The Sociolgical Imagination Flashcards
What time period was the sociological imagination?
The 1950s. Specifically 1959
What was the name of this chapter?
The Promise
What is the gist of the sociological imagination?
- To be able to relate personal biography and intimate circumstances
- with the impersonal circumstances of large-scale social structures, demographics, generations and place of history.
What are some keywords words that Mills used to explain the larger social picture.
- society
- social structures
- Demographics
- Economy
- Culture
- Creed
What does “Milieux” Mean?
Dictionary.com definition:
- Surroundings, especially of a social or cultural nature
‘Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with which the sociological imagination works is…….’
‘….between the ‘personal troubles of Milieu’ and ‘the public issues of social structure’
What is an essential tool of the sociological imagination?
To be able to distinguish between personal and local troubles to the larger scheme of social stucture
‘Troubles occur when….’
-a trouble is a private matter
‘The character of the individual and within range of his/her immediate relations with others; they have to to with oneself and with those limited areas of social life of rich one is directly and personally aware of”
How does Mills discuss ‘Troubles?’
-That a ‘trouble’ is a private matter.
- troubles that occur within ones local environment and
- immediate social contacts where one is ‘directly and personally aware’
- ‘troubles that lie within the individual as a biographical entity’
- The scope of an individual’s milieu
-‘a Social setting that is directly open to his/her personal experience and to some extend his/her willful activity.
How does Mills explain ‘Issues’?
-An issue is a public matter
- matters that transcend local these environments’
- and an individual’s ‘inner life’
- institutions of historical society as a whole’
- and ‘the various milieu’ that overlap and interpenetrate to form the larger structure of social and historical life.’
‘An issue, in fact, often involves a crisis in institutional arrangements, and often too it involves what Marxists call…..’
‘….’Contractions’ or antagonisms.’
Mills Example of a trouble vs issue:
Unemployment?
-It is a trouble when only one persona is unemployed in a city of 100,000.
-It is an issue when a
Nation has 50 million employees while 15 million people remain unemployed
Does Mills claim that the structure of opportunity has collapsed?
Yes
Mills example of trouble vs. Issue: War
- A Trouble: how to survive, die honourably and for relief look at the individuals skills and immediate opportunities.
‘Climb to higher safety of the military apparatus or to contribute to the wars termination’
-An issue:
structural issues include:
-who goes into command
-with its effects upon economic + political, family + religious institutions
-‘with unorganized irresponsibility of a world of nation states’
Mills example:
Considering marriage
-Trouble: man + woman experience personal troubles…
Issue:..but when the divorce rate is higher this shows a structural issue. An indicator.
Mills example issue vs. Trouble.
Considering: Metropolis and solutions
Troubles: -for wealthy upperclass to have an apartment, private garages, private acres, a nice garden, a two controlled environments including a private helicopter with a small staff at each end.
Issues:
-This all sounds very nice but it does not ‘solve public issues that the structural facts of the city poses’
What should be done?
Who should decide what should be done? When and where? What should the plans be?
These are political and institutional issues that affect many milieux
‘In order to understand the changes of many personal milieux we are required to…..’
‘Look beyond them’
Possessing the sociological imagination means to:
- To be aware of the idea of social structure
- and to use that awareness sensibly in order
- to have the ability to trace many connections to a vast variety of milieux
- to look beyond personal milieux
- to be able to switch between different perspectives
- to be aware of larger social structures
What is of the 1st of 3 questions that Mills discusses?
- ) What is the structure of this particular society as a whole?
- What are its essential components?
- How are they related to one another?
- How do different varieties of social orders differ?
- within it all what is the meaning of any particular feature for its continuance and for its change?
What is the 2nd of 3 questions that mills discusses?
- ) where does society stand in human history?
- what are the mechanics by which this changing?
- what place within and its meaning for the development of humanity as a whole?
- how does any particular feature we at examining affect, and how is it affected by, the historical period in which it moves? How does it differ from other periods?
- what as its characteristic ways of history-making?
What is the 3rd of the three questions that Mills discusses?
3.) what varieties of men and women now prevail in society? and in this period?
-and want carries come to prevail?
-I’m what ways are they selected and formed, liberated and repressed, made sensitive and blunter?
-what kinds of ‘human nature’ of each and every feature of the society
are we examining?
‘Human nature’
Why does Mills put Human Nature in quotations?
Because human nature is mutable depending on the societal structures surrounding that ‘human nature’
-‘Human nature’ changes according to the society that the ‘human nature consists within and is subject to change.
That ‘human nature is subjective’
‘For that the imagination is the capacity to….’
Shift from one perspective to another….’
What are the three questions that Mills asks?
- ) what is the structure of this particular society Asa whole?
- ) Where does this society stand in human history?
- ) What varieties of men and women now prevail in this society and period?
The sociological imagination enables its possessor to:
- ‘understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life
- and external career of a variety of individuals
Who wrote the sociological imagination?
C. Write Mills
