Prophet

"We are in the midst of an enormous conflagration burning everything into ashes.... Western culture is covered by a blackout. A great tornado sweeps over the whole of mankind."

The day of reckoning is at hand. The nature of the contemporary crisis involves the ultimate question of man's capacity to survive it. The odds on the survival of mankind: 52 to 55 for, 48 to 45 against. The path to salvation: creative altruism.

These are the deeply felt convictions of Pitirim A. Sorokin, director of the Harvard Research Center in Creative Altruism, and one of the most widely read social scientists alive today. The author of more than thirty books, including Social and Cultural Dynamics, The American Sex Revolution, and The Crisis of Our Age, Sorokin's dire predictions are read in twenty languages, and the body of commentary on his work is staggering.

Sorokin steps over to the huge bookcase in his wood-panelled study and points proudly to a recent translation of his work in Chinese. "You can even read my yarns in Hindustani now," the genial professor smiles. In fact, volumes of his "yarns," the name which Sorokin fondly attaches to his theories, together with translations and commentaries upon them, occupy almost all of the space on the shelves. Sorokin picks up a new work by Ortega y Gasset, which he has been asked to review, and he suggests that perhaps the Spanish social thinker may have "borrowed" some of his ideas, though y Gasset doesn't acknowledge any influence. "I'm very widely read in Spain," he notes, a quizzical smile accompanying the revelation. This suggestion that many sociologists have swiped his ideas is one of his favorite themes. But he takes an obvious pride in the esteem reflected in such judicious intellectual thievery. Sorokin notes with pride that he was made the most revered and respected sociologist at the recent Congress of the International Institute of Sociology.

In discussing his colleagues and other interpreters of contemporary society, Sorokin is somewhat less generous. He has little patience for contemporary salesmen of comfortable panaceas, referring to them disparagingly as "Pollyannas of easy optimism." For his salvation from the imminent deluge, Sorokin urges, modern man must look neither to religious conversion ("mainly a cheap self-gratification for psycho-neurotics"), nor to psychoanalysis ("please regard it as the last step before suicide"), nor to changes in political leadership ("but who is going to guard the Guardians?"). The main channels are blocked. To what can man turn?

Sorokin submits universal love, "the notable altruization of human beings, groups, institutions, and culture," as the only possible solution to the crisis of modern culture. He leans forward on the edge of his chair and announces that "the paramount task of our time is the altruistic transformation of man."

If man can in time learn the lesson of creative love and thereby avert suicide in another great war, Sorokin urges, a new form of Western culture, built on a stronger and more durable foundation, will emerge phoenix-like from the ashes left by the he notes, self-interest and altruism dictate the same current conflagration. For the first time in history, policy. Love or perish--the choices for Western man are limited.