XPost: alt.society.conservatism, alt.society.liberalism, alt.soc   
   ety.mental-health   
   XPost: alt.politics.england.misc   
   From: mlwi@swipnet.se   
      
   The following excerpt is from the book "The  Crisis of our Age" by   
   sociology professor P.A. Sorokin (1889-1968). I scanned it because I   
   find it pertinent as a critique of era, although he wrote it more than   
   70 years ago. Things have gone from bad to worse.   
      
   TRAGIC DUALISM, CHAOTIC SYNCRETISM, QUANTITATIVE COLOSSALISM, AND   
   DIMINISHING CREATIVENESS OF THE CONTEMPORARY SENSATE CULTURE   
      
   I. THE CULTURE OF MAN'S GLORIFICATION AND DEGRADATION   
      
   When any socio-cultural system enters the stage of its disintegration,   
   the following four symptoms of the disintegration appear and grow in it:   
   first, the inner self-contradictions of an irreconcilable dualism in   
   such a culture; second, its formlessness - a chaotic syncretism of   
   undigested elements taken from different cultures; third, a quantitative   
   colossalism - mere size and quantity at the cost of quality; and fourth,   
   a progressive exhaustion of its creativeness in the field of great and   
   perennial values. In addition to all the signs of disintegration   
   discussed previously, these four symptoms of disintegration have already   
   emerged and are rampant in this contemporary sensate culture of ours.   
      
   Our culture in its present sensate phase is full of irreconcilable   
   contradictions. It proclaims equality of all human beings; and it   
   practices an enormous number of intellectual, moral, mental, economic,   
   political, and other inequalities. It proclaims "the equality of   
   opportunity" in theory; in practice it provides practically none. It   
   proclaims "government of the people, for the people, and by the people";   
   in practice it tends to be more and more an oligarchy or a plutocracy or   
   a dictatorship of this or that faction. It stimulates an expansion of   
   wishes and wants, and it inhibits their satisfaction. It proclaims   
   social security and a decent minimum of living conditions for everyone,   
   even as it is progressively destroying security for all and showing   
   itself incapable of eliminating unemployment or of giving decent   
   conditions to the masses. It strives to achieve the maximum of happiness   
   for the maximum number of human beings, but it increasingly fails in   
   that purpose. It advertises the elimination of group hatreds, while in   
   fact it increasingly seethes with group antagonism of every kind -   
   racial, national, state, religious, class and others. The unprecedented   
   explosion of internal disturbances and wars of the twentieth century is   
   an incontrovertible evidence of that failure. Our culture condemns   
   egotisms of all kinds and boasts of the socialization and humanization   
   of everything and everybody; in reality, it displays unbridled greed,   
   cruelty, and egotism of individuals as well as of groups, beginning with   
   innumerable lobbying and pressure groups and continuing throughout   
   economic, political, occupational, religious, state, family, and other   
   groups. And so on, and so on.   
      
   Without attempting to enumerate all the self-contradictions of this   
   culture of ours, let us take, instead, what appears to be its central   
   self-contradiction. This consists in the fact that 'our culture   
   simultaneously is a culture of man's glorification and of man's   
   degradation'. On the one hand, it boundlessly glorifies man and extols   
   man-made culture and society. On the other, it utterly degrades the   
   human being and all his cultural and social values. We live in an age   
   which exalts man as the supreme end, and, at the same time, an age which   
   vilifies man and his cultural values endlessly. The "World of Tomorrow"   
   in the New York World's Fair is a flat symbol of one aspect of this   
   tragic dualism; the catastrophe of the present war is a sign of the   
   other.   
      
   Never before has man displayed such a genius for scientific discoveries   
   and technological inventions. No previous period can rival the power of   
   contemporary man in the modification of cosmic and biological conditions   
   to suit his needs. At no time before has man been the molder of his own   
   destiny to such an extent as he is now. We live, indeed, in an age of   
   the greatest triumph of human genius.   
      
   No wonder, therefore, that we are proud of man. It is not strange that   
   our culture has become homo-centric, humanitarian, and humanistic 'par   
   excellence'. Man is its glorious center. It makes him "the measure of   
   all things." It exalts him as the hero and the greatest value, not by   
   virtue of his creation by God in God's own image, but in his own right,   
   by virtue of man's own marvelous achievements. It substitutes the   
   religion of humanity for the religions of superhuman deities. It   
   professes a firm belief in the possibility of limitless progress based   
   on man's ability to control his own destiny, to eradicate all social and   
   cultural evils, and to create an even better and finer world, free from   
   war and bloody strife, from crime, poverty, insanity, stupidity, and   
   vulgarity. In all these respects we live, indeed, in an era of a truly   
   great glorification of man and his culture.   
      
   Unfortunately, this dazzling facade is not the only aspect of our   
   cultural and social edifice. Like the mythical double-faced Janus, it   
   has another - and more sinister - face, the face of a great degradation   
   and de-humanization of man; of debasement, distortion, and desecration   
   of all social and cultural values. If the dazzling facade glorifies man   
   as a divine hero, the second face strips him of anything divine and   
   heroic. If one face of our culture shows it as a creative flame of human   
   genius rising higher and higher - 'per aspera ad astra' - to the eternal   
   world of absolute values, its second face sneers at such a self-delusion   
   and drags it down to the level of a mere reflexological ant hill, to the   
   mere "adjustment mechanism" of human ants and bees.   
      
   We do not like to parade this sinister face of our culture; it is not   
   exhibited at any World's Fair; and yet it is as certain as any solid   
   fact can be. Even more, in the course of time, as we have seen, it is   
   appearing more and more frequently, and progressively tends to   
   overshadow the sunny aspect of our cultural world. A mere glance at the   
   main compartments of our culture will be sufficient to show this fact.   
      
   To begin with, take 'contemporary science' and ask how it defines man.   
   The current answers are, as we have seen, that man is a variety of   
   electron-proton complex; or an animal closely related to the ape or   
   monkey; or a reflex mechanism; or a variety of stimulus-response   
   relationships; or a psychoanalytical bag filled either by libido or   
   basic physiological drives; or a mechanism controlled mainly by   
   digestive and economic needs. Such are the current physico-chemical,   
   biological, and psycho-social conceptions of man. No doubt man is all   
   these things. But do any or all of these conceptions completely explain   
   the essential nature of man? Do they touch his most fundamental   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)