),uw~ ell) vJL4<-~

4~'1 \
i
terms of historical change and institutional contradiction. The i to orient themselves in accordance with cherished values. And
well-being they enjoy, th~y do not usually impute to the big ups \ which values? Even when they do not panic, men often sense
and downs of the societies in which they live. Seldom aware of i that older ways of feeling and thinking have collapsed and that
the intricate COI"!.I1~2'.19I}.11~J~y~~_nthe-.P!!1~In,5_QLtheiLowl.l..jives) newer beginnings are ambiguous to the point of moral stasis. Is
and lh~_C;;OU.L~~_QLiY..orl.d
..bis.t.o.J:y..._ordinary men do not usually it any wonder that ordinary men feel they cannot cope with
know what this connexion means for the kinds of men they the larger worlds with which they are so suddenly confronted?
are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in \vhich That they cannot understand the meaning of their epoch for
they might take part. They do not possess the quality of mind their- own lives? That -in defence of selfhood - they become
essential to grasp the interplay of man and society. of bio- morally insensible, trying to remain altogether private men? Is
graphy and history, of self and world. They cannot cope ·with it any wonder that they come to be possessed by a sense of the
their personal troubles in such ways as to control the structural trap?
tran~;formations that usually lie behind them.
Surely it is no wonder. In what period have so many men It is not only information that they need - in this Age of
been so totally exposed at so fast a pace to such earthquakes of Fact, information often dominates their attention and over-
change? That Americans have not known such catastrophic whelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is not only the skills
changes as have the men and women of other societies is due of reason that they need - although their struggles to acquire
to historical facts that are now quickly becoming 'merely his- these often exhaust their limited moral energy.
tory'. The history that nOIN effects every man is world history. 'Vbat they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of
Within this scene and this period. in the course of a single mind tbat will help them to use informati~!1 __~r1~J2_ de.Y.~.!.<2.p..._._. ._..
generation, one sixth of mankind is transformed from all that re:l5.9n ..ill order to achieve lucid summations of what is going
is feudal and backward into all that is modern, advanced, and ()!!.....i.!Uh~_~"...9_rI_~~II1~_9f
what may be happening within them-
fearful. Political colonies are freed; new and less visible forms selves. It is this quality, I am going to contend, that journalists
of imperialism installed. Revolutions occur: men feel the in- and scholars, artists and publics, scientists and editors are com-
timate grip of new kinds uf authority. Totalitarian societies ing to expect of what may be called the ~oct91QgL0.l imagj.!"!± __
rise, and are smashed to bits - or succeed fabulously. After two tion.
centuries of ascendancy, capitalism is shown up as only one
way to make society into an industrial apparatus. After two
centuries of hope, even formal democracy is restricted to a
quite small portion of mankind. Everywhere in the under- The sociological imagination enables its possessor to under-
developed world, ancient ways of life are broken up and vague stand t.he larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for tY
expectations become urgent demands. Everywhere in the over- Illner hfe and the external career of a variety of individuals-. It
developed world, the means of authority and of violence be- enables him to take into account how individuals, in the welter
come total in scope aod bureaucratic io form. Humanity itself of their daily experience, often become falsely conscious of
now lies before us, the super-nation at either pole concentrat- their social positions. Within that welter -'the framework 01--
ing its most coordinated and massive efforts upon the prepara- modern society is sought, and within that framework the
tion of th.e Third World \iVar. psychologies of a variety of men and women are formulated.
The very shaping of history nowoutpace~ the ability of men By such means the personal uneasiness of individuals is
.s-~ uJ~ \-" .1-;~-rl
J iw-J~ ~ y.U()~ .-
 .12 The Sociological Imagination

focused upon explicit troubles and the indifference of publics is specific problems of the classic social analysts, however limited
transformed into involvement with public issues. or however broad the features of social reality they have
The first fruit of this imagination - and the first lessons of examined, those who have been imaginatively aware of the
the social science that embodies it - is the idea that the in- promise of their work have consistently asked three sorts of
dividual can understand his own experience and gauge his own questions:
fate only by locating himself within his period, that he can (I) What is the structure of this particular society as a
know his own chances'TilITf;:;"onjY-iJ-y-becon1iilga;;vare of tiic)se' whole? What are its essential components, and how are they
II of all individuals in his circumstances. In m;ny ways it is a related to one another? How does it differ from other varieties
terrible lesson: in many ways a magnificent one. We do not of social order? Within it; what is the meaning of any par-
know the limits of man's capacities for supreme effort or will- ticular feature for its continuance and for its change?
ing degradation, for agony or glee, for pleasurable brutality or (2l Where does this society, stand in human history? What
the sweetness of reason. But in our time we have come to are the mechanics by which it is changing? What is its place
know that the limits of 'human nature' are frighteningly broad. within and its meaning for the development of humanity as a
We have come to know that every individual lives. from one whole? How does any particular feature we are examining
generation to the next, in some society: that he lives out a affect, and how is it affected by, the historical period in which
biography, and that he lives it out within some historical it moves? And this period - what are its' essential features?
seq uence. By the fact of his living he contributes, however How does it differ from other periods? What are its charac-
minutely, to the shaping of this society and to the course of its teristic ways of history-making?
history, even as he is made by society and by its historical push (3) What varieties of men and women now prevail in this
and shove. society and in this period? And what varieties are coming to
The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and prevail? In what ways are they selected and formed, liberated
biography and the relations between the two within society. and repressed, made sensitive and blunted? What kinds of
That is its task and its promise. To recognize this task and this 'human nature' are revealed in the cond uct and character we
promise is the mark of the classic social analyst. It is charac. observe in this society in this period? And what is the meaning
teristic of Herbert Spencer - turgid, polysyllabic, comprehen- for 'human nature' of each and every feature of the society we
sIve: of E. A. Ross - graceful, muckraking, upright: of are examining?
Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim: of the intricate and \Vhether the point of interest is a great power state or a
subtle Karl Mannheim. It is the quality of all that is intel- minor literary mood, a family, a prison, a creed - these are the
lectually excellent in Karl Marx; it is the clue to Thorstein kinds of questions the best social analysts have asked. ~
Veblen's brilliant and ironic insight, to Joseph Schumpeter's They are the intellectual pivots of classic studies of man in
many-sided constructions of reality; it is the basis of the socIety - and they are the questions inevitably raised by any
psychological sweep of W. E. H. Lecky no less than of the mind possessing tbe sociological imagination. For that i
profundity and clarity of Max Weber. And it is the signal of imagination is tbe capacity to shift from one perspective to i
what is best in contemporary studies of man and society~ another - from the political to tbe psychological' from I
. No social study that does not come back to the problems of examination of a single family to comparative assess~lent of!
bIOgraphy, of history. and of their intersections within a the national budgets of the worfd; from the theological schooli
society. has completed its intellectual journey. Whatever the to the military establishment: from considerations of an oil i
i
0',)
 14 The Sociological Imagination
within the range of his immediate relations with others; they
industry to studies of contemporary poetry. It is the capacity
have to do with his self and with those limited areas of social
to range from the most impersonal and remote transforma-
life of which he is directly and personally aware. Accordingly,
tions to the most intimate features of the human self - and to
the statement and the resolution of troubles properly lie within
see the relations between the two. Back of its use there is
the individual as a biographical entity and within the scope of
always the urge to know the social and historical meaning of
his immediate milieu - the social setting that is directly open to
the individua I in the society and in the period in which he has
his personal experience and to some extent his wilful activity.
his quality and his being.
A trouble is a private matter; values cherished by an in-
That, in brief, is why it is by means of the sociological
imagination that men now hope to grasp what is going on in dividual are felt by him to be threatened.
issues have to do with matters that transcend these local
the world, and to understand what is happening in themselves as
environments of the individual and the range of his inner life.
minute points of the intersections of biography and history with-
They have to do with the organization of many such milieux
in society. In large part, contemporary man's se.lf-conscious
into the institutions of a historical SOi:iety as a whole, with
view of himself as at least an outsider, if not a permanent
the ways in which various milieux overlap and interpenetrate
stranger, rests upon an absorbed realization of social relativity
to for.,m the larger structure of social and historical life. An
and of the transformative power of history. The sociological
issue is a public matter; some value cherished by publics is felt
imagination is the most fruitful of this self-consciousness.
to be threatened. Often there is a debate about what the value
By its use men whose mentalities have swept only a series of
really is and about what it is that really threatens it. This
limited orbits often come to feel as jf suddenly awakened
debate is often without, focus if only because it is the very
in a house with which they had only supposed themselves
nature of an issue, unlike even widespread trouble, that it can-
to be familiar. Correctly or incorrectly, they often come to feel
not very well be defined in terms of the immediate and every-
that they can now provide themselves with adequate summa-
day environments of ordinary men. An issue, in fact, often
tions, cohesive assessments, comprehensive orientations. Older
involves a crisis in institutional arrangements, and often loa it
, decisions that once appeared sound, now seem to them pro-
involves what Marxists call 'contradictions' or 'antagonisms'.
l;: .~~~.~~;, ?f a mind unaccountably dense. Their capacity f~r
i ~--asrcjjl'Ntrlnent is TT1'fuje-)ivei1,*g:Htt:-~I-'~ftife"it~'f1~"tv, .-' ----"-.,-- ."- 'Ji,.;~.W';;i\J••lii"";{...,~~~i'li"UtJ:!J't-"i:' 'I, " "~.,r;f<~~(, ~;,;~ill1,}{ ,.!
In these terms, consider unemployment. \iVhen, in a cIty ot
, . thinking, they experience a transval{;atIori-orYilii.i~~:-i; a:rd "" !
100,000, only one man is unemployed, tha t is his personal
by their reflection and by-th~ se~sibi]jt;:they realize th~
trouble, and for its relief we properly look to the character of
cultural meaning of the social sciences.
the man, his skills, and his immediate opportunities. But when
in a nation of 50 million employees, 15 million men are un-
employed, that is an issue, and we may not hope to find its
solution within the range of opportunities open to anyone
Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with which the socio-
individual. The very structure of opportunities has collapsed.
logical imagination works is between 'the personal troubles of
Both the correct statement of the problem and the range of
milieu' and 'the public issues of social structure'. This distinc-
possible solutions require us to consicler the economic and
tion is an essential tool of the sociological imagination and a
political institutions of the society, and not merely the per-
feature of all classic work in social science.
sonal situation and character of a scatter of individuals.
Troubles occur within the character of the individual and
tb f£...J '~.j- h~ h.t-~ f""'"~l-v;.I-~~~
It>~h - 9~ ~l-'
 Consider war. The personal problem of war, when it occurs, the problem of unemployment becomes incapable of personal
may be how to survive it or how to die in it with honour; how solution. In so far as war is inherent in the nation-state system
to make money out of it; how to climb into the higher safety and in the uneven industrialization of the world, the ordinary
of the military apparatus; or how to contribute to the war's individual in his restricted milieu will be powerless - with or
termination. In short, according to one's values, to find a set of without psychiatric aid - to solve the troubles this system or
milieux and within it to survive the war or make one's death in lack of system imposes upon him. In so far as the family as an
it meaningful. But the structural issues of war have to do with institution ,turns women into darling little slaves and men into
its causes; with what types of men it throws up into command; their chief provider~~!~'-.,!:nwl::!!:I}~d depenoants;ffieproblerri'6fP

••

with its effects upon economic and political, family and re- a. _~~,~i_sfactorL~~!i~~~~~rnai~s in~;,p·abIe--of· pur~iY· pri~~·-
ligious institutions, with the unorganized irresponsibility of a s~~ution. In so far as the overdeveioped'rnegaiopoll"saiid the
world of nation-states. overdeveloped automobile are built-in features of the over-
Consider marriage. Inside a marriage a man and a woman developed society, the issues of urban living will not be solved
may experience personal troubles, but when the divorce rate by personal ingenuity and private wealth.
during the first four years of marriage is 250 out of every 1,000
attempts, this is an indication of a structural issue having to do What we experience in various and specific milieux, I have
with the institutions of marriage and the family and otii-er noted, is often caused by structural changes. Accordingly, to
institutions that bear upon them. understand the changes of many personal milieux we are re-
Or consider the metropolis - the horrible, beautiful, ugly, quired to look beyond them. And the number and variety of
magnificent sprawl of the great city. For many upper-class such structural changes increase as the institutions within
people, the personal solution to 'the problem of the city' is to which we live become more embracing and more intricately
have an apartment with private garage under it in the heart of connected with one another. To be aware of the idea of social
the city, and forty miles out, a house by Henry Hill, garden by structure and to use it with· sens~~E~x_!~_t~-~e.,c:.~p~·~i.i~:~0--'·
Garrett Eckbo, on a hundred acres of private land. In these tracing such linkages among a great variety of milieux. To be
two controlled environments - with a small staff at each end a.~~~~d? __t~_a.~is_to.P.?~.~~~~t~~~_()~! ~I()~!
~al·imasi na ti?_n._..-----
and a private helicopter connexion - most people could solve
many of the problems of personal milieux caused by the facts
of the city. But all this, however splendid, does not solve the
public issues that the structural fact of the city poses. What What are the major issues for publics and the key troubles of
should be done with this wonderful monstrosity? Break it all private individuals in our time? To formulate issues and
up into scattered units, combining residence and work? Re- troubles, we must ask what values are cherished yet threatened,
furbish it as it stands? Or, after evacuation, dynamite it and and what values are cherished and supported, by the charac-
build new cities according to new plans in new places? What terizing trends of our period. In the case both of threat and of
should those plans be? And who is to decide and to accom- support we must ask what salient contradictions of structure
plish whatever choice is made? These are structural issues; to may be involved.
confront them and to solve them requires us to consider politi- When people cherish some set of values and do not feel any
cal and economic issues that affect innumerable milieux. threat to them, they experience well-being. When they cherish
In so far as an economy is so arranged that slumps occur, values but do feel them to be threatened, they experience a
 crisis - either as a personal trouble or as a public issue. And if it is thc uneasiness itself that is the trouble; it is the indiffer-
all their values seem involved, they feel the total threat of ence itself that is the issue. And it is this condition, of uneasi-
panic. ness and indifference, that is the signal feature of our period.
But suppose people are neither aware of any cherished All this is so striking that it is often interpretcd by observers
values nor experience any threat? That is the experience of as a shift in the very kinds of problems that need now to be
indifference, which, if it seems to involve all their values, be- formulated. We are frequently told that the problems of our
comes apathy. Suppose, finally, they are unaware of any decade, or even the crises of our period, have shifted from the
cherished values, but still are very much aware of a threat? eternal realm of economics and now have to do with the
That is the experience of uneasiness, of anxiety, which, if it is quality of individual life - in fact with the question of whether
total enough, becomes a deadly unspecified malaise. there is soon going to be anything that can properly be called
Ours is a time of uneasiness and indifference' - not yet individual life. Not child labour but comic ~ooks, not poverty
formulated in such ways as to permit the work of reason and but mass leisure, are at the centre of concern. Many great
the play of sensibility. Instead of troubles - defined in terms of public issues as weU as many private troubles are described in
values and threats - there is often the misery of vague uneasi- terms of 'the psychiatric' - often, it seems. in a pathetic attempt
ness; instead of explicit issues there is often merely the beat to avoid the large issues and problems of modern society.
feeling that all is somehow not right. Neither the values Often this statement seems to rest upon a provincial narrowing
threatened nor whatever threatens them has been stated; in of interest to the Western societies, or even to the United
short, they have not been carried to the point of decision. States - thus ignoring two thirds of mankind: often, too, it
Much less have they been formulated as problems of social arbitrarily divorces the individual life from the larger institu-
science. tions within which that life is enacted, and which on occasion
In the thirties there was little doubt - except among certain bear upon it more grievously than cIo the intimate cnviron-
deluded business circles - that there was an economic issue ments of childhood.
which was also a pack of personal troubles. In these arguments Problems of leisure, for example, cannot even be stated
about 'the crisis of capitalism', the formulations of Marx and without considering problems of work. Family troubles over
the many unacknowledged reformulations of his work prob- comic books cannot be formulated as problems without con-
ably set the leading terms of the issue, and some men came to sidering the plight of the contemporary family in its new rela-
understand their personal troubles in these terms. The values tions with the newer institutions of the social structure.
threatened were plain to see and cherished by all; the struc- Neither leisure nor its debilitating uses can be understood as
tural contradictions that threatened them also seemed plain. problems without recognition of the extent to which malaise
Both were widely and deeply experienced. It was a political and indifference now form the social and personal climate of
age. contemporary American society. In this climate, no problems
But the values threatened in the era after the Second World of 'the private life' can be stated and solved without recogni- 1
War are often neither widely acknowledged as values nor tion of the crisis of ambition that is part of the v~;y ca~-;r"-----;
widely felt to be threatened. ~uch private uneasiness goes un- ,~ men at work in the incorporated econo~y.
formulated; much public malaIse and many deCISIOns of enor- , It is true, as psychoanalysts continualJy point out. that
.JTiOi.iSSiructUraTreTevance-llever---becom~ p~bij~'i~~~~;:"-F~;" people do often have 'the increasing sense of being moved by
I hose who accept such inherited valu~s-;'s-;:~;;:O-;;-a~d' fr~;dom, obscure forces within themselves which they are unable to

TC)...H _ IJt,~,
I~-
define'. But it is flol true, as Ernest Jones asserted, that 'man's the source of intellectual security. That is one meaning of the
chief enemy and danger is hjs own unruly nature and the dark idea of an intellectual common denominator; men can state
forces pent up within him'. On tbe contrary; 'man's chief their strongest convictions in its terms; other terms and other
danger' today lies in the unruly forces of contem--p'o[~Y_s.Q~jety styles of reflection seem mere vehicles of escape and obscurity .
.itself, ~j!J:!)~~_ aJi~~~&Dgm~iho_;;is.:QTpn:tdu.ctfon,jiLe.nY~J9'piJ].g That a conunon denominator prevails does not of course
tec~I!..!9~.9.!..P?_!i ti<:~\lc!.e-':!2!11
in_~~1iQ..r:l,IHs_
in tel' n 1lct iQ!!~L'l.n:;lr~hy=-_.. mean that no other styles of thought or modes of sensibility
in a word, its pervasive transformations of tbe very 'nature' of exist. But it does mean that more general intellectual interests
man and the conditions and aims of his life. tend to slide into this area, to be formulated there most
sharply, and when so formulated, to be thought somehow to
It is now the social scientist's foremost political and intel- have reached, if not a solution, at least a profitable way of
lectual task - for here the two coincide - to make clear the being carried along. •
elements of contemporary uneasiness and indifference. It is the The sociological imagination is becoming, I believe, the
central demand made upon him by other cultural workmen - major common denominator of our cultural life and its signal
by physical scientists and artists, by the intellectual community feature. This quality of mind is found in the social and psycho-
in general. It is because of this task and these demands, I logical sciences, but it goes far b~yond these studies as we now
believe, that the social sciences are becoming the common know them. Its acquisition by individuals and by the cultural
denominator of our cultural period, and the sociological community at large is slow and often fumbling; many social
imagination our most needed quality of mind. scientists are themselves quite unaware of it. They do not seem
to know that the use of this imagination is central to the best
work that they might do, that by failing to develop and to use
it they are failing to meet the cultural expectations that are
In every intellectual age some one style of reflection tends to coming to be demanded of them and that the classic traditions
become a common denominator of cultural life. Nowadays. it of their several disciplines make available to them.
is true, many intellectual fads are widely taken up before they Yet in factual and moral concerns, in literary work and in
are dropped for new ones in the course of a year or two. Such political analysis, the qualities of this imagination are regularly
enthusiasms may add spice to cultural play, but leave little or demanded. ]n a great variety of expressions, they have become
no intellectual trace. That is not true of such ways of thinking central features of intellectual endeavour and cultural sensi-
as 'Newtonian physics' or 'Darwinian biology'. Each of these bility. Leading critics exemplify these qualities as do serious
intellectual universes -beca;:;le-~';:]-;;-ft~enc;--tha'i reached far journalists - in fact the work of both is often judged in these
beyond any special sphere of idea and imagery. In terms of terms. Popular categories of criticism - high, middle. and low-
them, or in terms derived from them, unknown scholars as brow, for example - are now at least as much sociological as
well as fashionable commentators came to refocus their ob- aesthetic. Novelists - whose serious work embodies the most
servations and reformula te their concerns. widespread definitions of human reality - frequently possess
During the modern era, physical and biological science has tllis imagination, and do much to meet the demand for it. By
been the major common denominator ofseriolls reflection and means of it, orientation to the present as history is sought.
popular metaphysics in Western societie,s. 'The technique of As images of 'human nature' become more problematic, an
the laboratory' has been the accepted mode of procedure and increasing need is felt to pay closer yet more imaginative
 crisis - either as a personal trouble or as a public issue. And if it is the uneasiness itself that is the trouble; it is the indiffer-
all their values seem involved, tbey feel the total threat of ence itself that is the issue. And it is this condition, of uneasi-
panic. ness and indifference, that is the signal feature of our period.
But suppose people are neither aware of any cherished All this is so striking that it is often interpreted by observers
values nor experience any threat? That is the experience of as a shift in the very kinds of problems that need now to be
indifference, which, if it seems to involve all their values, be- formulated. We are frequently told that the problems of our
comes apathy. Suppose, finally, they are unaware of any decade, or even the crises of our period. have shifted from the
cherished values, but still are very much aware of a threat? eternal realm of economics and now have to do with the
That is the experience of uneasiness, of anxiety, which, if it is quality of individual life - in fact with the question of whether
total enough, becomes a deadly unspecified malaise. there is soon going to be anything that can properly be called
Ours is a time of uneasiness and indifference - not yet individual life. Not child labour but comic books, not poverty
formulated in such ways as to permit the work of reason and but mass leisure, are at the centre of conchn. Many great
the play of sensibility. Instead of troubles - defined in terms of public issues as well as many private troubles are described in
values and threats - there is often the misery of vague uneasi- terms of 'the psychiatric' - often, it seems. in a pathetic attempt
ness; instead of explicit issues there is often merely the beat to avoid the large issues and problems of modern society.
feeling tbat all is somehow not right. Neither the values Often this statement seems to rest upon a provincial narrowing
threatened nor whatever threatens them has been stated; in of interest to the Western societies, or even to the United
short, they have not been carried 1.0 the point of decision. States - thus ignoring two thirds of mankind: often, too. it
Much less have Ihey been formulated as problems of social arbitrarily divorces the individual life from the larger institu-
science. tions within which that life is enacted, and which on occasion
In the thirties there wns lillie c!ollbt - except among certain bear upon it more grievously than do the intimate environ-
deluded business circlcs - thai there was an economic issue ments of childhood.
which was also ;1 pack of personal tronbles. In Ihese arguments Problems of leisure, for example, cannot even be stated
about 'the crisis of ;1pilalisill', Ihe formulations of Marx and without considering problems of work. Family troubles over
the many unack lIowlccl' cI rcformnlations of his work prob- comic books cannot be formulated as problems without con-
ably set the leading I'rms of Ihe issue, and some men came to sidering the plight of the contemporary family in its new rela-
understand their personal IrOllbles in these terms. The values tions with the newer institutions of the social structure.
threatened were plain to see nnd cherished by all; the struc- Neither leisure nor its debilitating uses can be understood as
tural contradiction. Ihat threatened them also seemed plain. problems without recognition of the extent to which malaise
Both were widely and deeply experienced. It was a political and indifference now form the social and personal climate of
age. contemporary American society. In this climate, no problems
But the values threatened in the era after the Second World of 'the private life' can be stated and solved without recogni- 1

War are often neither widely acknowledged as values nor lion of the crisis of ambition that is p-~rt o(th;'~;y ca-;:;;;;·~"-_··_'
widely felt La be threatened. ~uch private uneasiness goes un- .l men at work in the incorporated economy.
formulated; much publIC malaIse and many aeclslons of enor- , It is true, as psychoanalysts continually point out. that
.. mOllS structuralreIevance-ilever-·becom~ p;;bj;cj;~~~~.···F~;· people do often have 'the increasing sense of being moved by
those who accept such inherited valu~s;~r~-:';~-;:;--;~d' fr~';dom, obscure forces within themselves ,vhich they are unable to

T~ - IJ~~,
I~.
 The Promise 23
attention to the social routines and catastrophes which reveal assumed, but now the technological ethos and the kind of
(and which shape) man's nature in this time of civil unrest engineering imagination associated with science are more
and ideological conflict. Although fashion is often revealed by likely to be frightening and ambiguous than hopeful and
attempts to use it, the sociological imagination is not merely a progressive. Of course this is not all there is to 'science', but it
fashion. It is a quality of mind!~.at seems m()~_!..!:!I:.~!!1~ical!x.to is feared that this could become all that there is to it. The felt
promise an understanding of the intimate realities of ourselves need to reappraise physical science reflects the need for a new
in connexion with la!:~C~2:~)~CE~;lIities. It is not n~~-;:;;-Iy--;-ne- common denominator. It is the human meaning and the social
quality of mind among the contemporary range of cultural role of science, its military and commercial issue, its political
sensibilities - it is the quality whose wider and more adroit use significance that are undergoing confused reappraisal. Scien-
offers the promise that all such sensibilities - and in fact, tific developments of weaponry may lead to the 'necessity' for
human reason itself ~ will come to play a greater role in world political rearrangements - but such 'necessity' is not felt
human affairs. to be solvable by physical science itself. •
Much that has passed for 'science' is now felt to be dubious
The cultural meaning of physical SCIence - the major older philosophy; much that is held to be 'real science' is often felt to
common denominator ~ is becoming doubtful. As an intel- provide only confused fragments of the realities anlong which
lectual style, physical science is coming to be thought by many men live. Men of science, it is widely felt, no longer try to
as somehow inadequate. The adequacy of scientific styles of picture reality as a whole or topresent a true outline of human
thought and feeling, imagination and sensibility, has of course destiny. Moreover, 'science' seems to many less a creative
from their beginnings been subject to religious doubt and ethos and a manner of orientation than a set of Science
theological controversy, but our scientific grandfathers and Machines, operated by technicians and controlled by economic
fathers beat down such religious doubts. The current doubts are and military men who neither embody nor understand science
secular, humanistic - and often quite confused. Recent de- as ethos and orientation. In the meantime, philosophers who
velopments in physical science - with its technological climax speak in the name of science often transform it into 'scien-
in the "H-bomb and the means of carrying it about the earth ~ tism', making out its experience to be identical with human
have not been experienced as a solution to any problems \videly experience, and claiming that only by its method can the
known and deeply pondered by larger intellectual communities problems of life be solved. With all this, many cultural work-
and cultural publics. These developments have been correctly men have come to feel that 'science' is a false and pretentious
seen as a result of highly specialized inquiry, and improperly Messiah, or at tbe very least a highly ambiguous element in
felt to be wonderfully mysterious. They have raised more modern civilization.
problems - both intellectual and moral- than they have solved,
and the problems they have raised lie almost entirely in the But there are, in C. P. Snow's phrase, 'two cultures'; the
area of social not physical affairs. The obvious conquest of s~ientific and the humanistic. Whether as history or drama, as
nature, the overcoming of scarcity, is felt by men of the bIography, poetry, or fiction, the essence of the humanistic cul-
overdeveloped societies to be virtually complete. And now in ture has been literature. Yet it is now frequently suggested that
these societies, science -- the chief instrument of this conquest serious literature has in many ways become a minor art. If this
- is felt to be footloose, aimless, and in need of reappraisal. is so, it is not merely because of the development of mass
The modern esteem for science has long been merely publics and mass media of communication, and all that these
mean for serious literary production. It is also owing to the very That he remained a 'literary man' rather than a 'social
quality of the history of our times and the kinds of need men of scientist' testifies perhaps to the domination of much nine-
sensibility feel to grasp that quality. te,en tll :.cel!JUrY2QciaL.§.cj~D~.Qy_!h~]&~lQ_1J~.Ji~~[ch fa I' __'.Laws'
What fiction, what journalism, what artistic endeavour can presumably comparable to those imagined to be found by
compete with the historical reality and political facts of our natural scientists. In the absence of an adequate social science,
time? What dramatic vision of hell can compete with the critics and novelists, dramatists and poets have been the major,
events of twentieth-century war? What moral denunciations and often the only, formulators of private troubles and even of
can measure up to the moral insensibility of men in _the. . public issues. Art does express such feelings and often focuses
agonies of primary accumulation? It is social and historical them - at its best with dramatic sharpness - but still not \vith
reality that men \¥ant to know~ and often they do not find the intellectual clarity required for their understanding or
contemporary literature an adequate means for knowing it. relief today. Art does not and oannot formulate these feelings
They yearn for facts, they search for their meanings, they as problems containing the troubles and issues men must now
want 'a big picture' in which they can believe and within which confront if they are to overcome their uneasiness and in-
they can come to understand themselves. They want orienting difference and the intractable miseries to which these lead. The
values too, and suitable ways of feeling and styles of emotion artist, indeed, does not often try to do this. Moreover, the
and vocabularies of motive. And they do not readily find these serious artist is himself in much trouble, and could well do
in the literature of today. It does not matter whether or not with some intellectual and cultural aid from a social science
these qualities are to be found there; what matters is that men made sprightly by the sociological imagination.
do not often find them there.
In the past, literary men as critics and historians made notes
on England and on journeys to America. They tried to charac-
terize societies as wholes, and to discern their mora] meanings. It is my aim in this book to define the meaning of the social
Were ,TocquevilJe or Taine alive today, would they not be sciences for the cultural tasks of our time. I want to specify the
sociologists? Asking this question about Taine, a reviewer in kinds of ellort that lie behind the development of the socio-
the Times Literary Supplement suggests: logical imagination; to indicate its implications for political as
well as for cultural life; and perhaps to suggest something of
Taine always saw man primarily as a social animal and society
what is required to possess it. In these ways, I want to make
as a collection o[ groups: he could observe minutely, was a tire-
less field worker and possessed a quality ... particularly valuable clear the nature and the uses of the social sciences today, and
for perceiving relationships between social phenomena - the quality to give a limited account of their contemporary condition in the
of springliness. He was too interested in the present to be a good United States.~
historian, too much of a theorist to try his hand as a novelist, and
2. I feel the need to say that I much prefer the phrase, 'the social studies'
he thought of literature too much as documents in the culture o[
to 'the social sciences' - not because I do not like pbysical scientists (on
an age or country to achieve first-class status as a critic .... His the contrary, I do, very much), but because the word 'science' has acquired
work on English literature is less about English literature than a great prestige and rather imprecise meaning. I do not feel any need to kidnap
commentary on the morality of English society and a vehicle the prestige or to make the meaning even less precise by using it as a
[or his positivism. He is a social theorist before all elsel philosophical metaphor. Yet I suspect that if I wrote about 'the social
studies', readers would think only of high-school civics, which of all fields
of human learning is the one with which I most wish to avoid association.
 At any given moment, of course, 'social science' consists of perhaps the uneasiness is more acute among social scientists, if
what duly recognized social scientists are doing - but all of only because of the larger promise that has guided much
them are by no means doing the same thing, in fact not even earlier work in their fields. the nature of the subjects wilh
the same sort of thing. Social science is also what social scien- which they deal, and the urgent need for significant work
tists of the past have done - but different students choose to today.
construct and to recall ditrerent traditions in their discipline. Not everyone shares this uneasiness, but the fact that many
When I speak of 'the promise of social science', I hope it is do not is itself a cause for further uneasiness among those who
clear that I niean the promise as I see it. are alert to the promise and honest enough to admit the pre-
Just •.!!9w, an:!on!L sociaL_scientists, there is widesflread un- tentious mediocrity of much current effort. It is, quite frankly,
c:asiness, both intellectual and moral, about th-;;-direct'i;;ti~j'r my hope to increase this uneasiness, to define some of its
ch osen stud ies s:wnt~J:~I~~:j'~i~Ihl~~iineasj~§:§~-a~_~£rLiis. sources, to help transform it into a specific urge to realize the
the unfortunate tendencies that contribute to it, are, I suppose, promise of social science, to clear, the ground for new be·
part of a general malaise of contemporary intellectual life. Yet ginnings: in shorl, to indicate some of the tasks at hand and
the means available for doing the work that must now be
done.
'The Behavioural Sciences' is simply impossible; it was thought up, J sup-
pose, as a propaganda device to get money for social research from Founda-
tions and Congressmen who confuse 'social science' with 'socialism'. The Of late the conception of social science I hold has not been
best term would include history (and psychology, so far as it is concerned ascendant. My conception stands OPPOSf.'Q..!9 socj.<lJ_!?~if.'.l}~~_~~ _
wilh human beings), and should be as non-controversial as possible, for we a set of bureaucratic techniques which inhibit social inquiry
should argue with terms, not fight over them. Perhaps 'the human disciplines' .J2.y. .'methodological' pretensi~IlLwhjfb cong;t ..sq~JUYQlk.:Gi~---·--·-
would do. But never mind. With the hope of not being too widely mis·
understood, I bow to convention and use the more standard 'social sciences'. .2.~~c:tlT~!Jtist conceptions, or which trivialize it by concern with
One other point: I hope my colleagues will accept the term 'sociological minor problems unconnected with publicly revelant issues.
imagination'. Political scientists who have read my manuscript suggest These inhibitions, obscurities, and trivialities have created a
'the pOlitical imagination'; anthropologists, 'the anthropological imagina-
crisis in the social studies today without suggesting, in the
tion' - and so on. The term matters less than the idea, which I hope will
become clear in the course of this book. By use of it, J do not of course least, a way out of that crisis.
want to suggest merely the academic discipline of 'sociology'. Much of what Some social scientists stress the need for 'research teams of
the phrase means to me is not at all expressed by sociologists. In England, technicians', others for the primacy of the individual scholar.
for example, socIology as an academic discipline is stili somewhat marginal, Some expend great energy upon refinements of methods and
yet in much English journalism, fiction, and above all history, the socio-
logical imagination is very well developed indeed. The case ·is similar for techniques of investigation: others think the scholarly ways of
France: both the confusion and the aUdacity 0 f French reflection since the the intellectual craftsmen are being abandoned and ought now
Second World War rest upon its feeling for the sociological features of to be rehabilitated. Some go about their work in accordance
man's fate in our time, yet these trends are carried by men of letters rather with a rigid set of mechanical procedures; others seek to de-
than by professional sociologists. Nevertheless, I use 'sociological imagina-
velop, to invite, and to use the sociological imagination. Some
tion' because: (I) every cobbler thinks leather is the only thing, and for
beller or worse, [ am a sociologist; (2) I do believe that historically the - being addicts of the high formalism of 'theory' - associate
quality of mind has been more frequently and more vividly displayed by and disassociate concepts in what seems to others a curious
classtc sociologists than by other social scientists: (3) since I am going to manner; these others urge the elaboration of termS only when
examine critically a number of curious sociological schools, [ need a counter
term on which (0 stand. it is clear that it enlarges the scope of sensibility and furthers
 28 The Sociological Imagination
The Promise 29
the reach of reasoning. Some narrowly study only small-scale
continuing - both within the social sciences and in their
milieux, in the hope of 'building up' to conceptions of larger
academic and political settings - but that nevertheless the
structures; others examine social structures in which they try
qualities of mind that constitute it are becoming a common
'to locate' many smaller milieux. Some, neglecting compara-
denominator of our general cultural life and that, however
tive studies altogether, study only one small community in one
vaguely and in however a confusing variety of disguises, they
society at a time; others in a fully comparative way work
are coming to be felt as a need.
directly on the national social structures of the INorld. Some
Many practitioners of social science, especially in America,
confine their exact research to very short-run sequences of
seem to me curiously reluctant to take up the challenge that
human aff<).irs; others are concerned with issues which are only
now confronts them. Many in fact abdicate the intellectual and
apparent in long historical perspective. Some specialize their
the political tasks of social analysis: others no doubt are simply
work according to academic departments; others, drawing
not up to the role for which they are nevertheless being cast.
upon all departments, specialize according to topic or problem,
At times they seem almost deliberately to have brought forth
regardless of where these lie academicalJy. Some confront the
variety of history, biography, society; others do not. old ruses and developed new timidit~es. Yet despite this reluct-
ance, intellectual as well as 'public attention is now so obviously
Such contrasts, and many others of similar kind, are not
upon the social worlds which they presumably study that it
necessarily true alternatives, although in the heat of statesman-
must be agreed that they are uniquely confronted with an
like controversy or the lazy safety of specialization they are
opportunity. In this opportunity there is revealed the intel-
often taken to be. At this point I merely state them in inchoate
lectual promise of the social sciences, the cultural uses of the
form; I shall return to them towards the end of this book. I am
sociological imagination, and the political meaning of studies
hopeful of course that all my own biases will show, for I think of man and society.
judgements should be explicit. But I am also trying, regardless
of my own judgements, to state the cultural and political
meanings of social science. My biases are of course no more or
no less biases than those I am going to examine. Let those who
Embarrassingly enough for an avowed sociologist, all the
do not care for mine use their rejections of them to make their
unfortunate tendencies (except possibly one) that I shall con-
own as explicit and as acknowledged as I am going to try to
sider in the following chapters fall into what is generally
make mine! Then the moral problems of social study _ the
thought to be 'the field of sociology', although the cultural and
problem of social science as a public issue _ will be recognized,
political abdication implicit in them no doubt characterize
and discussion will become possible. Then there will be greater
much of the daily work in other social sciences. Whatever may
self-awareness all around - which is of course a pre-condition
be true in such disciplines as political science and economics,
for objectivity in the enterprise of social science as a whole.
history and anthropology, it is evident that in the United
In brief, I believe that what may .be called classic social
States today what is known as sociology has become the centre
analysis is a definable and usable set of traditions; that its
of reflection about social science. It has become the centre for
essential feature is the concern with historical social struc-
interest in methods: and in it one also finds the most extreme
tures: and that its problems are of direct relevance to urgent
interest in 'general theory'. A. truly remarkable variety of
public issues and insistent human troubles. I also believe that
intellectual work has entered into the development of the
there are now greal obstacles in the way of this tradition's
sociological tradition. To interpret this variety as A Tradition
 28 The Sociological Imagination
The Promise 29
the reach of reasoning. Some narrowly study only small-scale
continuing - both within the social sciences and in their
milieux, in the hope of 'building up' to conceptions of larger
academic and political settings - but that nevertheless the
structures; others examine social structures in which they try
qualities of mind that constitute it are becoming a common
'to locate' many smaller milieux. Some, neglecting compara-
denominator of our general cultural life and that, however
tive studies altogether, study only one small community in one
vaguely and in however a confusing variety of disguises, they
society at a time; others in a fully comparative way work
are coming to be felt as a need.
directly on the national social structures of the world. Some
Many practitioners of social science, especially in America,
confine their exact research to very short-run sequences of
seem to me cmiously reluctant to take up the challenge that
human aff,,!-irs; others are concerned with issues which are only
now confronts them. Many in fact abdicate the intellectual and
apparent in long historical perspective. Some specialize their
the political tasks of social analysis; others no doubt are simply
work according to academic departments; others, drawing
not up to the role for which they are nevertheless being cast.
upon all departments, specialize according to topic or problem,
At times they seem almost deliberately to have brought forth
regardless of where these lie academically. Some confront the
old ruses and developed new timiditi'es. Yet despite this reluct-
variety of history, biography, society: others do not.
ance, intelJectual as well as ·public attention is now so obviously
Such contrasts, and many others of similar kind, are not
upon the social worlds which they presumably study that it
necessarily true alternatives, although in the heat of statesman-
must be agreed that they are uniquely confronted with an
like controversy or the lazy safety of specialization they are
opportunity. In this opportunity there is revealed the intel-
often taken to be. At this point I merely state them in inchoate
lectual promise of the social sciences, the cultural uses of the
form; I sbaI! return to them towards the end of this book. I am
sociological imagination, and the political meaning of studies
hopeful of course that all my own biases will show, for I think of man and society.
judgements should be explicit. But I am also trying, regardless
of my own judgements, to state the cultural and political
meanings of social science. My biases are of course no more or
no less biases than those I am going to examine. Let those who
Embarrassingly enough for an avowed sociologist, all the
do not care for mine use their rejections of them to make their
unfortunate tendencies (except possibly one) that .r shall con-
own as explicit and as acknowledged as I am going to try to
sider in the following chapters fall into what is generally
make mine! Then the moral problems of social study _ the
thought to be 'the field of sociology', although the cultural and
problem of social science as a public issue _ will be recognized,
political abdication implicit in them no doubt characterize
and discussion will become possible. Then there will be greater
much of the daily work in other social sciences. \Vhatever may
self-awareness all around - which is of course a pre-condition
be true in such disciplines as political science and economics,
for objectivity in the enterprise of social science as a whole.
history and anthropology, it is evident that in the United
In brief, I believe that what may .be called classic social
States today what is known as sociology has become the centre
analysis is a definable and usable set of traditions; that its
of reRection about social science. It has become the centre for
essential feature is the concern with historical social struc-
interest in methods; and in it one also finds the most extreme
tmes: and that its problems are of direct relevance to urgent
interest in 'general theory'. A. truly remarkable variety of
public issues and insistent human troubles. I also believe that
intellectual work has entered into the development of the
there are now great obstacles in the way of this tradition's
sociological tradition. To interpret this variety as A Tradition
 30 The Sociological Imagination

is in itself audacious. Yet perhaps it will be generally agreed Tendency 11/: Towards empirical studies of contemporary
that what is now recognized as sociological work has tended to social facts and problems. Although Comte and Spencer were
move in one or more of three general directions, each of which mainstays of American social science until 1914 or thereabout,
is subject to distortion, to being run into the ground. and German theoretical inftuence was heavy, the empirical
survey became central in the United States at an early time. In
Tendency I: Towards a theory of history. For example, in part this resulted from the prior academic establishment of
the hands of Comte, as in those of Marx, Spencer, and Weber, economics and political science. Given this, in so far as socio-
sociology is an encyclopedic endeavour, concerned with the logy is defined as a study of some special area of society, it
whole of man's social life. It is at once historical and syste- readily becomes a sort of odd-job man among the social
matic - historical, because it deals with and uses the materials ~ciences, consisting of miscellaneous studi<:LQL~g_~gemj.£J.~(t<- ...-..-...-_··-
of the past: systematic, because it does so in order to discern overs. There are studies of cities and families, racial and ethnic
'the stages' of the course of history and the regularities of relations, and of course 'small groups'. As we shall see, the
social life. resulting miscellany was transform'ed into a style of thought,
The theory of man's history can all too readily become dis- which I shall examine under the term 'liberal practicality'.
torted into a trans-historical strait-jacket into which the Studies of contemporary fact can easily become a series of
materials of human history are forced and out of which issue rather unrelated and often insignificant facts of milieu. Ivlany
prophetic views (usually gloomy ones) of the future. The course offerings in American sociology illustrate this; perhaps
works of Arnold Toynbee and of Oswald Spengler are well- textbooks in the field of social disorganization reveal it best.
known examples. On the other hand, sociologists have tended to become
specialists in the technique of research into almost anything;
Tendency II: Towards a systematic theory of 'the nature of among them methods have become Methodology. Much of the
man and society'. For example, in the works of the formalists, work - and more of the ethos - of George Lundberg, Samuel
notably Simmel and Van Wiese, sociology comes to deal in Stouffer, Stuart Dodd, Paul F. Lazarsfeld are present-day
conceptions intended to be of use in classifying all social rela- examples. These tendencies - to scatter one's attention and to
jiions and providing insight into their supposedly invariant cultivate method for its own sake - are fit companions,
featmes. It is, in short, concerned with a rather static and although they do not necessarily occur together.
abstract view of the components of social structure on a quite
high level of generality. The peculiarities of sociology may be understood as distor-
Perhaps in reaction to the distortion of Tendency r, history tions of one or more of its traditional tendencies. But its
can be altogether abandoned: the systematic theory of the promises may also be understood in terms of these tendencies.
nature of man and of society all too readily becomes an In the United States today there has come abollt a sort of
elaborate and arid formalism in which the splitting of Con- Hellenistic amalgamation, embodying various elements and
cepts and their endless rearrangement becomes the central aims from the sociologies of the several Western societies. The
endeavour. Among what I shall call Grand Theorists, concep- danger is that amidst such sociological abundance, other social
tions have indeed become Concepts. The work of Talcott Par- scientists will become so impatient, and sociologists be in such
sons is the leading contemporary example in American socio- a hurry for 'research', that they will lose hold of a truly val-
logy. uable legacy. But there is also an opportunity in our condition: