SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DYNAMICS

Pitirim A. Sorokin

NAME- Tarak Ahuja

ROLL NO – 18072

GROUP NO - 4

RAJIV GANDHI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF LAW

 PITIRIM A. SOROKIN

• Born in Russia in 1889

• Published his 1st book
Works
• Sociology of
Crime and Punishment Revolution
• Social Mobility
in 1914 (1927
• Social and
Cultural Dynamics
 Social Stratification Social Mobility

• Refers to a society’s categorization of • Mobility stands for shift, change and

its people into rankings of movement.
socioeconomic.
• The change may be of a place or from
• Based on factors like wealth, income, one position to another.
race, education, and power.
• It means shifting of people to a social
• It creates hierarchy based classes. space.

• Major focus will be on Rights, Duties, • Two Types

Social Values and Social Power. 1. Horizontal: No advancement or
Decline
2. Vertical: Higher to Lower
• Based on concept of simple beginnings into even more complex forms.

• Early sociologists beginning with Auguste Comte believed that human

societies evolve in a unilineal way- that is in one line of development.

• Auguste Comte's ideas relating to the three stages in the development

of human thought and also of society namely the theological, the
metaphysical and the positive in a way represent the three basic stages
of social change.

• Sorokin also believed in evolutionary theory but in cyclic way.

• Social Cyclic Theory • Social and Cultural Dynamics

• According to the linear process of • Published in 1937

evolution the society progress in
stages but not always in unique • Divided the societies based on
direction. their ‘cultural mentality’

• The idea of Sorokin was opposite to • Into 3 parts Ideational,

linear process of Evolution Sensate and Idealistic.

• To validate his point he used his

work of Social and Cultural
Dynamics which was published in
1937.
 Ideational culture
 Emphasizes those things that can be perceived only
by mind.
 It is Abstract, Religious, Concerned with faith and
ultimate truth.
Sensate Culture
 The sensate culture stresses upon those things that can be
perceived by senses.
 These things are practical, sensual and materialistic.
 There are three forms of sensate culture.
1. Active Sensate- Needs are satisfied by transforming the
physical and sociocultural worlds.
2. Passive Sensate mentality needs by a parasitic exploitation of
the physical and cultural world.
3. The Cynical Sensate will use all mechanisms to meet its
wants
Idealistic culture
 Syntheses in which reality is many-
sided and needs are both spiritual
and material, with the former
dominating.
Dynamics
 Both the sensate and the ideational culture are pure types of
culture
 Hence no society could be able to achieve to either type.
 As the society moves towards the sensate type of culture,
the ideational type of culture counters it and perform a
opposing cultural force.
 The idealistic culture is blend of the two culture but no
society has ever seems to have achieved it as it is a stable
condition.