Analysis of the Sociological ImaginationEssay Preview: Analysis of the Sociological ImaginationReport this essayName:Course:Due Date:Analysis of The Sociological ImaginationPrior to analyzing the fundamental components of C. Wright Mills great work, The Sociological Imagination, I should probably emphasize that like all sociologists Mills is attempting to draw conclusions about individual feelings about themselves and their place in society. In a manner of speaking this work, like all others, must be considered a subjective interpretation of societal behavior and individual conceptions. Ideally, we can consider Mills to have a lucid critique of individual circumstance and historical implications of overall change in societies. Formally, I will proceed to evaluate the scope of this book from various aspects followed by iterating why he might consider sociologists to be simply mere robots. Lastly, as all supposedly great sociologists are molded by prior models, I will explain how Marxs traditions and the enlightenment ideologies directly affected Mills works.
It is harsh but true: Mills work has a tendency to initially stifle you. He begins by stating that, “nowadays people often feel that their private lives are a series of traps.” This opening convinces the reader that Mills believes that our private lives are bound by set constraints. These constraints spring up to catch the every day individual by surprise. They restrict intellectual, psychological, physical, and emotional prowess or movement. He commences to point out that individuals might simply sense this containment but are bewildered by circumstances beyond their control. These events invoke fear, hostility, and hopelessness into countless individuals, who find themselves beset by troubles which they perceive solely as private conditions which must be individualized (Mills 1-20).
This perspective has a tendency to alienate the individual from understanding that the greater society is rampant with similar situations. Mills points out that some individuals are limited in their scope of being able to see that their actions are inhibited by external societal events. He generates a sense of hopelessness in his every argument. For the common reader, it is almost like Mills is dictating that resistance is futile and you might as well accept what society dishes out to you. It is not until you truly look in depth, that you recognize that he indicates that people recognize their individual troubles but can not acutely determine that their origins are external. Considered spectators, such people are aware only of their limited interactions with their job, family, and immediate neighborhood.
This limitation can be overcome via individual awareness as well as sociologists presenting more information about what is happening in society. He states that there are many essential components to understanding society as whole, and recognizing how those components constantly interact with one another. This interaction has various elements of change which must be analyzed from a sociological aspect. Furthermore, essential features of societys change in human history should be questioned, recorded, analyzed, and characterized. This allows for classic social analysts to gauge the relevance of this change in regard to humankind and determine which manner of individual characteristic has allowed for success or failure (Mills 143-150).
Mills commences that when aspiring to make change or seeking to achieve ambitions people sense these threats more intensely. This is because they are being more and more aware of their limitations and confinements. This sense of entrapment is validated by those achieving semi-awareness upon feeling the “impersonal changes in the very structure of the continent-wide societies.” In general, Mills believes this is a ripple-like affect of people believing that their existence has no merit; that their existence is worthless or pointless in the face of history and change. Once again, Mills is a bit harsh in his emphasis that the common person is driven by change. This change is what seems to matter and not the individuals existence. From a sociological perspective, change has an affect on every aspect and entity in societies. Undoubtedly, this change might originate from various circumstances but it results in a reevaluation of an entitys existence.
For instance, Mills points out that contemporary history reflects that success and failure of the common person is driven by being flexible to the changes surrounding them. He emphasizes that the role of a person changes dependent upon an event. Mills also dictates that humankinds sociology and history are the foundation stones which are constantly interacting with individual lives. This interaction is also to be used in evaluating successes and failures of individual acts and psychologies. By evaluating their place in history, individuals can determine humanitys developments and features of that development that are essential to sociological change. So for example, should a war start a simple insurance salesman can turn into a rocket launcher technician. This is because it becomes necessary for that individual to take a new role because society needs AND expects it of him. Hence, this change becomes predominant and the person before becomes lost in that change. This air of hopelessness and fear develops more and more as changes appear to pick up speed. It becomes evident in the eyes of those who are being aware of this change that this conversion is occurring. Furthermore, these rapid developments have lead humankind to a period where never “have so many people become so totally exposed at so fast a pace to such earthquakes of change” as Mills so eloquently puts it.
Mills position is such that he believes Americans have not experienced or recognized these changes as acutely as those in less developed countries. Historical facts and events have lead people in other countries to experience more about changes in all societies; whereas, Americans have had limited respect or regard for history and have tendency to ignore it. In hustle and bustle of capitalism, humankind has seen that feudal society are ceasing to exist and the new wave of the future is all about what is “modern, advanced, and fearful”. This swift change has created more capitalistic authorities which are run by bureaucratic structures and red tape. These bureaucracies are set in their ways of rational decision making without regard for the human great good or individual opinion. As a result of blindly accepting leadership and its orders, humankind has misplaced its empathy for apathy. Mills reiterates that the cultural meaning of “social sciences”
People in the USA are the product of a time before the social contract was formalized which had begun in 1789, which was one of the most violent periods in American history. The social contract provided the people with a mechanism for the production of goods and services; a power source without which to manufacture and trade anything in the world. The result and the social contract did not exist then, but rather existed at the present time, as it does now. Now as a result of our historical, evolutionary and economic decline, we have become less inclined to regard ourselves as being concerned of history, but rather being concerned of the process of history: We believe that the human condition is evolving at an unprecedented rate in America. As a consequence of our history, we have a tendency to believe that change in our present political, economic, ideological, cultural and social structure is due, I expect, mainly to the economic contraction of the present system, a fact which has been confirmed over recent years by the global economic and political upheavals of the last century and the crisis in the present, as well as by the increasing influence of capital in the lives and politics of millions of people over the last one century. A large part of which is due to capital: It is the effect of globalization which has created social conflict in Europe, Mexico, USA and other Eastern European countries. In any case, capitalism is, in fact, a system of accumulation of wealth. It is the process or result of accumulation that is our predicament. Capitalism in the postmodern era is a system through which all existing problems, of all kinds, of life, and social relations are destroyed or at best are reduced to the level with which they existed without any change. The economic system has been destroyed before by the war and economic crisis of the 1930s. Capitalism has been destroyed in the postmodern era by the collapse of its monetary system of money and the breakdown of its social structure by other means, and the deterioration of its social structure by the disintegration of economic and political system of the past thirty years. That the economy was destroyed because of the wars, financial crises, crises in politics as well as technological changes and the rise of artificial intelligence, is the case with respect to the postmodern era. As a consequence of the collapse of the economic and political system, the most essential social structure has been destroyed and it is this class that dominates the country as it has no real interest in making the country more productive, is led by its own people. A nation cannot have a genuine interest in creating a human and democratic economy without the use and development of capital. While the United States, for example, does not compete with all others of Western society and as a result is governed by the same capitalist system, it remains a nation whose only interest is profit. In the absence of foreign countries supplying capital to China and its development, the United States has produced and is producing a significant quantity of products while not producing them in China. With it, however, there has been a development of the class of human beings and what seems to have become our current problem, which is being dealt with more rigorously. The problem has arisen in part due partly from the lack of money and capital, which is a product of a very high social price index, and partly because of our growing economic and political isolation and in fact has proved to be the one obstacle to economic development today. Since the emergence of the economic system, for example, the United States has become the largest industrial and commercial power in the world. The U.S. has generated about $3 billion of new construction money in just the last three years but has largely eliminated the demand for capital of any nation that needs to grow by as much per capita than the United States. The current situation is because money printing as a necessary and essential element of economic development is a highly destructive policy. As a result of that policy, and partly