The Sociological Imagination

In his book the Sociological Imagination, C. Wright Mills develops the idea of Sociological Imagination, a
means to understand self within the larger social historical context. Sociological imagination provides us
a framework for looking at the social world that far surpass the common sense notion.

C. Wright Mills describe the contemporary world as one in which people feels trapped. They feel
confined to the troubles of their everyday life within the limited sphere of their family, job,
neighbourhood and other work commitments. Once they become aware of the ambitions and threats
which transcend their immediate locals, they feel more trapped.

Mills states that ‘Neither the life of an individual not the history of a society can be understood without
understanding both’. Yet men do not usually define their success and failures in terms of their socio-
historical context and institutional contradictions. They do not realise the interplay of men and society,
of biography and history, of self and world. The rapid changes in the contemporary world outpaces the
ability of man to orient themselves in accordance with cherished values.

Therefore, it is not only information that people need in this Age of Fact but a quality of mind that will
help them to use this information and to develop reason in order to understand what is going on in the
world and what is happening within themselves. It is this quality that Mills called the Sociological
Imagination.

Sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two
within society It is the task and promise of Sociological Imagination which is long recognised by the
classic social analysis like Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx who, irrespective of how
limited or how broad the features of the social reality they studied, have consistently asked three shots
of questions:

1. What is the structure and components of a particular society as a whole and how it differs from
the other social order?
2. Where does the society stand in human history and how it is changing?
3. What varieties of men and women prevail in this society and in this period and what kinds are
coming to prevail?

Thus, Sociological Imagination is the capacity to shift from one perspective to another - from the political
to the psychological or from individual to global.

Another promise of the Sociological Imagination is to help us distinguish between ‘personal troubles of
the milieu’ and the ‘public issues of social structure’. A trouble is a private matter and occur when the
values cherished by an individual felt by him to be threatened. The range of troubles lie within the
character of the individual and his Immediate relations with others.

An issue is a public matter and occur when some values cherished by the public is felt to be threatened.
Issues transcend the individual and his immediate relations and have to do with the larger socio-
historical life. For instance: In a city of 100,000, if only one man is unemployed then that is his personal
trouble which might have occurred either because the person do not have access too much
opportunities or he do not possess certain skills. However, when in a country of 50 million employees, 15
million men are unemployed, then that is a public issue. Now the problem does not lie within the
character of an individual but in the economic and political Institution of that country. If the economy is
so arranged that slumps occur, the problem of unemployment becomes incapable of personal solution.

Our experience in various milieux is often caused by structural changes. Any individual who tries to
understand personal troubles by looking at the structural changes behind it is said to possess
Sociological Imagination.

In order to identify the major issues for public and the key troubles of private individuals we need to
understand how the characterising trends of our period impact the cherished values. When people
cherished some set of values and do not feel any threat to them, they experience well-being. When
people do feel a threat to their cherished values, then that is the state of crisis. If all there values seem
to be involved they feel a total threat of panic. If people are neither aware of any cherished values, nor
experience any threat, this the state of indifference. If people are not aware of any cherish values but do
feel a sense of threat then they experience uneasiness or anxiety which becomes a deadly unspecified
malaise if it is total enough.

According to Mills, contemporary period is characterised by both an uneasiness and indifference. After
World War 2, the values threatened are not widely acknowledged as values, nor they are widely felt to
be threatened. Instead of troubles there is vague uneasiness. Instead of issues there is a feeling that all
somehow is not right. Much private uneasiness remains unexpressed; much public malaise never
become public issues. It is now the most important task for social scientists to meet the growing cultural
demand of the contemporary period i.e. to make clear the elements of contemporary uneasiness and
indifference using Sociological Imagination. It is for this reason, Mill argues, that Social sciences are
becoming the common denominator of our cultural period.

Mil states that in every intellectual age there is one common denominator of cultural life that shape the
way in which people think and understand the world and even influence what people think is important.
During the modern era, physical and biological science has been the major common denominator. But
today the cultural meaning of physical science is becoming doubtful. The social and political significance
of science, it’s commercial and military issue are undergoing confused re-appraisal. The current doubts
are secular, humanistic and quite confused, incapable of finding any solution in physical science
anymore. Therefore, Sociological imagination, found in social and psychological science, is becoming the
major common denominator of our cultural life and it’s signal feature. The qualities of sociological
imagination are regular demanded in factual and moral concerns in literary works and in political
analysis.

Mill also highlights that literature is becoming a minor art as it does not provide adequate means for
knowing the social and historical reality that men wants to know. He also pointed out that the attempt
for law-like generalizations in social science, as found in natural sciences, delayed the establishment of
an adequate social science. Due to which novelists, critics, poets and artists became the major
formulators of private troubles and public issues. Art does focus on such feelings and issues but lack the
intellectual clarity required to understand and overcome the uneasiness and indifference of the
contemporary period. This shows the is irreplaceability of sociological imagination as a common
denominator.

Further, Mill outlines that his conception of social science stands opposed to the views of his
contemporaries, whom he chides for their bureaucratic techniques and “methodological pretensions.”
which congest social work by obscurantist conceptions or trivialize it by concern with minor problems
unconnected with publicly relevant issues. He emphasized the cultural and political significance of social
science, it’s concern with historical social structures and urgent public issues. According to him, the
classic social analysis, which focused on historical social structures and publicly relevant issues and
insistent human troubles, was better than current trend where many abdicate the intellectual and
political tasks of social analysis.

Mills outlines three tendencies which are generally though to be the field of sociology. Each of the three
tendencies is subject to distortions, but much of what is now called sociological work tends to follow
these tendencies.