{"id":4060,"date":"2018-12-03T08:37:18","date_gmt":"2018-12-03T08:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/12\/03\/into-the-late-sensate-concupiscense-unconstrained\/"},"modified":"2018-12-03T08:37:18","modified_gmt":"2018-12-03T08:37:18","slug":"into-the-late-sensate-concupiscense-unconstrained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/12\/03\/into-the-late-sensate-concupiscense-unconstrained\/","title":{"rendered":"Into the Late Sensate: Concupiscense Unconstrained"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sociologist Pitirim Sorokin has proven to be remarkably prescient. From Pitirim Sorokin Revisited<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Sorokin\u2019s critique of private life begins with the disintegration of the family. \u201cDivorces and separations will increase until any profound difference between socially sanctioned marriages and illicit sex-relationship disappears,\u201d he predicted in the final volume of <\/span>Social and Cultural Dynamics<\/span><\/em>. [rev. ed. 1957] Children born out of wedlock and separated from parents would become unexceptional.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the 1950s he foresaw the coming sexual anarchy of the West and its downside. Alfred Kinsey\u2019s widely publicized research, the newly founded <\/span>Playboy<\/span><\/em> magazine\u2019s explicit carnal appeal, the Elvis Presley delirium among adolescents, the runaway commercial success of <\/span>Peyton Place<\/span><\/em>, the critical success of Tennessee Williams\u2019s <\/span>Cat on a Hot Tin Roof<\/span><\/em> and Vladimir Nabokov\u2019s <\/span>Lolita<\/span><\/em>\u2014all were parts of a piece at mid-century. In 1957 Sorokin wrote crabbily, \u201cAmericans are victims of a sex mania as malign as cancer and as socially menacing as communism.\u201d This overreach got him ridiculed in the movie <\/span>Gidget<\/span><\/em>, cartooned in <\/span>The San Francisco Chronicle<\/span><\/em>, and called a publicity hound and prude.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What Sorokin saw dawning is now at full noon. The edgy and sordid are box office. Hot porn is just a click away. Casual sex is the norm. Ten or twenty sexualities clamor for a spotlight. Real or not, it doesn\u2019t matter. Hopes and dreams crowd out what is possible and what can be done. The pursuit of pleasure\u2014Neil Postman called it amusing ourselves to death\u2014looks as if it might be a terminal social disease. In the Western world marriage loses its appeal. The idea of family formation changes shape, resulting in social conditions in which 40 percent of U.S. children today are born to unmarried women. These sexualities bear legal rights and popular favor perhaps unique in human history.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Late Sensate license\u2014<\/span>if it feels good, do it<\/span><\/em>\u2014has become its own faith. Facts, reason, and logic are losing their universal public authority, even in academic life. Despite astonishing affluence and material ease, some one-sixth of Americans over the age of fifteen are taking prescribed anti-depressants. Others are reaching for whiskey, marijuana, opioids, and other palliatives. The Late Sensate does not appear to be working too well psychologically, and governability is at issue. Sorokin\u2019s advice to perplexed or anxious individuals facing social turmoil was to focus on the transcendent through the humanities. Plant a garden. Go walking. Respect the natural environment. Practice yoga. Live simply. Turn off the television set and talk to others.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

More than fifty years later, this is not unwise advice. \u201cOnly the power of unbounded love\u2026can prevent the pending extermination of man by man on this planet,\u201d Sorokin expounded. \u201cWithout love, no armament, no war, no diplomatic machinations, no coercive police force, no school education, no economic or political measures, not even hydrogen bombs can prevent the pending catastrophe.\u201d Sorokin\u2019s prescriptions of altruism and universalism might seem painfully na\u00efve and anodyne today. But this difficult, intuitive man\u2019s clear-eyed premonitions, his studies of social dynamics, and his tough-minded benevolence remain remarkable guides to considering current events. <\/span><\/p>\n

Gilbert T. Sewall is co-author of <\/span><\/em>After Hiroshima: The United States Since 1945 <\/span>and editor of <\/span><\/em>The Eighties: A Reader<\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sociologist Pitirim Sorokin has proven to be remarkably prescient. From Pitirim Sorokin Revisited: Sorokin\u2019s critique of private life begins with the disintegration of the family. \u201cDivorces and separations will increase until any profound difference between socially sanctioned marriages and illicit sex-relationship disappears,\u201d he predicted in the final volume of Social and Cultural Dynamics. [rev. ed. … Continue reading “Into the Late Sensate: Concupiscense Unconstrained”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180,134,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-decline-of-the-west","category-marriage","category-sex-love-lust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4060\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}