled. At the time people were not understanding of his ideas that would promote emancipation and change, and these theories he provided were not always well accepted.
Sorokin was a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota from 1924 to 1929 when he accepted an offer of a position by the president of Harvard University to join the Harvard faculty, where he continued to work until 1959. One of his students was writer Myra Page.
Sorokin's academic writings are extensive; he wrote 37 books and more than 400 articles. His controversial theories of social process and the historical typology of cultures are expounded in Social and Cultural Dynamics (4 vol., 1937–41; rev. and abridged ed. 1957) and many other works. Sorokin was also interested in social stratification, the history of sociological theory, and altruistic behavior.
Sorokin's work follows a pattern throughout time from an early period of miscellaneous writings, sociocultural dynamics and social criticism, and then altruism. He believed that altruism had a lot of scientific support for it. After going to Harvard in 1930, Sorokin found his calling and began his famous study of world civilization which led to the work for which he is best known, Social and Cultural Dynamics. This work set the tone for the condemnation of our Sensate culture which is prominent in all of Sorokin's writings since 1937. This condemnation is part of the reason he was always challenged because people were not ready and acceptive of the idea of change and nobody was willing to take responsibility for their actions. Sorokin's extensive study convinced him that our civilization is overly materialistic, disorganized, and in imminent danger of collapse. He spent the next dozen years in warning the public of the danger and seeking a way out and a way to change society.
Hornell Hart criticized Sorokin's statistical analysis in Social and Cultural Dynamics.
One of his works, Russia and the United States (1944) is considered wartime propaganda for the peace. Sorokin argues that American and Russian culture have so much in common that these two nations, destined to be the leading postwar power centers, will have a secure basis for friendship. Both nations exemplify unity in diversity. Their cultures favor breadth of outlook, cosmopolitanism, and a healthy self-esteem tempered with tolerance of other societies.
His works are timeless due to the fact they were able to open up new fields of study and make way for more innovative ways of thinking. His works covered a wide variety of topics from rural sociology, war, revolution, social mobility, and social change. He stayed true to his works though and part of the reason he was able to fight for so much change and reform was his commitment to his religion. He was of Komi descent and they were considered some of the most hardworking and religious people in Europe.
He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a world constitution. As a result, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.
Social stratification refers to the fact that all societies are hierarchically divided, with upper and lower strata and unequal distribution of wealth, power, and influence across strata. There is always some mobility between these strata. People or groups may move up or down the hierarchy, acquiring or losing their power and influence.
Social conflict refers to Sorokin's theory of war. Whether internal to a nation or international, peace is based on the similarity of values among a country or between different nations. War has a destructive phase when values are destroyed and a declining phase, when some of the values are restored. Sorokin thought that the number of wars would decrease with increased solidarity and decreased antagonism. If a society's values stressed altruism instead of egoism, the incidence of war would diminish.
He suggested that significant civilizations evolve from a conceptual to an idealistic, and eventually to a sensate mentality. Each of these phases of cultural development not only seeks to describe the nature of reality, but also stipulates the nature of human needs and goals to be satisfied, the extent to which they should be satisfied, and the methods of satisfaction. Sorokin has interpreted the contemporary Western civilization as a sensate civilization, dedicated to technological progress and prophesied its fall into decadence and the emergence of a new ideational or idealistic era. In Fads and Foibles, he criticizes Lewis Terman's Genetic Studies of Genius research, showing that his selected group of children with high IQs did about as well as a random group of children selected from similar family backgrounds would have done.
In his work on love, "Altruistic Love", Sorokin hopes to make the first steps toward discovering what kinds of people are likely to become saintly or neighborly, and eventually to lay the groundwork for producing more people that fit this profile for the betterment of society. He did this by studying the lives of saints, neighbors and other people based upon their sex, gender, race and socioeconomic status.
Sorokin founded the Center for the Study of Creative Altruism at Harvard, where he developed quantitative and qualitative research into the ethics of love and social solidarity. Through examining case studies of altruistic love in various cultures and religious traditions, the center advocated an overcoming of human conflict through the disciplined fostering of altruistic love.
Although Sorokin and Parsons worked together as colleagues, Sorokin heavily criticized Parsons' works due to having opposing views. Sorokin disapproved of America's ways of civilization and felt as if it was in decline, creating tension between Sorokin and Parsons (Parsons being an American sociologist while Sorokin was Russian). The rift between them was put to the test when Harvard University and the American sociology community favored Parsons views, and Sorokin's administrative position in Harvard was seized.
Sorokin's research also focused on rural society, making him more approachable and referable by other moral conservatives. This initiated his collaboration with Carle Zimmerman, and together they expanded on the perspective of rural-urban sociology. They believed that the rural way of life was established from the following characteristics: a conservative and traditional family, an economy based on manual labor or from a family and home business and their connection to it, whether it be sociologically, demographically, or economically.
One of Sorokin's popular works was his presidential address, which was titled "Sociology of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow". In this address Sorokin talked a lot about sociology's transformation from discovery to investigation. A lot of sociologists at the time are beginning to refine older theories and works, while adapting to growth in society. Sorokin himself worked to verify the methods of preceding sociologists, while taking a look into the future of sociology and in what aspects it could grow and be influenced. He acknowledged how sociology was now viewed as meaningful and a "realm of reality". Some influences of sociology Sorokin looked at was cultural systems, social systems, and individuals who create, realize and exchange.
Sorokin also impacted the forty-eighth vice president, Mike Pence, who quoted him while defending his failed House Resolution, the Marriage Protection Amendment in 2006, when there were same-sex marriage debates. Pence stated, "Marriage matters according to the researchers. Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin found that throughout history, the societal collapse was always brought about following the advent of the deterioration of marriage and family”.
In 1942, Rushton Coulborn and W. E. B. Du Bois praised Sorokin, describing him as one of their great contemporary social scientists.
Sorokin wrote president John F. Kennedy in 1961 when the United States were at a peak level of friction with Russia. In his letter, Sorokin expressed himself as knowledgeable in interacting with communist leaders. He also attempted to call for no war, as he believed none of the underlying issues would be solved until "mutual relationships be replaced by real friendly relationships". He also calls for Kennedy to refer to his sociological work "Mutual Convergence of the United States and the U.S.S.R. to the Mixed Sociocultural type" to help his decision on war and what to do with the relationship between the United States and Russia.
Sorokin suffered from a severe illness, and after struggling for two years, he died on 10 February 1968, aged 79, in Winchester, Massachusetts. A Russian Orthodox service was held at home for the family, followed by an eclectic service at the Memorial Church of Harvard University.Sergei P. Sorokin, " Life With Pitirim Sorokin: A Younger Son's Perspective".
The University of Saskatchewan currently holds Sorokin's papers in Saskatoon, Canada, where they are available to the public. In March 2009, the Sorokin Research Center was established at Syktyvkar State University facilities in Syktyvkar, Republic of Komi, for the purpose of research and publication of archive materials, mainly from the collection at the University of Saskatchewan. The first research project, "Selected Correspondence of Pitirim Sorokin: Scientist from Komi on The Service of Humanity" (in Russian), has been drafted and will be in print in the fall of 2009 in Russia.
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