By: Peter Dilger
So here is my trial run, my very first blog. And I have a big confession I am about
as confident of this blog as a young tike is first riding a bike after being on
training wheels. It is a terrifying yet exciting event at the same time. I have
written numerous papers in my college career. However, writing a blog has caused
writer’s block and anxiety over writing expectations for a unknown arena - the
Internet viewer.
For days after reading and rereading the three sociological articles from Mills,
Lemert, and Allen assigned in class, I was clueless of a worthy topic to discuss
in my blog debut and how I could apply it. That all changed while I was
frantically procrastinating over the blog deadline, it dawned on me that in the
particular moment I was living in “the personal troubles of milieu” and “the
public issues of social structure,” as theorized by C. Wright Mills in the
article “The Promise of Sociology (Mills, 1959).”1
In the article, C. Wright Mills established a theory of personal troubles vs.
public issues under the lense of sociological imagination which he explained how
we perceive our environment, the stimuli that occupy it daily, and their
personal impact on us. Mills theory of sociological imagination also proposed
that we impetuous interpret, interact, and conduct inspections on the worldly
stimuli we come across in our daily lives and the certain outcomes they impose
upon us.
While rereading the Mills’ article and with only a few hours until the blog deadline,
my procrastinating over this blog continued to build and build and build until
it hit a fever pitch and a stalemate. I found myself between two stations
“personal troubles of milieu”and :the public issues of social structure.
(Mills,1959).” 2
The personal trouble was the unyielding task of executing the assignment using my years of education and the newly sociological information I read within the three articles. The personal trouble was the blog assignment was issued to me, along with all of my fellow Sociology 385 classmates and the personal success of my blog rested within my fingertips with every keyboard letter key strategically entered into submission to convey my interpretation of sociological imagination discussed by Mills in his article.
My personal trouble continued on within my head, as doubt began to fill my mind
projecting multiple conflicting thoughts at once suggestively saying to me that
the blog material should be more cut and dry, that the hypothetical blogs of my
fellow classmates will follow a more conventional train of thought and dissect
and regurgitate every morsel of sociological thought muttered by the three
sociologists we were assigned to analyze and apply daily life scenarios to. My
personal trouble writing this blog had rebirthed itself in a new form as an
inner monologued battle with my conscience and myself which meshed with ‘the
public issues of social structure’ which entailed institutional expectations and
forces controlling my academic fate by requiring me to successfully complete
this blog assignment as necessary step closer for me receiving my Bachelor's
Degree in Sociology.
One last note I would like to address in this blog is the fact that many of us to
fail to comprehend the level of potential each mind has for piecing together the
world we live and continuously learning from every experience and environment
our lives dish out. We underestimate and take for granted the simple application
and value of imagination. There is more to imagination than a mere psychological
parlor trick we use on ourselves to escape reality and enter fantasy. And the
imagination of our minds is not only useful for us as children to create their
ideal friend that no one can see or play make believe games. Our minds are full
of imagination in respect to a sociological aspect by they way they that soaks
up every encounter of situational experiences and permanently internalized it
for future social interactions.
C. Wright Mills theorized this imagination manifestation in the same article “The
Promise of Sociology,” of which he coined the phrase ‘the first fruit of this
imagination.’ Which Mills was referring to as the social scenario where
“personal uneasiness of individuals is focused upon explicit troubles and the
indifference of publics is transformed into involvement with public issues
(Mills,1959).” 3
In the statement, C. Wright Mills basically was describing the situational experience where the things a person can control collide with the institutional enforced norms that influences a person’s consciousness toward their unique role on a individual, micro, and macro social level.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford UP, 1959. Print.
2 Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford UP, 1959. Print.
3 Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford UP, 1959. Print.
So here is my trial run, my very first blog. And I have a big confession I am about
as confident of this blog as a young tike is first riding a bike after being on
training wheels. It is a terrifying yet exciting event at the same time. I have
written numerous papers in my college career. However, writing a blog has caused
writer’s block and anxiety over writing expectations for a unknown arena - the
Internet viewer.
For days after reading and rereading the three sociological articles from Mills,
Lemert, and Allen assigned in class, I was clueless of a worthy topic to discuss
in my blog debut and how I could apply it. That all changed while I was
frantically procrastinating over the blog deadline, it dawned on me that in the
particular moment I was living in “the personal troubles of milieu” and “the
public issues of social structure,” as theorized by C. Wright Mills in the
article “The Promise of Sociology (Mills, 1959).”1
In the article, C. Wright Mills established a theory of personal troubles vs.
public issues under the lense of sociological imagination which he explained how
we perceive our environment, the stimuli that occupy it daily, and their
personal impact on us. Mills theory of sociological imagination also proposed
that we impetuous interpret, interact, and conduct inspections on the worldly
stimuli we come across in our daily lives and the certain outcomes they impose
upon us.
While rereading the Mills’ article and with only a few hours until the blog deadline,
my procrastinating over this blog continued to build and build and build until
it hit a fever pitch and a stalemate. I found myself between two stations
“personal troubles of milieu”and :the public issues of social structure.
(Mills,1959).” 2
The personal trouble was the unyielding task of executing the assignment using my years of education and the newly sociological information I read within the three articles. The personal trouble was the blog assignment was issued to me, along with all of my fellow Sociology 385 classmates and the personal success of my blog rested within my fingertips with every keyboard letter key strategically entered into submission to convey my interpretation of sociological imagination discussed by Mills in his article.
My personal trouble continued on within my head, as doubt began to fill my mind
projecting multiple conflicting thoughts at once suggestively saying to me that
the blog material should be more cut and dry, that the hypothetical blogs of my
fellow classmates will follow a more conventional train of thought and dissect
and regurgitate every morsel of sociological thought muttered by the three
sociologists we were assigned to analyze and apply daily life scenarios to. My
personal trouble writing this blog had rebirthed itself in a new form as an
inner monologued battle with my conscience and myself which meshed with ‘the
public issues of social structure’ which entailed institutional expectations and
forces controlling my academic fate by requiring me to successfully complete
this blog assignment as necessary step closer for me receiving my Bachelor's
Degree in Sociology.
One last note I would like to address in this blog is the fact that many of us to
fail to comprehend the level of potential each mind has for piecing together the
world we live and continuously learning from every experience and environment
our lives dish out. We underestimate and take for granted the simple application
and value of imagination. There is more to imagination than a mere psychological
parlor trick we use on ourselves to escape reality and enter fantasy. And the
imagination of our minds is not only useful for us as children to create their
ideal friend that no one can see or play make believe games. Our minds are full
of imagination in respect to a sociological aspect by they way they that soaks
up every encounter of situational experiences and permanently internalized it
for future social interactions.
C. Wright Mills theorized this imagination manifestation in the same article “The
Promise of Sociology,” of which he coined the phrase ‘the first fruit of this
imagination.’ Which Mills was referring to as the social scenario where
“personal uneasiness of individuals is focused upon explicit troubles and the
indifference of publics is transformed into involvement with public issues
(Mills,1959).” 3
In the statement, C. Wright Mills basically was describing the situational experience where the things a person can control collide with the institutional enforced norms that influences a person’s consciousness toward their unique role on a individual, micro, and macro social level.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford UP, 1959. Print.
2 Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford UP, 1959. Print.
3 Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford UP, 1959. Print.