Published The Sociological Imagination - Free Essay Example

In 1959, C. W. Mills published The sociological Imagination. Sociology was new in the U.S. and few universities even had sociology departments. Sociologists discussed how to teach and explain what is intended to know sociology. Mills book is a critical point in history. The book looks into sociologys future and had a big influence on sociological masterminds of the twentieth century. Mills is trying to show how a person can develop reason based on outside information. Mills defines the sociological imagination as the vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society. He enjoyed visualising things socially and how they interact and impact each other. The sociological imagination utilizes four factors to help sociologists see things from different viewpoints: biography, social structure, and history. Biography refers to the everyday struggles people face in life Mills refers to this as milieu. Social structure refers to institutions like family, work environment, political gatherings and how they are connected. When discussing the history of a person, it often has to do with biological factors and where your DNA originates from it connects the smaller picture with the bigger picture. Sociology enables an individual to comprehend their place in reality and shows them a way to control their own world. Social structures and common issues in peoples lives are rarely ever personal. These individual issues are issues experienced by a population of people in society. Numerous individual issues are social issues camouflaged by selfishness. The distinction between an individual and societal issue in an individual are the inconveniences a person encounters, and the issues a whole society encounters that could undermine its structure. A normal person may get discouraged about being jobless and acknowledges it as their own inconvenience. If there are thousands of individuals unemployed Mills argues it should then be treated as a public issue. These problems are interwoven with a large-scale of society where government policy might be included as a public issue. One example of this is divorce separations inside a society tends to be viewed as individual inconveniences of only the people involved. If individuals are getting divorced each year, than it tends to be viewed as a public issue where foundations like marriage are considered a bigger issue of society. The sociological imagination helps understand history, life, and the relations inside a society. Individuals make history and biographies are peoples life stories. History is what went on between individuals everywhere throughout the world. History is the proof of what was done, why it was done and how it turned out. Mills specified two schools in the book, the first school is the grand theory and focuses on the Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons. He made speculations about what all humans do. Mills sees Parsons is the prime grand theory. There are two fundamental issues of this theory, the first is that it is confusing, utilizing enormous words and long entries when the thoughts are straightforward, could be explained easier and cannot explain the problems people have or how to fix them. The second school, abstracted empiricism is fixated on surveying individuals and public opinion but this surveying only works sometimes. Surveys can tell you someones opinion, but it cant tell you what is persuading it. Mills thinks this technique systematize research and stops critical thinking. As a result, transforms sociology into bureaucracy. Sociology takes on the bureaucratic ideals instead of truth.