¶ … Wright Mills is that neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both. However, individuals rarely define their personal troubles in terms of historical change. The idea is that individuals live out their individual lives, their biographies, which they live out within some historical sequence. The concept of the sociological imagination provides that an individual can only understand his experiences by placing his individual life within the context of his lifetime. A good example of the interrelationship between history and biography is an individual man in his late 20s, with a family to support, who does not have a job. The joblessness is part of that individual's biography. However, the biography is incomplete without understanding the historical context of the man's lifetime. The role of a man fitting that example differs tremendously depending on the historical context. For example, in the 1930s a huge amount of people were unemployed. The historical context is that the country was experiencing the Great Depression. Therefore, the individual's unemployment, as part of his biography, was an accepted and acceptable condition. The fact of his unemployment did not place a black mark on his biography. That is how history impacts the individual's biography. The relationship is reciprocal, because the fact of that one individual's unemployment, while not historically significant on its own, was one of the elements that helped create the Great Depression. In contrast, in the economic boom of the 1980's, an individual with the same life circumstances would be considered lazy and irresponsible. The role of the sociological imagination is that it is the link whereby individuals relate their biographies to the larger histories. Therefore, it would be the step where...
In fact, usually the interplay between biography and history will be more subtle. For example, violence against women is currently an epidemic in our country; however there is no broad awareness of the problem. Each slap or kick, while it may play a huge role in an individual's biography, contributes to the history of a society that not only condones, but encourages, violence against women. To say that one woman was raped today means little, in a historical context. To say that one woman was raped every six seconds today reflects a society that has little regard for the personal integrity of its women. In turn, that society creates an atmosphere in individual biographies that make it more likely that additional women will be assaulted; men are taught that violence against women is permissible, and women are taught to accept violence as part of being a woman.
To be able to do that is to possess the sociological imagination" (1959). In order for one to fully understand the current recession and his/her position within society he or she needs to do two things. The first is be self-conscious of the intimate and personal decisions one has made that has led him/her down his/her current path, the second thing is to understand the structural factors that ultimately
I'm not afraid of my school, my teachers, my streets, but somehow inside of me, there is some fear: I know things are different. Both of my grandfathers served in the Navy during World War II; both fought to protect an idea of freedom and security that was taken away from me at 12. My grandfather was 17 when he was on Iwo Gima - these 17-year-olds did not even
Sociological Understandings of the Human Condition -- Comparing and Contrasting C.W. Mills and Emil Durkheim The social theorist C.W. Mills fundamentally applied a dialectical view of the human condition to all specific phenomena of human social life. In other words, Mills saw human cultural, much like the theorist Max Weber, as a rational struggle for understanding and survival. Like Weber, Mills saw human history as an evolution of ideas, where the
Life My morning ritual begins at 7:30 A.M. when I wake up, wash my face, apply fresh make-up, fix my hair, put my clothes on and let the dogs out. This is a weekday ritual that I have performed everyday, except Saturday and Sunday, for seventeen years. I know that it takes me exactly twenty minutes to get myself ready for work. At 7:50 A.M., I woke up my 4-year-old grandson
Frank Lloyd Wright Fallingwater Frank Lloyd Wright is considered by many knowledgeable critics and scholars as the not only the most famous architect in the world, but the most creative -- and even revolutionary -- architect in the world. Wright's Fallingwater building, which "…perches so dramatically on the cliff overhanging the eponymous waterfall near Pittsburgh" (Steffensen, 2009), is thought of today as one of the most remarkable private homes ever built by
Sociological Imagination Human life is, by definition, fraught with difficulty and challenge. Often, whatever difficulty an individual experiences feels so dire and unique that it is impossible to imagine that others could experience the same, or indeed, that it could be part of a wider sociological issue. Nevertheless, it is possible, with the "sociological imagination" (Mills, 1959) to create a more contextualized or collective vision of suffering and other social phenomena. Using
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now