C. Wright Mills's Sociological Imagination

Sociological imagination – what does it mean? It was the first question popping in my head as I started reading a piece of “The Promise” from C. Wright Mills’s The Sociological Imagination. Simply, from my understanding, sociological imagination is an ability of which a man sees things interact with each other socially. After reading the piece and acknowledging what the author said about sociological imagination, I noticed that there were three important elements of Mills’s arguments which were also called “fruitful” ideas from his point of view. Below are those elements that I noticed and understood while reading in regard to sociological imagination and its function. The first element of Mills’s argument is that “men often feel that their

To make the process of writing more explicit for readers to understand, Roberts applies some of Mills’s concepts of sociological imagination in his argument. First of all, he reminds us what Mills noted regarding an issue of the social relationship between writer and audience in writing: “To overcome the academic prose you first have to overcome the academic pose” (qtd. in Roberts’s A Sociology of Writing). In Roberts’s view, some students are more likely to use a wordy and complex syntax, which can be considered fragment in their writings so as to establish an impression; definitely it is a problem in writing. Hence, to emphasize his point of how to become a better writer, Roberts suggests that students should think sociologically about writing as it helps them gain insights and develop strategies. Secondly, as the structural linguistic is essential and can be changed over time as people employ it, some writers oftentimes break certain conventions which also cause them to be changed. Therefore, Roberts records the fact from Mills’s observation: “Not only are individual biographies shaped by history and the social structure, but individuals also may shape history and reform the social structure,” to make his argument more convincing on purpose. Lastly, to Roberts, writing is “an expression of the sociological imagination,” because sociological imagination – again from Mills’s argument - does allow us to “grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society” (Mills 6); and that additionally is adduced the interaction between private biography and public issue as it “can be applied in writing.” In general, by employing what Mills observed regarding the act of writing, Roberts informs that writers should be flexible to move back