Prof. Moore on C. Wright Mill's Concept of The Sociological Imagination

C. Wright Mills was a prominent scholar, teacher, and theoretician for a sociological understanding of the world. He wrote, “neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.” For Wright the individual, their biography and their individual fate was inseparable from the society which birthed and nurtured them. For Wright the sociological imagination paired individual dilemmas to societal problems.

For example, most Americans feel they are too poor. The sociological imagination suggests that the problem isn’t an individual problem but that it is a larger issue of massive wage disparity. A few people like Jeff Bezos may be worth over 200 billion dollars but the mean annual wage for most Americans in 2019 was around $34,000. It would take you a while to rival Mr. Bezos at that rate. Does that mean you (an individual) did something wrong or is wage disparity a ‘societal problem?’ Learn more about what the Sociological Imagination means with Professor Moore.

Link: https://elearn.columbiastate.edu/d2l/home/8990692