Sorokin and Civilization by Joseph B. Ford & Michel P. Richard & Palmer C. Talbutt

Author:Joseph B. Ford & Michel P. Richard & Palmer C. Talbutt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2018-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

The continued elaboration of one system of truth is a historical process of small crises and small redefinitions, or extensions of the meanings, all the way to the limits or monopolistic dominance of one type of truth. At end, this process leads to the supersystem’s change or replacement. Sorokin states: “Any system of truth that is dominant begins to be undermined from within the system itself” (1937b, 11:52). Because a monopolistic supersystem contains only “partial truth” and the rest is “falsehood” (which augments as a function of the degree of dominance) in relation to “The Infinite Manifold” or “Integral Truth,” a dialectic (or contradiction) exists, which, over time and with accumulating experience, enlarges itself.

Hence, “[t]he moment comes when the false part of the system begins to outweigh its valid part” (1941, 743). Herein lies the cardinal point. In its dominant form, any monistic system of truth “becomes less and less capable of serving as an instrument of adaptation.... Under such conditions, the society of its bearers is doomed either to perish, or it has to change its major premise—to ‘redefine the situation’—and with it, its system of culture” (Sorokin 1941, 743).

As instruments of adaptation, the failure of supersystems is seen in crises. Existing definitions of situations prove inadequate or irrelevant. Needs go unmet. The point is that it is new circumstances or challenges external to the system of meanings that eventually demand explanation. They are, in different words, circumstances or experiences that fall beyond or outside what the existing “supersystem” or “system of culture” can render comprehensible. The issue, then, is the subjective adequacy of explanation (found within the existing supersystem or cultural mentality) vis-à-vis changing experience that presses hard on the old definitions and makes redefinitions an adaptive necessity. This explanatory inadequacy—the failure of existing cultural thoughtways to make sense of new experience—eventually grows into a crisis of the mind, which in turn prompts fresh approaches to the looming problem of uncertainty and meaning.

None of this is random. The broader concept that encompasses Sorokin’s view of the motive force for major change is not that of the inner dialectic, with its fault lines or “cracks” and “splits,” though this may be subsumed; but it is adequacy or inadequacy in general as this is manifest in collective experience. And adequacy (or inadequacy) of such cultural materials or coping devices as supersystems is measured, as it were, in relation to the demands and needs brought to bear by repeated and changing experience, particularly the experience of crisis. As crises undermine the authenticity of old cultural paradigms, of existing meanings and definitions, they spark the creation of alternatives. It is, then, the concept of crisis (and consequent pressure for adjustive change) that is indispensable to this facet of Sorokin’s theory of sociocultural change. Sorokin himself, is very clear about this:

In the history of many creative groups the leading religious and ethical systems have ordinarily originated or been notably ennobled and perfected during periods of internal anarchy, tragic and devastating wars, grave pestilences or famines, or similar major calamities and crises, or else immediately after such calamities.

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