Man and Society in Calamity

Pitirim A. Sorokin, Irving Louis Horowitz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351507547
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This is an age of great calamities. War and revolution, famine and pestilence, are again rampant on this planet, and they still exact their deadly toll from suffering humanity. Calamities influence every moment of our existence: our mentality and behavior, our social life and cultural processes. Like a demon, they cast their shadow upon every thought we think and every action we perform. In this classic volume, Sorokin attempts to account for the effects these calamities exert on the mental processes, behavior, social organization, and cultural life of the population involved. In what way do famine and pestilence, war and revolution tend to modify our mind and conduct, our social organization and cultural life? To what extent do they succeed in this, and when and why do they prove less effective? What are the causes of these calamities, and what are the ways out? In dealing with these problems Sorokin tries to give a detailed description of the typical effects of famine and pestilence, war and revolution, such as have repeatedly occurred in all major catastrophes of this kind. To use academic language, he attempts to formulate the principal uniformities regularly manifested during such calamities. This book is a forgotten masterpiece of explanation and prediction. It opened new fields of study and broadened the scope of existing specialties.

chapter one

How Calamities Influence Our Affective and Emotional Life

I. Introductory Remarks

The life history of any society is an incessant fluctuation between periods of comparative well-being and those of calamity. For a given period the society enjoys peace, order, prosperity, and freedom from notable catastrophes. Again, its life is darkened by calamities which, singly or en masse, assail it and destroy its previous well-being. Sooner or later this catastrophic phase is succeeded by a new stretch of well-being, which is replaced, in turn, by a further period of calamity. And so this alternation goes on, throughout the entire duration of the society in question.

The relative duration of each of these stretches of the historical road differs for different societies. Now the era of well-being is longer than the catastrophic; now the calamitous phase is more permanent. The historical road of some societies is made up mainly of stretches of wellbeing, punctuated by bumpy portions of misery. The road traveled by other societies consists principally of dreary stretches interspersed here and there by short sections of good pavements.

Among the manifold and diverse calamities that have befallen mankind, four have probably proved the most frequent, most destructive, most terrible, and, at the same time, most instructive and significant—namely, war and revolution, famine, and pestilence. These four monsters are the subject of this investigation, in so far as they affect our minds and behavior, our social organization, and our cultural life. Let us now address ourselves to this task, beginning with the study of their influence upon our basic mental processes, and then passing to their effects upon our conduct, social organization, and culture.

Before undertaking an analysis of how calamities modify our emotional and affective experience, I would stress the general principle of the diversification and polarization of these effects in different parts of the population. By this principle is meant that the effects of a given calamity are not identical—indeed, often are opposite—for different individuals and groups of the society concerned, since individuals and groups differ from one another biologically and psychosocially. Thus, a person who is immune to a given disease is naturally not affected by it in the same way as one who is not immune. One possessed of robust courage and morale conducts himself on a battlefield in a way very different from the behavior of a person lacking in morale and courage. One becomes like well-tempered steel,—a moral hero,—whereas another turns into a coward, a nervous wreck, or a criminal. This diversification and polarization of the effects of the same calamity is attributable also to the fact that not all the members of the society are equally exposed to its dangers and hardships. Even in war, as a rule, only a part of the population, the combatants, are directly subjected to the danger of death and to other hardships. The rest of the population is less exposed, and some groups are only remotely affected. During famines not all suffer equally: some die of starvation, others suffer less, and still others are fairly well nourished and even derive profit from the tragedy of the victims.

To sum up, owing to biological and psychosocial differences and to the varying incidence of a given calamity, some persons emerge as moral heroes, others as criminals and profligates; some prove highly religious, others atheistic. Subsequently we shall develop this law of the diversificalion and polarization of the effects of calamity in more detail. For the present we shall be concerned primarily with the effects which calamities tend to produce when unopposed by other sociocultural forces. When they are so opposed, their consequences are frequently very different from those which arise when they are the sole factors that control human behavior. In the next two chapters we shall describe chiefly the effects that calamities tend to produce. In subsequent chapters this one-sidedness will be corrected by a study of the actual effects of calamities in conjunction with the many other forces that determine the life of society and of its members.

2. The Change in Fanotions and Feelings Induced by Physiological and Psychosocial Starvation

We must distinguish between complete, physiological starvation, where the quantity and quality of food consumed are below the physiological minimum necessary to meet the needs of the organism, and the partial or comparative, psychosocial starvation due to our habits of eating certain kinds and amounts of food at certain times, to our preference for finer and more appetizing foods, to the contrast between the luxurious and inferior diets of the upper and lower classes, respectively, or to other psychosocial conditions. Though no physiological food deficiency exists in psychosocial starvation, we insist, in addition, on eating our meals at the habitual time, and we feel either “hungry” or dissatisfied if we miss a meal and its gustatory pleasures. When we are forced to forego foods of finer quality, we resent such a degradation or else accept it grudgingly when it proves inevitable. If we seek for food when we are hungry physiologically, we also seek for superior food in preference to a more primitive fare. This point should not be overlooked, because many an individual action and many a social process has been stimulated not only by physiological but also by psychosocial starvation. If, for instance, biological hunger plays a tangible role in generating social conflicts, no less important is the role played by psychosocial starvation. The same is true of many other social phenomena. Physiological starvation is either absolute, when the organism is totally deprived of food, or relative, when the food is insufficient either quantitatively or qualitatively. Likewise, psychosocial starvation assumes many different degrees and forms.

Let us now pass to a consideration of the effects of starvation in the field of our feelings and emotional experiences. If we refrain from eating for a number of hours, or if we see, smell, or taste a particularly tempting dish, we experience an access of “appetite.” In its pure form it is a pleasant rather than a painful emotion,¹ as suggested, for instance, by the Continental greeting “Good Appetite!” The complex of experiences covered by this term is not something uniform and identical but represents a group of passive-active emotions differing from one another both quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitatively we experience different degrees of appetite, beginning with the slightest and ending with the most intense “wolf’s appetite.” Qualitatively the appetite for meat differs somewhat from that for sweets or fruit. The emergence of appetite in our inner experience is the first radical change, generated not so much by physiological as by psychosocial starvation. It is experienced daily by all healthy organisms not suffering from physiological starvation. After a few minutes or an hour (depending upon the person) it disappears, even if we do not take any nourishment. It can be killed momentarily by the sight of a worm or by the mere mention of unappetizing objects such as worms and dirt. With the onset of physiological starvation it becomes intermittent, until, in the more pronounced phases of this phenomenon, it disappears entirely. Its main physiological function consists in reminding one of the advisability of “refueling” at the habitual time in order to avoid possible complications.²

When psychosocial starvation gives place to physiological starvation, appetite tends to disappear and is replaced by a very different experience—that of hunger. While appetite is a rather pleasant experience, hunger is definitely painful. The only similarity between the two consists in an urge for food. Whereas appetite can be dispelled by any disagreeable external stimulus, hunger is not extinguished by such stimuli and often impels one to eat nauseating food—in exceptional cases even human corpses.

Like appetite, hunger is not a constant emotion, nor does it progressively grow with an increase of physiological starvation. It is, rather, an intermittent phenomenon. If physiological starvation is not absolute, hunger appears and disappears intermittently. But if physiological starvation is absolute, after the first few days the sense of hunger disappears as a special emotion being replaced by a complex of diversified painful feelings, sensations, and emotions. Besides the craving for food it ordinarily involves a dull gnawing sensation, fatigue and weakness, a feeling of emptiness and apathy, difficulty in concentrating on anything except food, nausea, irritability, and the like. The imagination flares up, only a moment later to die down. Instability, erratic change, jumps and jerkiness pervade the victim’s affective and emotional processes, though his prevailing mood is one of depression and apathy.³

It is to be noted that hunger in artificial laboratory conditions and in actual life are two different things. In the laboratory, starvation is induced for scientific purposes, under the supervision of doctors, without any danger to life, without any undue exertion. As such it is something very different from the imposed starvation of actual life, which involves the uncertainty of procuring food, as well as serious danger to health and life, and physical and mental exertion. Under laboratory conditions persons like Succi or Tanner “starved” for a period of 30 or 40, even up to 80 days. In actual life, they would have succumbed, long before this to absolute starvation. In the laboratory the subjects do not experience any particularly painful feelings or sensations, whereas in actual life starvation is very painful. In the former case the specific emotion of hunger disappears after the first two or three days of absolute starvation; in actual life it intermittently appears, disappears, and reappears, followed by other painful experiences. In laboratory conditions persons can maintain a cheerful disposition; in actual life this is hardly possible. Hence the investigator of the social effects of starvation has to deal with the phenomena of real life in distinction from controlled conditions.

A few factual self-observations will illustrate the foregoing characteristics of the emotions aroused by starvation.

“I am empty,” observe several psychology instructors who starved for scientific purposes.⁴ With the growth of physiological starvation there appears “the painfully distinct sensation of growing more and more empty inside, until at last it seems as if the internal organs themselves had disappeared entirely,” notes E. Mikkelsen, who underwent two and a half months’ starvation in his Arctic wanderings.⁵ Many other Arctic explorers and persons who have passed through the ordeal of prolonged and serious starvation testify to the same emptiness, lightness, and similar experiences. Apathy, quickly replaced by irritability, is again uniformly noted by most of the observers or self-observers of starvation in actual life. Mikkelsen refers to his and his companion’s “growing apathy”;⁶ K. Hamsun excellently describes the alternation of apathy and of sudden attacks of irritability in the autobiographical hero of his Hunger. His starving hero is now apathetic, now kind, and now highly irritable, apparently without any reason. Sudden and sharp emotional changes permeate his whole conduct.⁷ “Dull and hopeless apathy was the main characteristic of the masses in the famine years of the Middle Ages,” declares a historian.⁸ Similar observations are made by many an observer of famines in Russia, India, China, Persia, and Europe.⁹

An increase of unreasonable irritability and anger on a mass scale has been observed in many a mass famine. Speaking of the Russian famine of 1840, N. Lesskoff writes: “Among the peasants there began to grow an ominous grouch. Without any reason husbands began to beat their wives, the older persons assailed the children, and everyone reproached the others because of the lack of bread and invoked upon all datnnation.”¹⁰ During the famine of 1918-1921 in Russia “the neurosis of inanition manifested itself among the children in a combination of unusual vindictiveness, extraordinary irritability, and chronic crying. Many children quite frequently suffered spells of extraordinary rage, animosity, and irritability.”¹¹ Similar traits were exhibited by the surviving members of a wrecked ship, Medusa, after prolonged starvation. “Irritability and despondency” marked their psychology.¹²

Apathy and lifelessness are noted again and again by Marsh and his wife, who lent themselves as subjects.¹³

These and many other testify further more to the feelings of weakness, jerkiness, and fatigue, and especially to the depressive mood and to the sudden sense of cheerfulness after a good meal.

“It is a remarkable fact that, let things be as bad as they may, once in the [sleeping] bag, and with food in prospect, all one’s troubles sink into oblivion. The human being becomes a happy animal, which eats as long as it can keep its eyes open, and goes to sleep with the food in its mouth. Oh, blissful state of heedlessness,” writes F. Nansen during his “hard struggle” with starvation in the Arctic.¹⁴

Likewise, E. Mikkelsen and his companion were depressed again and again each time they suffered from extreme starvation in their Arctic wanderings and were overjoyed each time when they found food.

“Indeed, it is horrible in a way to see how overjoyed we are over the food. [This they had found in a depot.] ... It is a sight for the gods; we cannot tear ourselves away [from the food], and as we lie there by the depot we feel amply repaid for all the hardship of the last long months.”¹⁵

Similar self-observations are made repeatedly by other Arctic explorers, including Peary, Scott. The days of starvation were periods of depression for the explorers as well as for their dogs, whose drooping tails served as a barometer of their mood. The days of good meals, per contra, were uniformly cheerful. As soon as they either got to a food depot or killed a bear or muskcow, the pessimism evaporated; jokes, songs, and laughter ensued, and they were at peace with themselves and the world at large. The same was experienced in Soviet Russia by millions of people in the hungry years of 1918-1922.

Other factual illustrations will be given later on. Meanwhile the above gives a concise account of the profound change in the emotional and affective life of human beings wrought by starvation. Incidentally, it should be added that not all persons lose their emotional control under such circumstances. Save perhaps during the period immediately prior to death, some persons remain masters of their mind and their conduct while suffering from the acutest starvation. Such persons, as we shall see, successfully resist the mental, moral, and social disintegration induced by starvation. What forces and factors are responsible for such polarity will be analyzed at a later stage.

3. Change of Emotions and Affections Induced by Pestilence

That bubonic plague, typhus, fever, influenza, smallpox, and other serious diseases alter the sensations, emotions, and feelings of their victims need not be demonstrated. The general characteristic of the change induced by all these diseases is the pain, fear of death, delirium, and sense of weakness experienced by the victim. Apart from this common trait, each of the main epidemics discloses its own pattern of transformation of the victim’s sensations, feelings, and emotions. For our purposes it is unnecessary to characterize the specific changes produced by each of these diseases. It suffices to say that all the important pestilences profoundly transform the emotional and affective life of the patient. This transformation is due not only to the biological forces of the sickness itself but also to the profound change in the social relationships of the victim. He suddenly finds himself isolated from almost all his fellow men, often even the members of his family. His condition plunges him into a sort of social vacuum. Hundreds of persons with whom he was linked...