This concept helps people understand themselves in relation to the individual and their place in history. Who an individual is depends on what is going on in the society around them and how they fit in at that time in history, such as, a man can be a baker or a dictator depending on what troubles an individual is having what and what issues a society is facing. Mills states “the sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society”. To really understand this idea you have to understand yourself first, since you will judge your place in history off what experiences you had individually, and then relate it to society’s history. For myself, I will always remember the recession in the 2000’s because that is when I decided to complete college. I lost my position at a company due to lack of business, which is what also happened to thousands of others. This is engaging myself and societies “self” and recognizing how I fit into historical fact and identifying how these two relate. Unfortunately, I was not alone. Thousands of people joined me in having to reevaluate their lives and how to go forward, but this also helped me get ideas in how I should move forward. Mills describes the difference in troubles and issues. Troubles being an individual’s turmoil and issues being a society’s turmoil, such as, I was laid off (troubles) and 60 million people were laid off (issue). But what happens if it was only me who was laid off or if there wasn’t a recession but instead an expansion? Mills describes how issues are institutional and cannot be resolved by personal solutions but need to have multiple structural changes in society to correct them. He also says that “man’s chief danger today lies…contemporary society itself with its alienating methods..” and not “…his own unruly nature and the dark forces pent up with in him.” I don’t feel like that is quite how I see it. I see the opposite. I know when I was feeling lost after losing my job, I took comfort in knowing that this was a nationwide problem. I didn’t feel like such a loser. Had it not been a recession and I was laid off, I would feel like a failure and alienated from society. Whenever I would have thought back on how I fit into a historical context within the society of that period, I would have felt like I didn’t. By having it a big issue, I was able to still fit in, even if it wasn’t a group I wanted to belong to. Plus, when something is just a trouble, society blames you. If it’s an issue, you can relieve some stress and use society as a scapegoat by blaming it to help you get through the blow to your self-esteem. When something is an issue more people are there to help out, commiserate with, and throw ideas around with on how to make peoples troubles go away, which is why I feel that an issue is less alienating than a trouble and helps you understand where you fit within society and history, aiding in the development of your sociological imagination.
According to C. Wright Mills the sociological imagination is "the vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society.”
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |