Download Imagining the social! Tony Fitzgerald Charles Wright Mills was born

Imagining the social!
Tony Fitzgerald
Charles Wright Mills was born in Waco, Texas on August 28th 1916.
Mills' book 'The Sociological Imagination' was published in 1959. Mills is justly
famous for his idea of the sociological imagination. Mills is providing sociologists
with a set of guidelines with which to carry out social analysis.
The key terms which form the basis of the sociological imagination are:
biography; tradition; 'private troubles' and 'public issues'.
The sociological imagination requires us to engage in the study of an individual’s
biography; but to place that biography in the wider context of the history and
tradition of the society in which that individual lives.
Mills suggests that a useful way of understanding this 'imagination' is to use the
'fruitful distinction' between on the one hand 'the personal troubles of milieu' and
on the other, 'the public issues of social structure'. (Mills 1959: 14)
For Mills the all too common misperception on the part of many individuals is that
they perceive their own biographies as just personal and private. Far too often
there is a failure to see their own biographies as being interwoven and
interrelated to the wider public and political 'stage' of society.
Thus an unemployed individual may see this 'trouble' of unemployment as a
private trouble. Clearly it is a private trouble, however for Mills the individual
needs to recognize that it is one not unconnected with wider social forces.
Imagining the social!
For Mills this entails sociologists placing what he calls the private troubles of
individuals in their context. For Mills this context refers to the public issues of the
day.
With such an approach, says Mills comes:
"..the capacity to range from the most impersonal and remote transformations to
the most intimate features of the human self - and to see the relations between
the two." (Mills 1959: 14 emphasis added)
I have italicized that last clause in order to emphasis the central aspect of Mills'
notion of the sociological imagination, that is, "...to see it whole." (Mills 1959:
170) To put it another way, the aim of the sociological imagination is to see 'the
bigger picture' within which individuals live their lives. This is akin to making what
was once opaque now transparent and clear.
Mills provides a formal definition of the sociological imagination when he argues:
"The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger
historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career
of a variety of individuals." (Mills 1959: 12)
Here we have it: the sociological imagination is said to allow us to perceive
individuals and the big social institutions of society as part of a 'seamless web' as
it were. Or to put it another way: to perceive personal troubles and public issues
as two aspects of a single process.
It is noteworthy that Mills perceived the task of the sociologist as analogous to
that of the crime fiction writer:
'The job of crime fiction...is the same as the job of all social science worthy of the
name: to make society become as alive and understandable and dramatic as the
best fiction makes the individual seem. And the job must be done, first, by
realizing how individuals must be understood in milieu and how individuals and
milieu and society interrelate. Second, by a technique of presentation which
presents the relations between the three up close and as intrinsic.' (Letter to
William & Virginia Miller dated 22nd March, 1957, Mills 2000: 232)
There is, argued Mills, an important and pressing need for the sociological
imagination; it will, he suggested, address the '…elements of contemporary
uneasiness and indifference..' on the part of western publics. (Mills 1959: 21)
This unease was for Mills caused by the alienation and estrangement felt by US
publics in the 1950s. An alienation based on the lack of understanding of the
social structures around them.
Imagining the social!
The justification for the sociological imagination becomes clear:
"It is not so much that you live for ideas, it is that you really cannot live without
them - although you can exist. But you are not in involuntary servitude to the
powers of the commonplace and the terrible domination of the everyday." (Mills:
278)
For Mills then, the sociological imagination is the ‘promise’ of sociology. It is this
promise which potentially empowers all who study the subject of sociology. For
Mills then, there is a need for this imagination's, 'acquisition by individuals and by
the cultural community at large.'
Mills suggests that the sociological imagination involves an ethical relationship
between the sociologist and those s/he studies. Mills asserts that the sociologist
should hold three sets of values: the first is the value of truth - the second is that
of reason - the third is that of emancipation and freedom.
Human emancipation and autonomy are the objectives behind the sociological
imagination.
Mills elaborates on his thesis of the sociological imagination by suggesting three
sets of questions to which the user of the sociological imagination must address
them selves. I have set these out on the next pages:
What is the structure of this particular society?
Here Mills is pointing to the need to study the social structures and social
institutions of a society. The media, the state, the family, structures of inequality,
etc. These structures will be the basis and therefore the social continuities of a
society - that is they make up the history, traditions and customs of societies.
What are the mechanics by which [society] is changing?
Here Mills is pointing to the dynamics of social change - Here we might focus on
the issue of human agency. Humans have consciousness and therefore the
ability to choose. Human agency is the product of that choice. The existence of
human agency means that individuals and social groups do not have to respond
as robots might to the structures mentioned above. Humans have the capacity to
change the social structures around them. Sometimes they do so in rather
obvious ways - such as through wars or revolutions. However they also tend
more often to do so in 'imperceptible' ways even to themselves! Humankind is
amazingly adaptive and creative when it comes to its social and natural
environments. Sociologists refer to the manner in which individuals socially
construct their social worlds.
What kinds of 'human nature' are revealed in the conduct and character we
observe in this society in this period?
Most sociologists reject the idea of a fixed, once-and-for-all [biological] human
nature for humankind. Rather, taking seriously the interaction between
individuals and their societies, sociology recognises the extent to which
individuals and social groups are products of the wider society in which they live.
_
Horowitz, I (1967) (ed) Power, Politics & People: The Collected Essays of C. Wright Mills Oxford
University Press
Mills, C W (1999 [1959]) The Sociological Imagination OUP
Mills, K (2000) (ed) C. Wright Mills: Letters and Autobiographical Writings University of California
Press