Pitirim A. Sorokin

“Instead of being depicted as a child of God, a bearer of the highest values attainable in this empirical world, and hence sacred, man is reduced to a mere inorganic or organic complex, not essentially different from billions of similar complexes. In so far as materialism identifies him and his cultural values with matter and mechanical motion, it cannot fail to strip him and his values of any exceptional and unique position in the world. Since they are but a complex of antoms, and since the events of human history are but a variety of the mechanical motions of atoms, neither man nor his culture can be regarded as sacred, as constituting the supreme end value, or as reflections of the Divine in the material world. In a word, materialistic sensory science and philosophy utterly degrade man and the truth itself.”
― Pitirim Sorokin

“The fine arts are one of the most sensitive mirrors of society and culture of which they are an important part. What society and culture are, such will their fine arts be. If the culture is predominantly sensate, sensate also will be its dominant fine arts. If the culture is unintegrated, chaotic and eclectic also will be its fine arts. Since contemporary Western culture is predominantly sensate, and since the crisis consists in the disintegration of its dominant supersystem, so the contemporary crisis in the fine arts must also exhibit a desintegration of the sensate form of our painting and sculpture, music, literature, drama and architecture.”
― Pitirim Sorokin