Research Journal Review
C. Wright Mills was a step ahead of all his colleagues. In the excerpt about sociological imagination it helped me identify how each individuals relationship with society can create problems in which we can see in generations. The defining words of this article are, “neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both” (Mills 1). As I continued reading through the article I began to think of events that have gone on in just the United State’s two hundred years of existence and many things that had to do with history later had an effect on something else ultimately liquidating back to just one individual, each a moving piece needed to function properly for society’s sake.
In order for anyone to understand another ones being you have to take a walk in their shoes and that’s ultimately what Mills is saying. We are quick to socially put everyone into a social structure and categorize and that’s how our modern society is setup. It does not allow us to freely address any injustice or even just your freedom of speech without out even consciously thinking of repercussions socially that can come after.
Mills goes on to later say individuals have issues that are a private matter within ones life, but “issues have to do with matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the range of his inner life” (mills 2). All of it comes together. People are the social changes to what have gone on historically. He also explains how when there was war. The everyday working man who was just a butcher turned into that army man for World War 2 because that is society had asked of him. There are so many things that are tied into social imagination of us all because we are restricted from knowing exactly what is our boundaries. We have always seen the end or what we always call “drawing