35 pages • 1 hour read
C. Wright MillsThe Sociological Imagination
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1959A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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The “Alienated” Man
According to Mills, the “alienated” man is a contemporary definition for the human condition. Individuals have to increasingly modify and augment their lives and desires to fit the needs of the institutions or organizations to which they belong (and on whose wage their livelihood depends). The outcome, however, is not the production of a freer society but rather a society wherein individuals increasingly perform for their organization. This performance comes at the expense of individuals’ freedom to devote time and energy to themselves and their own personal ambitions. Individuals have limited a say in decision-making that impacts their lives. As a result, Mills says, there is an inverse relation between “self-rationalization” and the unfreedom of individuals.
The common, alienated man exists in tension against the managerial elite, the decision-makers in a business or government. The elite are separated from the common man, unaware and uncaring of his basic needs. They are more concerned with extracting labor than they are with freedom. Mills thus encourages social scientists to hold the elite responsible for social problems, instead of aiding and abetting their actions.
The Institution
The term “institution” appears frequently throughout Mills’ text. He uses it primarily in conjunction with the university as an institution in which social scientists carry out their work, and in relation to corporations and governments as institutions that fund or use social science research. The institution as a term for social scientific study refers to a body of individuals who play different roles, ordered according to the authority or power inherent to each job. Individuals can generally be defined by the social function they carry out (public health institutions provide health services to the public, institutions of government oversee and lead a country, academic institutions produce knowledge, research, and train future workers in their needed skill set).
If Mills is critical of institutions, it is not because he finds institutions to be inherently corrupting of individuals. Rather, he views the larger context in which the university as an institution is capable of breeding possible corruption and prolonged ignorance. According to Mills, part of a social scientist’s task is to change this situation of the university. He urges social scientists to stop aiding systems of domination and corruption within institutions. He sees the rejection of bureaucracy as a means to increase democracy. The framework of the sociological imagination aids the effort to weed out corruption.
