Topic > Sociological Imagination by Charles Wright Mills

When you think about your existence, you consider everyday life and think about standards. Charles Wright Mills created the concept of the sociological imagination which describes how individuals' reflections will surpass the ordinary. When analyzing society's perspective, the sociological imagination will guide us away from typical thoughts about life. Rather, you will look and see much more. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay According to this sociologist, the sociological imagination is a connection between people and history. Specifically, he defined the sociological imagination as “the awareness of the relationship between personal experience and the larger society.” In other words, it is knowledge of people, society and history. Individuals and societies create each other; you can't understand a person if you don't understand their society and vice versa. All things considered, Mills concludes that the sociological imagination provides an understanding of the effects we as people have on society and the effect society has on us. The sociological imagination consists in “making the strange familiar”. It's about empathy; it is a step you would take outside of your life to look at the “bigger” picture. The conjunction between biography and history will develop in this broad vision. This way of seeing will lead those with a sociological imagination to investigate the interconnectedness they have faced. These questions include “what is the structure of this particular society as a whole?, Where does this society fit in human history?, What varieties of men and women prevail now in this society and in this period?”. Within some of these questions, it can address issues that are private and public issues. In the sociological imagination, it puts issues such as personal problems of the environment and public issues of social structure into perspective. Personal environmental problems are conflicts within oneself. These drawbacks arise from the individual, from close relationships with others and from restricted areas of social life. In contrast, public issues of social structure occur when issues spread beyond the self and local environments such as close friends, family, etc. In short, these issues are distinguished when you see the problems as personal problems while the issues are public problems. Mills believes that knowing the difference between the two terms is “an essential tool of the sociological imagination.” Distinguishing issues from problems is important because public issues are often overlooked. Many people believe that problems are personal problems of the environment in which they live. As an illustration, an individual committed suicide, but people find this dilemma of self-destruction as “common”. They might assume that “it's his life, his choices. It's just him and his family, no one else. It has nothing to do with me." However, sociologist Emile Durkheim would probably disagree. He explained the sociological imagination within his work “Suicide” in his own way, inserting history into it. Suicide is routinely misjudged as a “personal problem because it could be a public problem based on various clues. Suicide could be the consequence of tensions on the family foundation. One might attribute the high suicide rates to the burdens people may have, including the social desire to acquire an advanced education; the excessive costs of obtaining that education; the absence of occupations that can and can exert a lot of pressure once the.