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Review: [untitled]Author(s): Jacob HorakSource: American Sociological Review, Vol. 5, No. 5 (Oct., 1940), pp. 792-794Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2083709

Accessed: 10/12/2010 07:43

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792 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWIt is very difficult to determine the purpose of the book itself, exceptingto make a report. It is not statistical nor are its conclusions conclusive.On reading through it one feels that the author had his conclusions prettywell in mind before he started on his journey of investigation. On the whole,there are relatively few facts that reveal the exact problems of the youngpeople and why the agencies are not meeting the problems. Indeed, whenthe organizations engaged in youth activities are discussed with their variedprograms, it appears that there are enough organizations to do everythingneeded. However, the assumption on which the book has been preparedwas that there was much needed work to meet the situation. Hence, thebook lacks in a critical appraisal of the organizations and fails to juxtaposethe situation of the youth of the countries against what is being done for them.The report is not concisely and pointedly written. Since it lacks in positive

conclusions, its value is far less than it should have been in the light of whatapparently was the purpose motivating the initiation of such a fact-gather-ing program. Its value is very limited for the American wishing to wrestlewith the youth problems in America because of its lack of critical appraisalof work being done by and for young people. Unfortunately, it frequentlyappears that the author copies in toto the notes taken when talking withthe adults in charge of the youth agencies. So the reader is left feeling thatthese three countries certainly have enough organizations working withthe young people, that such organizations have good programs, and thatthe programs are failing to do the work needed. But, at the same time, theunfortunate conclusion is that the author has little additional to offer.

Division of Social Research, W.P./1. BRUCE L. MELVINAnthropologyand Religion (The Terry Lectures). By PETER H. BUCK. NewHaven: Yale University Press, I Pp. viii+96.I.ll.The title is immodest. The Terry Lectures in print, this small bookmakes no pretensions to monographic treatment; it is an essay in, ratherthan on, Polynesian religion; and the richness of this, with its ethnographicand historical implications, is largely taken for granted. Rather, the bookis the carefully set forth description of a process: the gradual rise and cata-strophic fall of the Polynesian pantheon. The gods evolved slowly from he-roic ancestors, and the complicated theology and ritual were closely ad-justed to social organization and a somewhat precarious subsistence. Theseelements were so interdependent that when Christianity disestablished thegods of Polynesia it also unwittingly disestablished the delicate social andpolitical structure, and, in all innocence, anaesthetized the spirit of a people.

University of Wisconsin W. W. HOWELLSLa Conceptionsociologique de l'oecumeniciti dans la pensle religieuse russecontemporaine.By CASIMIR SWIATLINSKI. Paris: Librarie Philosophique,J. Vrin, I93 8. Pp. 163. 25 frs.Solitudeand Society.By NiCOLASERDYAEV. New York: CharlesScribner'sSons, I938. Pp. 203. $3.00.The ecumenical movement in contemporary Russian religious thoughtseeks to establish a union of all Christian sects and confessions on an idea-

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BOOK REVIEWS 793tional foundation. Opposed to authoritarianism and individualism, itstresses the universal aspects of Christianity which constitute the essentialelements of Western culture. Officially, the movement was never approvedby the Orthodox Church. The works of its leaders had to be publishedabroad. Swietlinski tries to analyze and critically evaluate the sociologicalaspects of the movement, which are more significant than the theologicalaspects, as he correctly observes. Philosophically, he finds them related toidealism and pragmatism. The theories of the four principal representativesof the ecumenical school, Khomiakov, Soloviev, Boulgakov, and Berdyaev,are considered in relation to the Platonic church fathers and to sociologistsfrom Comte to Durkheim and T6nnies.The point of departure in the author's analysis is the concept of groupconsciousness, which he traces from biological sociology to contemporarysocial thought showing analogies between them and the ecumenical school.Swietlinski's criticism of both systems of thought is that the criteria oftruth and of moral values cannot be found in collective consciousness and,therefore, neither in socialization nor spiritualization. Eventually it be-comes a critique of the whole idealistic philosophy by a realist who rejectsthe idea of a Christian community as a group sui generic as being a totali-tarian fiction. The stand that collective consciousness would necessitate thedisappearance of individual consciousness does not seem to offer a satis-fying solution of the problem of individuum versus collectivum.

In Solitude and Society, Berdyaev offers a theory of metaphysics of soci-ology. He applies the principles of Christian dialectic to the study of spirit-ual solitude, which to him is the central problem of modern times. Hisanalysis of the spiritual unrest manifested in Western civilization indicatesa conflict between the objectified world of sensory experience and the innerworld of spiritual life. Although Berdyaev stands on metaphysical groundand his interest is philosophical, he draws heavily upon psychology andsociology and shows temperamental and logical affinity to such men asNietzsche, Kierkegaard, Tolstoy, and Dostojevski.Taking the position of personalist philosophy, he poses as his task thediscovery of authentic reality as a means of overcoming human isolation bytranscending "the immediate frontiers of the individuality." One is re-minded of George H. Mead's discussions on the development of personalitythrough the growth of social consciousness. The existential personalism ofBerdyaev in some respects runs parallel to that of this American pragma-tist. The problem of metaphysical sociology emerges in the discussion ofthe ego and its relationship to society. "Existence is revealed in the Thouand the We, as well as in the Ego, but never in the object," says Berdyaev.Penetration of primary reality involves participation rather than communi-cation. Society fails to solve the problem of solitude because it interprets itfrom without, from the standpoint of naturalism rather than from within,from the existential standpoint.In the light of positivist philosophy the personality is merely a minutepart of society; from the existential standpoint, society is a part, a qualita-tive content acquired by personality in the process of its self-realization,but not wholly identifiable with it. The distinction between communication,

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