The Sociological Imagination

C. Wright Mills
The Promise
Grand Theory
Abstracted empiricism
Types of practicality
The bureaucratic Ethos
Philosophy of Science
The Human Variety
Uses of History
On Reason and Freedom
On Politics

Chapter1. "The Promise of Sociology" by C. Wright Mills

"The Promise of Sociology" by C. Wright Mills is very interesting and informative. In his
article, Mills defines sociological imagination as the ability to see things socially, and shows
how they interact and affect each other. "Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a
society can be understand without understanding both." (11). As this quote shows, Mills
believes that the individual cannot understand themselves as individuals, also they cant
understand their role in society without this understanding. Moreover, it is required to
understand the society in individual perspectives.
The difference between trouble and issue is how they connect to ideas from individual or
society. Mills believes in the power of the sociological imagination the personal troubles can be
connected to public issues. The public issues can also determine personal trouble, also personal
trouble can affect public issue. In other word, our individual problems can influence the society.
As an example, lets assume a person become unemployed because of an inner problem in his
company. From his view, he just loses his job. But, when these unemployed people increase
because of the same problem as a whole, this lead unemployment rate to increase which is public
issue. From this article, it makes me think that understanding the sociological imagination is
helpful to understand the interaction between individual and society and to control better ones
life.

Chapter2. "Grand Theory" by C. Wright Mills

Grand theory is a term invented by the American sociologist C. Wright Mills in The Sociological
Imagination to refer to the form of highly abstract theorizing in which the formal organization
and arrangement of concepts takes priority over understanding the social world. In his view,
grand theory was more or less separated from the concrete concerns of everyday life and its
variety in time and space.
The main target of Mills was Talcott Parsons, also an American sociologist and the architect
of structural functionalism, against whom he insisted that there is no grand theory in the sense of
one universal scheme to understand the unity of social structures, according to Gregory.[2] In
Parsons view "grand theory" integrated not only sociological concepts, but also psychological,
economic, political, and religious or philosophical components. He tried to integrate all the social
sciences within an overarching theoretical framework.[2]
By the 1980s the grand theory was reformulated and included theories such as; critical
theory, structuralism, structural Marxism, and Structuration Theory, all influenced human
geography. Barnes and Gregory confirmed this and noticed in addition; No matter the
phenomenon investigated, it could always be slotted into a wider theoretical scheme. Nothing
would be left out; everything would be explained.
: Chapter3.

" abstracted empiricism " by C. Wright Mills

abstracted empiricism A term coined by C. Wright Mills in The Sociological Imagination (1959)
and used to refer to the work of those sociologists who equate empiricism with science and make
a fetish of quantitative research techniques. Whilst Mills accepts that there is a place for
numerical data and statistical analysis in sociological reasoning, he insists that they are not
sufficient for sociological analysis. Indeed, in the absence of the theoretical categories and
comparative historical analyses that give such data their sociological meaning, he also insists that
no conception of social structure is possible. This is because of the psychologism that he regards
as intrinsic to all methodologies that restrict what is allowable as legitimate data to those which
are produced by sociologists themselves by means of surveys and the like. A fascinating
historical account of the origins of abstracted empiricism will be found in R.
Bannister , Sociology and Scientism: The American Quest for Objectivity, 18801949 (1987)

Chapter4. "Types of Practicality" by C. Wright Mills

Above all, do not give up your moral and political autonomy by accepting in somebody else's
terms the illiberal practicality of the bureaucratic ethos or the liberal practicality of the moral
scatter. Know that many personal troubles cannot be solved merely as troubles, but must be
understood in terms of public issues - and in terms of the problems of history making. Know that
the human meaning of public issues must be revealed by relating them to personal troubles - and
to the problems of the individual life. Know that the problems of social science, when adequately
formulated, must include both troubles and issues, both biography and history, and the range of
their intricate relations. Within that range the life of the individual and the making of societies

occur; and within that range the sociological imagination has its chance to make a difference in
the quality of human life in our time. (Mills 1959: 226)
In summary I guess he's saying when for example the issues about the current oil problem ..are
only about:
a) how to control the oil flow.
b) any one person's loss of employment as a fisherman then both ' illiberal practicality of the
bureaucratic ethos or the liberal practicality of the moral scatter' is insufficient
We have instead to understand how the historical processes ( of privileging the social system
which enables capitalists like BP to be so incompetent) occurs

Chapter-5. " The bureaucratic Ethos" by C. Wright Mills

In the chapter on The Bureaucratic Ethos (Mills, Wright 1959:100-) Mills portrays a scathing
image of the social sciences within academia in the United State in the late 1950s. He was
concerned about a decisive shift in the role of the social sciences that was unfolding between
1935 1959 in which the older liberal practice of examining social problems was
overshadowed by a joining of the more bureaucratic, illiberal, managerial practicality with an
abstracted empiricism. Mills described this mutant as bureaucratic social science. He was
concerned that this type of costly, efficient, highly standardized and rationalized methodologies
resembled those of accounting and advertising firms of corporations. As such, even in university
settings, the New Social Science applied social sciences, served bureaucratic clients like the
army, the state and corporations. By addressing the particular needs of specific clients rather than
the public, Wills contended that the objectivity of the social science practice was jeopardized.
Chronologically Mills traced the embodiment of bureaucratic social science through the
marketing agencies of the 1920s, corporations and polling in the 1930s, academic life in the
1940s and the American federal government in WWII and through other institutions throughout
the 1950s. Wills sketches an image of academia in the 1950s in which the high cost of abstracted
empirical work which is dependent on costly research units, forces these units to fall under
corporate control. The universitys division of labor became transformed from the model of
professional peers with apprentices, to research bureaucracies composed of intellectual
technicians, research promoters and intellectual administrators skillful in setting up and funding
research projects (Mills 1959:104).

Chapter-6. " Philosophy of Science" by C. Wright Mills

WRIGHT MILLS was an academic gadfly whose writings served as both an inspiration and an
irritant to a whole generation of social scientists. His insights were often brilliant and his
voluminous writings contain much which bears careful examination despite the occasionally
polemical character which Mills, for good reasons, saw fit to adopt. For Mills was a social

scientist engage for whom the products of research could never be separated from the realm of
direct intellectual action. As this study will attempt to demonstrate, Mills was both a postMarxian and a post-Weberian who sought to illuminate the dark corners of empirical social
experience by the use of a powerful analytical conception of elitism. Despite this approach, Mills
retained a profound faith in his radical view of democracy which he, as a social theorist, hoped to
protect and refine. Mills admired what he called the "classic tradition" of social science. In that
tradition the questions asked are generally of a wide scope, concern total societies and the studies
are "soaked in history," but what makes them most valuable is the "fact that their intellectual
problems are relevant to the public issues of their times."! Mills thought that Marx and Weber
had done the best work in classical theory and considered Veblen the best social scientist
produced in America." Mills regarded his own work as a contemporary extension of classical
theory. That he remained within the broad rationalist tradition of European political theory is
evident from his announced purpose which was to "lay bare the structure.

Chapter7. " The Human Variety" by C. Wright Mills

In chapter seven Mills sets out what is thought to be his vision of Sociology. He writes of the need to
integrate the social, biographical, and historical versions of reality in which individuals construct
their social milieus with reference to the wider society (Mills, 1959, 132-134).
He argues that the nature of society is continuous with historical reality. In doing so, Mills writes of
the importance of the empirical adequacy of theoretical frameworks. He also writes of the notion of a
unified social sciences. This he believes is not a conscious effort but is a result of the historical
problem-based discourses out of which the disciplines developed, in which the divisions between the
disciplines become increasingly fluid (Mills, 1959, 136-140). Thus Mills sets out what he believed to
be a problem-based approach to his conception of social sciences (140-142).

Chapter8. " USE of History" by C. Wright Mills

In "The Sociological Imagination," C. Wright Mills said that it is essential to understand the connection
between history and biography. By that he meant that we must connect the events in our own lives
(biography) with our understanding of history. For example, if we are studying poverty, it is not sufficient
to document the lives of people who live below the poverty threshold.
To fully grasp the situation, we must understand the forces of society that created poverty as well as the
events in the lives of the people who live in conditions of poverty.
Likewise, to understand the power structure of society, we must not only know who has the power, but
how that power developed in the first place. Mills (in "The Power Elite") points out that over time a
coalition was formed among the top positions in the military, government, and industry. These positons
are occupied by people whose jobs are interchangeable because they are all geared toward the same goal:
the acquisition and maintenance of power.

The mid-levels of power, which are really of little consequence in society as a whole, can be filled by
ordinary people, like mayors and city council members. They have marginal local power, but are not part
of what former President Dwight D. Eisenhower dubbed the "Military-Industrial Complex."
In Mills were alive today, he'd say that one can only understand the situation of the banking failure, the
collapse of the auto industry, and the rapidly rising unemployment by examining the historical
underpinings that brought us to this crossroad.

Chapter09. " On Reason and Freedom" by C. Wright Mills

C. Wright Mills' On Reason And Freedom in The Sociological Imagination (1959) Identifies the
significance of what he calls the "Fourth Epoch." This Epoch constitutes the evolution of the
theory behind the bureaucracy and the detriments from it.
Mills (1959) uses bureaucracy as a model for the suppression reason and freedom. The idea of
the bureaucracy, much like Ford's assembly line, is a organization broken into multiple pieces.
The structure of the bureaucracy facilitates regulation and suppression of individuality. Western
society reflects the idea behind the bureaucracy.
Mills (1959) states that men caught in the monotony of day-to-day obligations of the postmodern epoch lose their ability to see the structural forces that suppress their ability to reason,
thus diminishing individual freedom, by definition. In other words, engaging in bureaucratic
structure compromises critical thinking.
Mills (1959) suggests that the deterioration of the human mind goes unnoticed due to the
accumulation of "technical gadgets." Technology acts as a distraction which knows no limit.
Engaging in this behavior compromises individual freedom. What would Mills say to the level
and abundance of "technical gadgets" of today?
Unfortunately for modern western society, face-to-face interaction has decreased and interaction
via technology (e.g., cellular phones and the internet) has evolved into what may be the primary
form of interaction between individuals. Individuals find themselves "tuned" out during
situations where the exchange of ideas through face-to-face interaction can occur.
With this said, we must move from the alienation that derives from the model of the bureaucracy.
We must find our way back to reality from "cyber reality" and begin engaging in intellectual
craftsmanship. If not, individuality may mirror what Mills (1959) calls the "cheerful robot," or
the inability to think critically and the acceptance of that fate. Mills argues that while some may
view technology as liberating, its evolution may lead to the loss of freedom all together.

Chapter10. ON Politics" by C. Wright Mills

In Mills view, major national power now resides almost exclusively in the economic, political, and
military domains. All other institutions have diminished in scope and power and been either pushed to the
side of modern history, or made subordinate to the big three.

Of the three sectors of institutional power, Mills claims, the corporate sector is the most powerful. But the
power elite cannot be understood as a mere reflection of economic elites; rather it is the alliance of
economic, political, and military power.
The masses are economically dependent, they are economically and politically exploited. Because they
are disorganized, the masses are far removed from the classic democratic public in which voluntary
organizations hold the key to power.
Mills saw the American Congress and American political parties as a reflection of this middle-level of
power. Although Congress and political parties debate and decide some minor issues, the power elite
ensures that no serious challenge to its authority and control is tolerated in the political arena.
To date, Mills fears, these leaders are acting (or failing to act) with irresponsibility, thus leading us to
disaster. But this does not mean that it always must be so. The great structural change that has enlarged
the means and extent of power and concentrated it in so few hands now makes it imperative to hold these
men responsible for the course of events.
By 1958, Mills seemed much more concerned with the rise of militarism among the elites than with the
hypothesis that many elites were military men. According to Mills, the rise of the military state serves the
interests of the elite of industrial societies. For the politician the projection of military power serves as a
cover for their lack of vision and innovative leadership.
For corporate elites the preparations for war and the projection of military power underwrites their
research and development as well as provides a guarantee of stable profits through corporate subsidies.