American civilization and culture is in a transitional period, moving away from the "sensate" culture of the past four centuries, probably toward an "ideational" era closely allied to the spirit of the Middle Ages, Pitrim A. Sorokin, professor of Sociology, told an audience of 75 at a Council of Government Concentrators "cross-question" hour in the Union last night.

Lumping American with European culture as "Euro-American", Professor Sorokin set the World War as a tentative starting point for an era of change that may take a century or two.

"This crisis is roughly comparable in magnitude to that of the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries," the author of "Cultural and Social Dynamics" stated.

Of the role of Communism and Fascism in the change from a materialistic to a "transcendental" society, Professor Sorokin said, "They are the degenerate monkeys of Capitalism. Communism has all the negative characteristics of Capitalism, few of its good features."

He defined Communism as "a society in which the state regiments everything," and said that to be long-lasting a Communist-Totalitarian state must exploit its masses.