Author Information
Professor of Love
Everyone has read a self-help or a popular psychology book or article at one time or another. Few people would be hard-pressed to recall the name of an eminent psychologist or psychiatrist along with a few psychological terms that have passed into common usage. That is not surprising in a society that stresses individuality instead of sociability, a society of individuals who are often relatively distressed with familiar relations as well as discontented with the restraints of a civilization often perceived as a highly organized rat-race.
Popular psychology gets plenty of public attention but sociology gets hardly any at all. Once in awhile the media calls our attention to a statistical study. We do not find a pop-sociology or help-others section in our bookstores, and nobody seems to care much about sociology, really. Just Ask almost anyone on the street, "Who are your favorite sociologists?" Does she rattle off, "Well, let me see, now. Hmm, There's Ludwig Gumplowitz, Albion Small, Lester Ward, William Graham Sumner and, uh, Pitirim Sorokin." Who? Nobody knows. And what a crying shame that is.
I was pleasantly surprised to see Pitirim Sorokin's name in my local newspaper on May 3, 1998. Professor London of New York University, at the outset of his article entitled Culture so degraded, outrage is absent, briefly mentioned Professor Sorokin's theory, that our culture is in an "advanced sensate stage" - a culture where sensual pleasures predominate. Professor London then presented a twenty-five paragraph manifesto of his moral sense of our cultural degradation. He did not mention Professor Sorokin's remedy for degradation:
Love.
Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1968) became professor of sociology at Harvard in 1930. We might call him a professor of Love, for he dedicated a great deal of his research to the study of Love and its effectiveness. For instance, in The Ways and Power of Love (Boston: Beacon, 1954), he devoted his fourth chapter, 'Power of Creative Love,' to summarizing "a vast body of evidence in favor of the enormous power of creative love, friendship, and nonviolent, non-aggressive conduct in human affairs and social life" in response to "the bias against all theories that try to prove the power of love" in this 'Sensate Culture' where "we are prone to believe in the power of the struggle for existence, selfish interests, egoistic competition, hate, the fighting instinct, sex drives, the instinct of death and destruction, all-powerful economic factors, rude coercion and other negative forces, theories that are considered the last word in modern science", and are even adopted by chambers of commerce as mottoes commemorating the negative forces that "made America great." Professor Sorokin then provides overwhelming historical evidence of good works, to prove that "love begets love and hate produces hate."
Professor Sorokin edited and contributed an article to Forms and Techniques of Altruistic and Spiritual Growth (Boston: Beacon, 1954), a Symposium of the Harvard Research Center in Creative Altruism. In its introduction he defines 'altruism' as the standard of conduct stated in the Sermon on the Mount, and 'spiritual' as the identification of a person's true being with the supra-conscious, ineffable being, and identification that makes the body and mind an instrument of the immortal self. Various essays in the symposium discuss the techniques of Yoga, Sufism, Islam, Christianity, Zen, and others, the scientific significance of those techniques, and provide scientific methods for converting enemies to friends. In his own article 'Dynamics of Interpersonal Friendship and Enmity', Professor Sorokin discusses his empirical social study of friends and enemies, concluding therefrom that the best way to make friends and overcome enmity is by doing Good Deeds. He claims that Good Deeds are more effective than words, counseling, preaching, and psychoanalysis: "The prescriptions of the Sermon on the Mount for transformation of enemies into friends are scientifically valid; they are not mere preaching of noble precepts, but the most effective scientific techniques for the purpose."
In Explorations of Altruistic Love and Behavior (Boston: Beacon, 1950), Sorokin argues that Love is more ontological than emotional; that is, Love is the essence of Being because it is "the highest form of a unifying, integrating, harmonizing creative energy or power." Love is therefore the Universal Force counteracting the strife that ends in death and decay. Only by the power of Love can a person be in harmony with others and not subject to being overwhelmed by their numbers. In his chapter titled 'Love: its aspects', Sorokin adumbrates an economic theory of Love. He sets forth Five Dimensions of Love - Intensity, Extensity, Duration, Purity, and Adequacy - and provides examples of "uniformities" within and between the categories.
For those who have a penchant for numerical operations, in the tenth chapter of Explorations, one may refer to Nicolas Rashevsky's paper, 'Mathematical Theory of Egoistic and Altruistic Behavior', with algebraic equations relevant to constantly varying mutual satisfactions.
Unlike Professor London, Professor Sorokin does not recommend outrage in response to the degradation evident in the vulgar aspects of our culture. Again, he recommends Love. He is all too familiar with outraged people and their outrageous conduct. He experienced five years of outrageous revolutionary behavior. Sorokin was secretary to Alexander Kerensky in 1917. He was eventually arrested by the Communists, sentenced to death, released at the last moment due to the influence of friends, and, later on, banished. His scientific findings on revolution may be found in The Sociology of Revolution (New York: Howard Fertig, 1967). Yet, if we want to get to know him personally, we should read his gripping Leaves From a Russian Diary and Thirty Years After (Boston: Beacon, 1950). A sample:
"What do you think they will do with us?", asked one of his fellow prisoners.
"Probably you will be liberated very soon. But I did not explain what I meant by 'liberation'....If at the hour of their liberation, instead of the joyful faces of those they love they see the tragic face of Death, the final agony will be comparatively short. It takes just an hour to go from here to the place of execution...."
Later on, this blunt entry in the diary: "I am to be shot." And further: "Seven young men were brought in today....tomorrow they will be executed. They know it. Three of them are silent....they are praying. This prayer is the last deepest token of life, and the highest and purest manifestation of Spirit. Their 'self' is now only spiritual, their eyes see the depth of Truth and their bodies are nothing but garments seen by the others and felt not by them."
Professor Sorokin was released from prison and restored to his university post, but he was prohibited from teaching so he conducted research in the field; he studied the famine brought about by the efforts to eliminate cultural degradation in Russia. There were no animals left in the field - no cows, pig, crows or rats. Cemeteries were dug up for food. Bodies had been locked in storage bins to keep them from being cannibalized until such time as decent rites could be performed. One woman reputedly sacrificed her own child, boiling and eating its legs. That is what happens when outrage is organized to fight perceived degradation, a fight that inevitably requires the violent suppression of all opposition to its definitions.
Sorokin wrote up his report on the famine, then managed to get out of Russia. The Communists destroyed his report, and, as he began publishing his works in other countries, they had cause to regret they had let him slip out of their hands.
The Professor of Love said his revolutionary experience had taught him three lessons: we must affirm life no matter how hard that life is; only duty can make life happy; and hate and cruelty can never have good results. Moreover, revolutions are bound to fail, because hate inspires more hate. On the other hand, love draws more love. Love is creative. And all this has been scientifically proven. There is only one kind of good revolution: a holy war against death, disease, hate, misery, insanity and destruction. Therefore we must stop the fight of war of all against all and start a holy war of every one against inhumanity and evil. For that holy war, the Professor of Love highly recommends the most formidable weapon of all.
