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Copyright © 1997, Jay Ligda. All rights reserved. Published by Humans in the Universe and Jay Ligda.

Sorokin's Cyclical Trends in Human Culture

Russian sociologist Sorokin (born 1889) noticed a cyclic trend in human culture (as cited in Oliner, 1976). He did so through a quantitative analysis of 2,500 years of art, philosophy, music, law, social relationships, war, and revolution from many different human cultures. The trends he noticed were, ideational, sensate, and idealistic. Ideational is spiritual, depends on faith, intuition, and revelation, and emphasizes "being," permanence, and adaptation to the existing world. Sensate is empirical and agnostic, and emphasizes becoming, change, mastery of the world for human gratification. Idealistic is a synthesis of ideational and sensate with ideational dominate (Sorokin as cited in Oliner, 1976). The time periods of the trends are as follows: Before 5th century B.C. was ideational, 5th and 4th centuries B.C. were idealistic, 3rd to 1st centuries B.C. were sensate, 1st to 4th centuries A.D. were a transition, 5th to 12th centuries A.D. were ideational, 13th and 14th centuries A.D. were idealistic, and 15th to present has been sensate (Sorokin as cited in Oliner, 1976). This latest period of sensate culture began around the time of the printing press and continues to today. With the new discoveries in physics, I suspect we could be in the midst of another change in this cycle to either a transition period or an ideational period. The industrial revolution occured during the last sensate period.

by Jay Ligda

(This work is a all or part of an original work first published/written for John. F. Kennedy University: Final Integrative Project., Mar1996.)

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References

Oliner, S. (1976, Fall). "Sorokin's Contribution to American Sociology." Nationalities Papers. 4 No. 2. 125-151.

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