Pitirim A. Sorokin’s
Practical Approach to Altruism
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
In modern societies,
a large part of the population is addicted to short-term and shallow views of
life. As a result, millions of people
talk about love and listen to popular songs about emotions - without really trying
to know what they are talking about.
Understanding the mystery of human affection is, of
course, no easy task. Perhaps it is for this reason that many do not even try. The
several meanings of the word “love” are often difficult to grasp. Love creates
conflicts and harmony, happiness and desperation. It moves the Universe. And seeing
the dynamic unity and harmony among different elements of life is the same as perceiving
Life itself.
Whether we understand love or not, love implies a
degree of altruism. Brazilian poet Mário Quintana wrote that friendship occurs
when “one’s soul moves to another house”, or when one “feels at home” while
looking at the life of some friendly soul. Human affinity is also multidimensional:
it flows on the seven levels of consciousness.
According to Pitirim A. Sorokin, a pioneer of balanced
research in altruism, the energy of love has at least five dimensions:
(1) Intensity;
(2) Extensity;
(3) Duration;
(4) Purity; and
(5) The adequacy of its manifestation in objective actions,
in relation to its inner purpose. [1]
1. The Intensity
“In intensity”, says Sorokin, “love ranges between
zero and the highest possible point, arbitrarily denoted as infinity.”
“The zero point is neither love nor hate. Below the
zero point is hate (which has a similar intensity dimension). We all know this
range of love intensity. When we observe a person who preaches love but does
not practice it, we know that the intensity of his love is near the zero point;
when the highfalutin preaching of love is used to mask selfish and hateful
actions of hypocrites, their actions fall below the zero point and become
hateful actions of various intensities.”
According to theosophy, the intensity of altruistic
love depends on the level of consciousness from which it emerges. How intense is the contact between one’s
personality and his own immortal soul?
Sorokin proceeds:
“Such actions as giving a few cents to the hungry
(from large possessions of the giver), or offering a seat to another person on
a streetcar, are actions of love, though of low intensity. Actions by which a
person freely gives to others his greatest values - health, life, ‘soul’ (…) -
are love actions of the highest possible intensity. Between zero and the
highest points of love intensity there are many intermediary degrees.”
By having self-respect, a citizen feels love and
respect for others. How best to measure the weight and strength of actual
kindness?
“As a whole, the range of love intensity is not scalar”,
says Sorokin.
“In most cases we cannot say exactly how many times
greater a given intensity is than another, or whether it is equal, or higher,
or lower. Yet we can often see clearly which
intensity is really high and which low, and sometimes even measure it in
quantitative units. Thus, other conditions being equal, the act of merely
offering the seat in a streetcar will be appraised by practically all normal
beings as an action of much lower love intensity than the action of saving a
life at the risk or sacrifice of one’s own.”
He adds:
“…When the same person gives to others at one time 2
per cent of his wealth and at another 90 per cent of it, his second love action
will be many times more intense than the first. When at one time he gives
others one hour of his time and at another a week or a month, his second action
will be many times higher in its love intensity than his first. To sum up: by
and large love intensity is not scalar.
This, however, does not hinder us from seeing the greatly different intensities
of various love actions; nor even - here and there - from roughly measuring in
numerical units these intensities. The same may be said of the scalar and
nonscalar character of the four other dimensions of love.” [2]
2. The Extensity
Theosophy teaches an unlimited, impersonal love, and
an unfathomable understanding of life as a whole. There is no separation
between thought and emotion in esoteric philosophy, and its students must know what they love, and love what they know.
Pitirim Sorokin tries to approach love as a process in
itself, with the help of methods borrowed from conventional science. He wrote about the narrowness or width of
one’s affinities:
“The extensity
of love ranges from the zero point of love of oneself only, up to the love of
all mankind, all living creatures, and the whole universe. Between these
minimal and maximal degrees lies a vast scale of extensities: love of one’s own
family, or a few friends, or love of all the groups one belongs to - one’s
clan, tribe, nationality, nation, religious, occupational, political, and other
groups and associations.”
Universal or boundless love is also an actual fact in
human life:
“The maximal point of extensity is the love of the whole
universe (…). Like St. Francis, one can love ‘a dear brother - earth’, the
moon, the wind, a river, a tree, and generally all animate and inanimate
phenomena, and thus ‘reverently and lovingly walk the earth’. And one can ‘hate
the whole world’ and view it as his enemy.” [3]
One can love all beings, or love none. In theory, one can love himself exclusively.
In fact, this is impossible since there is no actual separation in the
universe. Selfishness is but a form of blindness and the “personal self” a delusion.
And yet, working on a rather superficial level, one might say that according to
Sorokin’s system the “zero point” of love extensity is a love of oneself only.
Hate, on its turn, is a negative quantity of love. The aggressive rejection of another
being is an “affinity below zero” and worse than useless except in cases of
legitimate defense.
According to theosophy, the opposite of love
constitutes a (karmic) debt to oneself and to others, and a debt to Life. The
feeling of blind rejection needs to be understood before it can be eliminated,
and replaced by a clear understanding of life’s unity and a sense of impersonal
justice. Theosophical wisdom gives humans both good will and detachment. These
two feelings liberate people from the neurotic alternation between “attachment”
and “rejection”.
3. The Duration
“The duration of
love may range from the shortest possible moment to years or throughout the
whole life of an individual or of a group”, says Sorokin.
And theosophy adds:
“It also uses to endure a number of lifetimes, perhaps
a few eternities.”
Solidary actions have many different timings. Sorokin
writes:
“Not only love actions of low intensity, but many of
the highest intensity may last but a short time, like the actions of a soldier
on a battlefield who risks or sacrifices his life to save his comrade; having
saved him, and having himself survived, a soldier may stop such activities and
become a selfish, ordinary creature. On the other hand, love actions of low as
well as high intensity may endure for a long period, perhaps throughout the
life of an individual or group. A mother caring for her sick child through his
and her life, a good neighbour for years giving financial or other help to this or
that person, great apostles of love discharging their love mission for decades,
even throughout life, are examples of enduring love.” [4]
Deep altruistic action during one incarnation creates
karmic trends which will emerge again as blissful facts in future lifetimes.
4. The Purity
Integrity is another
dimension. Sorokin writes:
“The purity of love ranges from the love motivated by love alone -
without the taint of a ‘soiling motive’ of utility, pleasure, advantage, or
profit, down to the ‘soiled love’ where love is but a means to a utilitarian or
hedonistic or other end, where love is only the thinnest trickle in a muddy
current of selfish aspirations and purposes.” [5]
In fact, the concept of
purity of love must be balanced with a knowledge of the fact that all levels of
consciousness constantly interact. Purity does not mean an absence of
communication between higher and lower levels of affection. It means that lower
levels of love and affinity cannot unduly interfere with the impersonal, pure,
elevated process of affinity. A notion of psychoanalytical factors will help
preserving the right kind of devotion in one’s spiritual life seen as an
impersonal matter. And that leads us to the next point.
5. The Adequacy of Love
Every honest person has
an inclination to be a friend, to have compassion, to be helpful to others and
live with good will regarding all life. The ability to do so in effective ways,
however, is granted to no one. It all depends on the amount of discernment one
has in looking at the way the Law of Karma works and the Consequences of his own
actions.
Combined with naïve decisions,
good intentions may cause havoc. Every day disastrous situations are provoked
by the wrong use of love energy. The issue is easy to illustrate. Sorokin
writes:
“We all know mothers who
love their children intensely and want to make them ‘lovable’ - that is,
honest, industrious, and good. With this
purpose they frequently pamper them, satisfy all their fancies, and fail to
discipline them when they need it. Through such love actions they often spoil
their children, and make them capricious, irresponsible, weak, lazy, dishonest.
These objective consequences of love differ radically from the mother’s goal of
love. (…) The necessary wisdom lacking, blind love miscarries in its objective
manifestations and destroys itself; instead of benefitting the beloved person,
it often harms him. Here we have an inadequate love (…) as a dark passion
moving to self-destruction.” [6]
The same challenge occurs
in all aspects of life.
Irresponsible love for the
nation can lead to unfair war. Narrow-minded
love for churches and sects produces fanaticism, oppression and intolerance. A selfish
devotion to individual families may provoke an absence of ethics. Undue
attachment to ideological groups can generate fierce class struggle and social
disharmony in large scale.
Examples are many. Love
without wisdom is blind and irresponsible; its result is self-destruction. Cicero
is right in posing three preconditions to anyone who wishes to help another. First,
the action must be just and cause no undue pain to third parties. Second, the
action must be within our possibilities. And third, the recipient of the action
must be worthy of it; he, or she, has to
deserve it.[7]
Once the right amount of
wisdom is there, altruistic love and friendship are real and prevail, side by
side with justice and a sense of respect for all beings.
The first object of the
modern theosophical movement is to slowly form an enduring nucleus of Universal
Brotherhood, without distinction of race, nationality, creed, sex, ideology,
caste or color. Such a sense of brotherliness includes all beings and flows in
the unlimited context of eternal time and boundless space. A combination
of noble intention and severe discernment leads every student of universal law
to effectively learn the ancient art of right action.
NOTES:
[1]
“The Ways and Power of Love”, Pitirim A. Sorokin, Templeton Foundation Press,
Pennsylvania, USA, 2002, 552 pp., p. 15. On Sorokin’s five-dimension view of
altruistic love, see the book “Unlimited Love”, Stephen G. Post, Templeton
Foundation Press, Philadelphia and London, 2003, 232 pp., chapter 9, pp.
133-155. A fragment of Stephen Post’s book was published on pp. 1-2 of “The
Aquarian Theosophist”, July 2015 edition.
[2] “The Ways and Power of Love”, Pitirim A.
Sorokin, Templeton Foundation Press, Pennsylvania, USA, 2002, 552 pp., pp.
15-16.
[3] “The
Ways and Power of Love”, Pitirim A. Sorokin, p. 16.
[4] “The
Ways and Power of Love”, Pitirim A. Sorokin, same p. 16.
[5] “The
Ways and Power of Love”, Pitirim A. Sorokin, p. 17.
[6]
“The Ways and Power of Love”, Pitirim A. Sorokin, pp. 17-18.
[7] “De Officiis”, Cicero, with an
English translation by Walter Miller, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard
University Press, 2005, 424 pp., see p. 47.
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The above article first appeared
in the June 2018 edition of “The Aquarian Theosophist”, with no indication as
to the name of the author. “The Five
Dimensions of Love” was published as an independent article in our
associated websites on 26 March 2019.
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See the article “Love Without Violence”, by Erich Fromm. Read
the texts “Is Family Life a Duty?” and “Magnetic Circles of Universal Love”, both by Carlos
Cardoso Aveline.
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