Sociological Imagination In The Promise By C. Wright Mills

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C. Wright Mills begins ‘The Promise’ by saying men often sense that their private lives contain many traps. They feel that within their every day life, they face troubles they cannot overcome and the more they become aware of these troubles, the more trapped they feel. Mills then goes on to talk about the sociological imagination and discusses the idea that understanding the biography of a person and the history of that particular society go hand-in-hand. The sociological imagination aids a person to grasp biography, the story of the individual, and history, which is something bigger than the individual. Mills explain that sociological imagination is the ability of humans to understand where they lie in society, how they affect society and how society affects them.

One distinction that is a significant instrument to the idea of the sociological imagination is between the personal troubles of a person’s social environment and the public issues of society. The text explains the differences between personal troubles and public issues but it also explains the point when a private trouble shifts to a public issue. Mills used several examples in the chapter and one of them was about unemployment. When only one man is unemployed in a city with a big population number, it can be said that …show more content…
Although personal troubles and public issues may seem like two separate things at first, C. Wright Mills explained that sometimes they are not; that seemingly distant forces in society may be linked to the experiences of an individual. That is why the sociological imagination should be applied in an individual’s daily life, as one individual alone cannot solve most problems. This will enable a person to change the personal situation they are in but also create a better society
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