ABSTRACT

In the “sociocultural ocean,” as Pitirim Sorokin called it, there exist many values. Some are contrary to one another, and some of the contrarieties, as it were, establish useful vectors for charting psychic movements for value change. Power centers draw in wealth and talent, and oftentimes modernizing vectors operate in positive, symbiotic ways. The dominant psychic movement in America affirms “citifying” values, including the acquisition of skills for climbing the urban ladder. The American background is an interesting mix, and it engages with Sorokin’s peripheralist attack upon urban centers by having its latent hinterlander side evoked. Where Americans are concerned, colonial ancestors from their peripheral situation took an adversarial stance against their home power center. As colonists, pioneers, and settlers, they set about to celebrate their own special virtues and defend their principles. Upon the radial contrariety distinguishing the pro-urban and the proregional points of view, one may place Talcott Parsons toward one side and Pitirim Sorokin toward the other.