Harvard Research Center in Creative Altruism

Discussion

Emiliana Mangone and Alexander Dolgov:

The activities of the Harvard Research Center in Creative Altruism allowed Sorokin to focus the attention of researchers — albeit with few followers — on themes such as love and altruism, previously overlooked by the social sciences as these were too committed to seeking negative values instead of positive ones. According to Sorokin, change must begin by rediscovering the positive values of man, and science is also a guide to overcoming strictly sensate models of knowledge.

Three accounts of the center’s activities have been published (in English and French), all signed by Sorokin (1955, 1963 chapter 15, 1998a), but each of them has a different ending — yet they can all be traced back to Sorokin’s basic idea that social scientists must take a leading role in the social transformations needed to “rebuild humanity.”

The report published in the French magazine Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie ends with the following statement:

- “L’humanité se meurt par disette d’amour. Les vastes champs de l’univers humain demandentdes jardiniers de cette fleur merveilleuse. Vivos voco! (Sorokin 1955, p. 103).

Needless to say, the social scientists did not answer the call. It is interesting to point out that this “call” was not spelled as such in the two English versions. In the version published after Sorokin’s death thanks to his son Sergei (Sorokin 1998a) and derived from private documents there is no “call,” but there is one — albeit in less categorical terms, but equally clear and always in Latin — in the report published in his autobiography:

- “I have devoted some ten years of my life to the study of the ‘mysterious energy of love’. This study has seemingly added something to the extant knowledge of this energy. If the results are more modest than I might have wished, my excuse can be expressed by an old adage Feci quod potui faciant meliora potentes” (Sorokin 1963, p. 292).

These different endings, however, merely confirm Sorokin’s firm belief in the potential of social sciences as a guide for humanity, to the point of even hypothesizing the birth of a new applied science that would promote friendship, unconditional love, and mutual aid. Sorokin proposed to developing this new science of love that he named “Amitology,” characterized as “an applied science of amity and unselfish love” (Sorokin 1951).

As Rusu notes: “At the core of amitology lie two complementary high ideals: an anthropological end, aiming to discover the most efficient techniques for the altruistic transformation of human personality, and a societal ideal, aiming to reconstruct humanity as a universal community of altruistic love. At a micro-level, Sorokin strove for amitology to lead to the ‘creative-altruisation’ of persons and groups, that is, to people’s characterial transfiguration through the power of love. On the macro-level of redeeming society of its evils and hate, conflict and war, violence and inequality, Sorokin imagined a political economy of love based on ‘finding and inventing the most efficient ways of production, accumulation, and circulation of love energy in the human universe’” (Rusu 2018, p. 11).

In fact, for Sorokin

- “The historical moment has struck for building a new applied science or a new art of amitology – the science and art cultivation of amity, unselfish love, and mutual help in interindividual and integroup relationships. A mature amitology is now the paramount need of humanity. Its development tangibly determines the creative future of Homo sapiens” (Sorokin 1951, p. 277).

The first task of this new discipline is an accurate analysis of the main aspects, properties, and basic forms of altruistic relationship and love energy, which means that amitology actually starts from the study of social relations and interactions. The application ofthese assumptions implies an understanding of the mechanisms by which human beings make their decisions based on their degree of knowledge about a given situation. As stated by Krotov “Sorokin believed in the reformist mission of sociology. He pioneered amitological studies, in so doing translating macro-theory into applied research” (Krotov 2014, p. 146)

We are back to the problem that Sorokin raised in Integralism is My Philosophy (1958a) onthe construction of an integrated system of knowledge that may hold together the three forms: empirical-sensory, reason, and intuition; a system of knowledge able to provide as many elements as possible to understand superorganic phenomena, so as to have the opportunity, whenever possible, to foresee their transformation.

As Nichols notes (2012, p. 266): throughout his “altruistic period,” Sorokin emphasized two arguments:

(1) that sociology should study the positive as well as the pathological; and

(2) that only “the mysterious energy of love” could overcome the severe conflicts and anomie of the times, which he called “the crisis of our age.”

As we can see, Sorokin embedded the problem of altruism into the context of social and cultural dynamics and the social and cultural crisis. He saw the solution to the crisis problem in the study and understanding of altruism or “the mysterious energy of love. ”Altruism in Sorokin’s works is closely intertwined with integralism. Integralism is an epistemological principle that allows one to fully understand reality.

As an epistemological principle, Sorokin’s integralism intends a three-dimensional reality that is known by humans through three channels of cognition.

(1) The universe of physical phenomena is known by the five organs of sense;

(2) the realm of ideas is known by a reason;

(3) phenomena that are not known by the senses and the reason are understood through intuition.

Sorokin argues for the three channels of cognition all together make harmonious contributions to the full knowledge. Jeffries notes that theoretical and research program of integralism center around the practical question of how love and morality can be increased in personality, society, and culture (Jeffries1999, p. 51). As social phenomena integralism and altruism predetermine each other: an integral worldview creates the prerequisites for an altruistic transformation, and vice versa, altruistic behavior becomes the basis for the formation of an integral worldview. According to Sorokin, transformations must begin with a rediscovery of the positive values of man, and science acts as a guide also by overcoming of strictly sensate models of knowledge. In the case of sociology, it is not only a sociology of the crisis, but a “critical sociology” that does not stop at analyzing the processes of degeneration of society but seeks its deep roots by denouncing the negative factors that determine it.

Sorokin believed that values of waning sensate culture obstruct to the “altruistic tendencies” in social life. For Sorokin, the values of sensate culture predetermine people’s belief in power, selfishness, struggle, violence, hedonism, and mercantile interests. He argued that the scientific community supports this worldview by focusing on the study of social problems and social pathologies. At the time when Sorokin expressed his “foolish” ideas—as they were then defined by some of his colleagues (Sorokin 1955) — and still today while this work is coming into being, no solution has yet been found for the devastations and wars.

This is because individuals tried to act from the outside, thinking of changing political and economic institutions without intervening on the individuals themselves. These attempts are destined to fail because, to change institutions and the economic system, it is necessary to change the individuals acting in these very institutions and systems. Or, rather, it is necessary to transform people’s way of interacting by orienting them towards the love relationship that characterizes a free, harmonious, humanistic, and creative society."

(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331716540_Sorokin%27s_Altruistic_Creative_Love_Genesis_Methodological_Issues_and_Applied_Aspects [accessed Jun 22 2023].)

More information

• King, U. (2004). Theories of love: Sorokin, Teilhard and Tillich. Love - a higher form of human energy in the work of Teilhard de Chardin and Sorokin. Zygon, 39(1), 77–102.

Krotov, P. (2014). Pitirim Sorokin's heritage: from core ideas to syntheses of theory and of practice. In V. Jeffries (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of altruism, morality, and social solidarity. Formulating a field of study (pp. 123–147). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Levin, J., & Kaplan, B.H. (2010). The Sorokin multidimensional inventory of love experience (SMILE):development, validation, and religious determinants. Review of Religious Research, 51(4), 380–401.

Nichols, L. T. (2005). Integralism and positive psychology: a comparison of Sorokin and Seligman. Catholic Social Science Review, 10, 21–40

Rusu, M. S. (2018). Theorizing love in sociological thought: classical contributions to a sociology of love. Journal of Classical Sociology, 20(1), 3–20.

Sorokin

* Sorokin, P. A. (1955). Les travaux du Centre de recherches de Harvard sur l’altruisme créateur. Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, 19, 92–103

* Sorokin, P. A. (1998a). Studies of the Harvard Research Center in Creative Altruism. In B. V. Johnston (Ed.), On the practice of sociology (pp. 305–316). Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Sorokin, P. A. (1951). Amitology as an applied science of amity and unselfish love. In K. G. Specht (Ed.), Soziologische Forschung in Unserer Zeit (pp. 277–279). Köln und Opladen: Springer Fachmedien Viesbaden.

Sorokin, P. A. (Ed.). (1954a). Forms and techniques of altruistic spiritual growth. A symposium. Boston: Beacon Press.

Sorokin, P. A. (1954b). The ways and power of love. Types, factors and techniques of moral transformation. Boston: Beacon Press.