Altruistic aspirations of Pitirim Sorokin and their relevance today Introduction: Sociology as a project of salvation Pitirim Sorokin (1889–1968), one of the founders of modern sociology, made a unique transition from analyzing social catastrophes to designing utopia. His later work, culminating in the book “The Ways and Power of Love” (1954), represents a massive attempt to justify altruism not as a moral sermon, but as a fundamental social force and the only way for civilization to survive. Sorokin, who survived the Russian revolutions, the civil war, and exile, dedicated himself to developing a scientific program for the “moral rearming of humanity” in his later years. His ideas, which seemed idealistic to his contemporaries, are gaining new relevance in the context of global crises. 1. Integral paradigm: from analysis of decay to synthesis of salvation Sorokin began as an analyst of social chaos. In his works “Famine as a Factor” and “Sociology of Revolution,” he showed how catastrophes reveal the biological and instinctual underpinnings of human behavior. However, his magnum opus — “Social and Cultural Dynamics” (1937–1941) — identified historical cycles of the replacement of three types of cultures: Sensate — based on materialism, hedonism, empiricism. Ideational — based on faith, spiritual absolutes, asceticism. Idealistic — an integrative, harmonious synthesis of the two preceding. Sorokin diagnosed the crisis of the contemporary western sensate culture, seeing in its atomization, relativism, and cult of pleasure signs of decline and a harbinger of an impending catastrophe. He saw the solution not in a return to the past, but in a transition to a new, integral (altruistic) culture, based on the “energy of love”. 2. Altruism as energy and social technology Sorokin sought to demystify altruism, presenting it as an object of scientific study and an instrument of social engineering. Concept of love energy: Sorokin regarded love/altruism as “higher-orde ... Read more