Sorokin's Congeries
Description
Sorokin Library:
"There are, according to Sorokin, "millions of singular sociocultural phenomena that make the superorganic world of reality appear to us in the form of the integrated systems and unintegrated congeries. If two or more singular superorganic phenomena are related to one another only by chance (by mere spatial or time adjacency) they are congeries having no real unity and interdependence between them. If two or more singular sociocultural facts are tied together meaningfully and causally in such a way that they articulate consistently the same set of meanings (values, norms) and empirically-in their vehicles and human members-show tangible (causal) interdependence of its important parts, such combination of any number of singular sociocultural phenomena makes an integrated cultural system or organized social system (Ganzbuten). Though overlooked by the majority of sociologists, the distinction between the systems and congeries is basic and important in many respects and especially for the purposes of adequate study of the sociocultural phenomena."