220 ■ FLOW
same poster would make an ideological statement, and be used for
political ends.
Of course, at no time does any group of people shape its purpose
through only one of these two ways of ordering experience to the
exclusion of the other. At any given moment, various subtypes and
combinations of the sensate and the ideational worldview may coexist
in the same culture, and even in the consciousness of the same individ
ual. The so-called yuppie life-style, for instance, is based primarily on
sensate principles, while Bible Belt fundamentalism rests on ideational
premises. These two forms, in their many variants, coexist somewhat
uneasily in our current social system. And either one, functioning as a
system of goals, can help to organize life into a coherent flow activity.
Not only cultures but individuals as well embody these meaning
systems in their behavior. Business leaders like Lee Iacocca or H. Ross
Perot, whose lives are ordered by concrete entrepreneurial challenges,
often display the best features of the sensate approach to life. The more
primitive aspects of the sensate worldview are represented by someone
like Hugh Hefner, whose “playboy philosophy” celebrates the sim-
pleminded pursuit of pleasure. Representatives of an unreflective idea
tional approach include ideologues and mystics who advocate simple
transcendental solutions, such as blind faith in divine providence. There
are, of course, many different permutations and combinations: televan
gelists like the Bakkers or Jimmy Swaggart publicly exhort their audience
to value ideational goals, while in private indulging in luxury and sensu
ality.
Occasionally a culture succeeds in integrating these two dialecti-
cally opposed principles into a convincing whole that preserves the
advantages of both, while neutralizing the disadvantages of each. Soro
kin calls these cultures “idealistic.” They combine an acceptance of
concrete sensory experience with a reverence for spiritual ends. In West
ern Europe the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance were classified by
Sorokin as being relatively most idealistic, with the highest points
reached in the first two decades of the fourteenth century. Needless to
say, the idealistic solution seems to be the preferable one, as it avoids
the listlessness that is often the keynote of purely materialistic world
views and the fanatical asceticism that bedevils many ideational systems.
Sorokin’s simple trichotomy is a debatable method of categorizing
cultures, but it is useful in illustrating some of the principles by which
men and women end up ordering their ultimate goals. The sensate
option is always quite popular. It involves responding to concrete chal
lenges, and shaping one’s life in terms of a flow activity that tends toward