C. Wright Mills's The Sociological Imagination (ft. Paula Geldens)

Here at the Sociology of Everything Podcasts, we acknowledge the people of Ghana, Yarta, whose land this episode was mainly produced on, and whose past and present elders repair respects to. Hi, I'm Eric Sue. And I'm Louis Everis. And we're Loon the Sue. And this is a podcast about sociology brought to you by the University of South Australia, USA, the University of Enterprise. From a scale from one to ten, how good of a promo was that for the University? I mean, it's not bad. It's got that sort of cheesy local TV vibe. I've been practicing in the show. It's been super weird. My partner at Lisa is like, what are you saying? Not sure if you ever watched much country, kind of TV in Australia, but that sort of got wind television or any novel over that one. I would first start off this podcast by acknowledging that we're recording this episode, and most of this podcast on the lands of the Ghana people, and that we both want to acknowledge the Ghana people as the traditional custodians of the Unlead region, and we want to pay respects to elders past, present, and emerging. In this episode, we're looking at one of the most seminal texts in sociology. We're looking at "See, Write, Mills"' famous work sociological imagination. And this work is so important to the field of sociology that I would be super surprised if I ever came across a sociologist working in a professional capacity who's never read this text before. It would be like meeting a physicist who's never heard of Newton. It would be like meeting a cricket fan who's never heard of Sir Donald Bradman. By the way, why do we always say Sir Donald Bradman? I don't know. It's such a mythology around the darkness in there. It's really weird. The family is a really nasty guy. Yeah, so nasty. Yeah, yeah. We're just a full-of-cricket fan. I'm shooting on as we say. Now, we're going to figure out why this text is so important in the field of sociology. I think usually a lot of sociologists will have encountered this text in a first-year course. Usually the first chapter of this text is assigned. And it's kind of something that unites sociologists, doesn't it? It doesn't unite sociologists in that we're all meant to believe the same thing. But I think this helps orient sociology to approach the world in a certain way. So there's a sense of ability about sociology that this text deals with and helps us get a better sense of. And this is captured especially by Mills' concept of the sociological imagination. And I want to begin there. When C-right Mills is writing about the sociological imagination, why it's important to for us to exercise our sociological imagination, what is he trying to drive at? What are he trying to get at, Louis? He's trying to get a certain way of viewing the world and understanding the world. If we think about the other kind of key writings that you often read as a first-year, notably Dirkheim's work on social facts, that's sort of examining the subject matter of sociology. What it is a examine? Whereas C-right Mills and the sociological imaginations, more how do we examine the world? And in particular, a way of examining the world where we connect individuals, we connect the way people think the problems they face with their broader environment, things that exist in their societies, the political institutions, the economic institutions, the family structures, the cultures, the norms, all of these things that exist in our social world. It's about connecting those things to the individual. So this is neatly captured by Mills' link between personal problems with public issues. And let's talk about some of those. What's a good example of a personal problem becoming a public issue? Well, I'm not sure if one necessarily becomes the other. I feel like they're always somewhat interconnected with one another. But the sociological imagination allows us to make that connection. So for instance, unemployment. If we think about that on a personal individual level, someone losing their job, it's easy to sort of individualize that. We can think someone wasn't very good at their job. Maybe they stole something or maybe they did something else. I mean, that is quite a personal example. If we think about someone losing their job, what Mills would ask us to look at is, are there broad social factors that play? Has there been an economic downturn, for instance? Has society changed in some way that has made that profession less important, less people employed in that profession? And so that's the connection he wants us to look at. I think housing is another good example. Because oftentimes when people are looking to buy home or to rent, can feel like a really personal issue. I just need to put more applications in or I need to get better credit or all these other things. When it comes to the question of housing, you have to ask yourself, what if you live in a society that has a housing shortage? Where it privileges certain types of houses being built? Or conversely, there's other social factors at work. Like, what if you are a certain race or you're identified as a certain race and housing policy to discriminate against you to gain housing? So, whereas you might just think it's just a me problem, what social helps us to understand is how this is actually an us problem. Yeah. And in the Australian context, over a long turn now, we've had massively rising house prices and fairly flat wage growth. So, these are society-wide phenomena and that are completely impacting people's ability, especially first home owners to be out of buy houses and also inflating rental prices. So, it's not just about foregoing avocado on test. Exactly. Actually, avocados are very cheap in this particular moment, although they don't date this episode. But I bought an avocado the other day. I think there's $2 for each. $2 for $2. Phenomenon. Phenomenon. The other really great thing about this text is that Mills doesn't just talk about the sensibility of sociology, but also talks about the types of questions that sociologists are prone to ask. And of course, they may answer these questions in very different ways, but these are sort of a set of common questions that sociologies oftentimes associated with. So, the first set of questions goes as follows. Mills believes sociologists should ask, what is the structure of this particular society as a whole, what are its essential components and how are they related to one another? How does it differ from other varieties of social order? What do you think Mills is trying to drive that with the set of questions? Well, he's asking, what are all those institutions and those things that exist in any particular society? So, if we think about Australia, we can think about our democratic institutions, we can think about our parliaments and our courts and the institutions that create the laws and the official rules of our society, but then we can also think about all the cultural phenomena that exist, the attachment to sports teams and the family structures and then the educational institutions and the point Mills is trying to make is that these are all the different parts of a society that influence individuals and they're unique to a society as well. If we fly to a different place in a different part of the world, their political structures, their economic structures are all going to be different and that's going to impact the individuals there in quite different ways. So, like, in Australia, like the consumption of alcoholic beverages seems to be a key part of Australian culture? Yeah, and if we looked at some of these institutions, we can say it's embedded in economic structures because we have a big wine industry, for instance, in an adelaide. We could say it's embedded in cultural structures because it's part of the mythology of Australian and makeshift and these sort of things, having a beer at the pub and all that sort of stuff. It's in so many Australian poems and songs and this stuff, but if we go somewhere else in the world, they might not have that connection alcohol at all, right? That's right. It seems like for some people, it's very normal to just say, "Hey, why don't we go to the pub to have a beer?" "Yeah, I've got some wine." But it would make equal sense to say, "Why don't we go somewhere to have like, I don't know, a nice pop or a lovely yogurt, I don't know." We could say that, but that sounds weird here, but it could easily make sense somewhere else. Yeah, and then obviously there are parts of the world where alcohol isn't just something that's not culturally consumed, but it's even illegal. And those legal structures we were talking about, they expressly prohibit alcohol consumption. The second set of questions, I think, alerts us to a different aspect about the ways in which societies work. And Mills thinks, so see I just also asked, "Where does the society stand in human history? What are the mechanics by which it is changing? What is its place within? And it's meeting for the development of humanity as a whole?" What's Mills trying to drive out here with this set of questions? Well, the key point he's making there is all of those entities, those things, those cultures that we were talking about. They're not static. They don't stay the same. Yeah, they change over time. And as they change, that influences the populations who exist within those social structures. And if we think about Australian culture, for instance, and pubs and alcohol, it seems to be the conversation we're having. We can think about how that's changed in a way that's made it more inclusive for women because there was a time when women weren't even allowed in Australian pubs and all the cultures around drinking were so male-focused. I've also noticed that non-alcoholic options have radically increased and improved in recent years. Before, if you drank non-alcoholic beer, you were like, "I'm social-prire- practically." It was really difficult even to find it. You know what I think is a key example of that? Is light beers and sales used to always just be something light, coopers light, or cascades light, whereas now they're all fundamentally cool names. That's true, like sessionails. Yeah, that's right. They're their own thing. They're more well-respected. So whereas the first set of questions is trying to tune us to cultural differences, this one is really trying to tune us to social transformation. How societies can change, how they can evolve. And I think that's a really insightful point because ultimately, sociology is interested in how another world is possible. Another world is possible in terms of just going somewhere else. Or it can also mean that what's here now, the way which societies are organized now, it could change. We don't have to simply accept things as they are. And I think the importance of this really is exemplified by the third point that Mils makes here, and that any particular structure of society has winners and losers. And this actually, I think leads us to a segment we like to call, say what? But we look at a quote in need of further exploration. And the third set of question provides us with this particular quote. Mils writes, "What varieties of men women now prevail in the society in this period? And what varieties are coming to prevail? And what ways are they selected form, liberated, passed, and made sensitive and blunted? What kinds of human nature are revealed in the conduct and character we observe in the society in this period? And what is the meaning for human nature, each and every feature of the society we are examining?" I mean, I think this passage is quite beautifully written. But it's, I think driving at a very important point about sociology that we're attuned to social differences and social inequalities. Going back to what we said previously about how the sociology imagination involves the connection of personal problems with public issues, this doesn't necessarily mean though that we're all the same. There are winners and losers. There are people who are able to dominate others in various ways. And I'm curious, Louis, can you give an example of how sociologists are attuned to social differences and social inequalities? Well, you know, an area of sociology that I have been very familiar with is a sociology around race and ethnicity for instance. Oh, sure. And if we look at different social institutions, like, you know, migration law and these sort of things, they're often structured in a way to favor people with certain ethnicities. I mean, there's in our migration law, there are things like language tests and cultural tests that, you know, ascertain how well migrants understand Australian culture of it, whatever that means. But my point is that it's a social structure that is offering greater opportunities to people based on their race, their ethnicity, their background. So it's the creation of a winner and a loser within a social structure. Yeah. And not just the effects of the laws that, or the practices that sociologists are interested in, but also who is the author of them, who gets a voice and who doesn't, who's represented. And this also applies to sociology itself. Sociologists are often times reflexive about the work they do. So I think that's quite important. I was going to say that there's one more key part of that quote that I think is quite interesting. And that's this discussion of things perceiving natural when they're actually socially constructive. Because when we look at individuals and particularly when we look at things like their identities, we often think of that as just something you're born with. The way that you understand, perceive the world, the problems you encounter. But Mils is saying that even those things are structured by your social environment, by the family you exist within by everything else around you. In the quote we're examining, I think the thing I hone in on is the term human nature. Yeah. Because oftentimes people will explain things by peeling to human nature. Like why are some women accosted on the street? And someone would say, oh, it's just human nature for men to behave this way. But a sociologist would say, no, what is human nature? It's actually very cultural. It's deeply socially influenced and determined. So we really need to think about our world around us in a very social way. Absolutely. Oh, Louis, what's that sound? Is that the sound of a segment we like to call, where you know smart people know stuff? Where we invite distinguished scholars to come on this podcast to talk about a topic in a broader sense. So welcome, Professor Paul Lgeldon. Paul is the executive dean of the Justice Society Academic Unit here at UNISA. And she's also a sociologist. Well, I'm not. Well, I'm not. I'm not. Absolutely. Who's published on a number of different topics like, I believe, youth identities, youth decision making in Australia? And so we're very happy to have you on this podcast. Thank you so much. Thank you. Little bit nervous. Bit of an eye with a share of. So let's say I'm going. That's exciting. Well, in this episode, we're looking at sea-right meals of sociological imagination. And so Louis and I have been talking about, you know, what's useful about having sociological imagination. So we want to put that question to you. Like, how do you find sociologies relevant in the world today? So I'm an accidental sociologist. I hadn't planned to find myself here, but a sociological imagination changes everything. So as soon as you have a sense that what you see and what you experience isn't given, it's a game changer. It changes every interaction, the way you look at the world, the way that you engage with others, everything changes. Yeah, I think that's certainly how I think about it as well. And one thing I've noticed that teaching sociology at UNSA is the students who come across some of them are focusing and specializing on sociology, but a lot of them are studying all sorts of different things. But you think the skill set you get when you learn about the sociological imagination, you learn about connecting your individual circumstance and the circumstance of those around you to the broader social trends and issues and you learn about conceptions like class and inequality and these things. I feel like back in help you no matter what you're studying, would you agree with that poll? Do you think it's a skill set that would benefit students more broadly? Yeah, absolutely. In a formal life I used to teach first year sociology, I loved it. And I had students who were studying environmental health, so they were going on to be health inspectors. I had students in psych and students across a whole range of different disciplines. And for each one of those students there was an ah-ha moment where they got it, where they could connect their primary discipline interest into that broader context that you spoke about. So if you're going to be working in an industry where you're in charge of governance or policy, you absolutely want to know how people are connected, how power works, who's going to be a winner, who's going to be a loser in any given context, and how you can best engage with people. And so unless you can understand those background connections, you're a little bit bereft. Do you remember what your first ah-ha moment was, or one of your most seminar ah-ha moments when you were doing your social degree or when you were? Yeah, I tell the story a lot. So I wasn't intending to be a sociologist but took sociologist part of my undergrad degree. One of the courses I talk was a research course and we were playing with different methods and I chose to do it was Dodgy As. chose to do this piece where it went to a local pub so I was studying in Townsville and I said I was interested in the way in which gender worked in the context of where the pool tables were in a country pub. Completely, just about me hanging out with you. But for me there was a moment where I realised that everything we're doing has a sociological explanation. And so I used that assessment piece really to get into this notion of who had ownership and who was allowed to use that space in different ways. And if you would have if you think about it if you were to do that piece of research I'm doing it. If you were to do that piece of research in a country town and then again in a metro area and in a different state or offshore in a pub somewhere overseas you would see incredibly different things. And for me that's the beauty of sociology because everywhere you go you get to tweak and challenge how you understand stuff is working. So it's almost not just like a set of facts that you're meant to memorize to do sociology. It's kind of a way of being in the world. Yeah. I'm of seeing things and asking questions. Pretty cool lens. Yeah, they help open up new possibilities and new aspects of people's experience that you may not have considered. And I'm sort of curious, do you think sociology is especially needed right now? Is there something about the contemporary era that really asks students to think sociology? Without a doubt. Without a doubt. So, this is going to date this podcast. Okay. Today is the day that the essay borders have opened. Oh, yeah. That's right. So, right now, we've got a population in this state who are managing a range of discockets and anxieties. And we've got different cohorts within that group who are experiencing things differently. That's a sociological question and experience. Absolutely. If we think about family and friends who are in different states, they are experiencing a range of things in different ways that are related to their position. So it might be that they are, if we're talking about socioeconomic status and class, we'll have some folk who have the resources to travel, who felt constrained during this time. We've got others who are feeling like the playing field has been a little bit more equalized in different ways. We've got folk who are out of work. In any range of ways, this COVID situation is really relevant. And then if we think internationally, we've got disparity around who has got access to vaccinations. Then we've got the vaccination question locally ourselves around those who are unable to or aren't choosing not to be vaccinated. So that's one issue for which sociology hasn't yet got all of the answers. And we don't ever, I think, ever have all of the answers. But this work to do. And then if we think about work in artificial intelligence and I know you two have got some really deep understanding. The world is changing. Absolutely. And so sociology has to be at the forefront of explaining what's going on because policy makers need to be informed by how we understand the world and communities need to be brought along to understand their rights and responsibilities. So that's just a couple of examples. So I have a question on potentially a lighter note, Paul. And one thing that I've discovered with sociology is it can get me into trouble at times. It can firstly make me kind of over-analyze things and look for every little connection behind an event, every kind of social implication to it. And it can also make me get into a lot of arguments with friends and family. I asked Christmas for instance. I spent a lot of time telling my family members that they were always playing role. I've been reading a bit of Gothman. I said, you know, they were never really being their true self. Whatever context they were in, they were just performing their relevant role. I found this live in front of you. Well, it led to some big arguments. I thought I was saying they were fake. And it's not actually what my point, but it was a real Christmas day. Definitely led to some heated discussion. Have you ever found yourself in a similar position of your sociological imagination leading into arguments with friends and family? Or at least interesting discussions. Yeah. Maybe you're kinder than I am. Yeah, so no sociology can ruin your life. So there's a tiny answer and then the big answer. The tiny answer is when you go and access public transport and you want to work out where you want to sit. And the games that go in your head, what it means. What does it mean if I sit next to that person? What does that signal to other people? What does someone else walk you at sitting in that chair? So there's that piece, much deeper and richer though. So I'm currently engaged to a lady. Previously, I was married to a bloke. And so if I think back to, and so I'm engaged in my planning, her wedding, which is great because we can have one now. And I was married to my former partner, Pete, I told you about our wedding. So we chose to get married at the Townsville Casino because I don't have a faith and I was really keen to make a stand around what our wedding would be. Didn't want it to be in a church. We decided to get prepared for our wedding together. We stayed in a hotel room together beforehand. So all of those traditions, as a sociologist, I was keen to mess with. I didn't wear white. We didn't do speeches. We didn't cut a cake. It completely ruins it for everyone. My mother did not forgive me because I didn't give her a formal role in preparation for the wedding. My father didn't walk me down the aisle. He didn't do any of that. So yes, yes, it can ruin life. It has repercussions. And beyond that, we went on a trip after our wedding that some people call a honeymoon. I still can't use that word. So everything is burdened and laden with meaning. And yeah, it makes it really hard to make friends. I think people that have described sociology as not always just supplying answers to the questions people have, but really try to get us to ask the right questions. And we really want to thank you today, Paula, for helping us ask some questions. And thank you very much for being on this podcast. And thank you listeners for listening. We'll see you in the next episode. Thank you. Lume the Su is a sociology podcast hosted by Eric Su and Louis Everess. It's produced and edited by Eric Su, with special assistance from UniSA Online and UniSA Justice and Society. to learn more about studying sociology and other programs online or in person at the University of South Australia, visit UniSA.edu.au where you can search for more details. Lume the Su is primarily recorded on the lands of the Ghana people. The hosts of the podcast would like to pay their respects to elders past present and emerging. If you like to get in touch or learn more about the podcast, visit our website at sociologypodcast.com. Thanks for listening. [Music]