What is Sorokin's theory of social change?
My theory posits that societies do not evolve in a straight line but cycle through sensate, ideational, and idealistic phases. A sensate culture focuses on sensory experience, science, and material progress, but eventually decays into relativism and conflict. An ideational culture emphasizes faith, intuition, and eternal truths, but can become rigid and detached from reality. The idealistic phase integrates both, as seen in the High Middle Ages. This cycle is driven by the principle of immanent change: each system contains the seeds of its own transformation, not by external forces alone.
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