The famous American sociologist Charles Wright Mills believed that in order to understand certain sociocultural realities and people’s attitudes towards them and their behavior, it is necessary for a sociologist to situate themselves in a social reality of others, “to realize the classic values that underlie the promise of our studies” (Mills 194). Mills states that we should adopt sociological imagination by viewing things from the perspective of society rather than individuals. By doing so, it is crucial not only to report what they felt the reality is but rather to be an intellectual thinker and report back what the reality is.
According to Mills, the significant component of sociological imagination theory is social life features that can influence individuals’ values, behavior, and character of individuals who make up that particular society (Mills). Therefore, sociology needs to play an essential role in bringing reason to bear on human affairs (“C. Wright Mills – The Sociological Imagination” 2:02). By fulfilling this role, an intelligent scientist is the one who concentrates on the social nature of humankind, seeks what significant, and stays critical of the “bureaucratization of reason and of discourse” (Mills 192). Social imagination is a quality of mind, which allows one to understand social structures and human behavior by staying intellectual and unbiased.
Thus, sociological imagination means the ability of researchers to distract from their everyday experiences, the ability to see behind the abstract concepts of specific people with their interests and values and to grasp the meaning of the functioning of a society in its historical development. It is the ability to understand ways of life and organization that are different from those in which the researcher lives. In other words, intelligent scientists should be able to put themselves into the public world to experience what other people experience and see reality in the most precise terms.
Works Cited
Mills, C. Wright. The sociological imagination. Oxford University Press, 2000.
“C. Wright Mills – The Sociological Imagination.” YouTube, uploaded by Debra Marshall. 2012. Web.