Page 2 - Lesson Note

The sociological imagination

 The Sociological imagination is book written by sociologist
C.Wright Mills in 1959

 C. Wright Mills rests his vision of the sociological imagination
precisely in the unravelling of how the personal and public are
related.

 The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and

biography and the relations between the two within society.

 The most fruitful distinction with which the sociological
imagination works is between „the personal troubles of the

milieu‟ and „the public issues of social structure‟.

 Troubles occur within the character of the individual and within
the range of his immediate relations with others; they have to do
with his-self and with those limited areas of social life of which

he is directly and personally aware.

 Issues have to do with matters that transcend these local
environments of the individual and the range of his inner life.

 The facts of contemporary history are also facts about the

success and the failure of individual men and women. When a
society is industrialised, a peasant becomes a worker; a feudal
lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman.

 Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can
be understood without understanding both.

Pluralities and inequalities among societies

 In the contemporary world we belong to more than one society.

 We may use the term „our society‟ to denote a linguistic or
ethnic community, a religious or caste or tribal society. This