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,. . . . . . . . . . . .   C Wright Mills

CWMills:  Grand Theory Chapter two notes

intelligibility counts

SUMS it up as:  "People often share standards and expect one another to stick to them.  In so far as they do, their society may be orderly.

[29] standards

sanctions (expected reactions)

roles (men, together, guided by standards and sanctions

institution:  stable set of roles

anomie:  when standards and sanctions no longer grip men

ONE SIDE:  All neat and orderly - OTHER SIDE:  Anomie

expectations:  not just "social expectations, shared"  Within any group, the expectations of some men seem just a little more urgent than those of anyone else.

SO YOU HAVE TO ADD:  POWER

[31] what is socially expected becomes individually needed

32 4 paragraphs:

  1. norms - regulation - metaphor - reify - social equilibrium

  2. soc eq. maintained by 1.  socialization  2.  control

  3. make people want - then control if mere wants don't do it

  4. how get out of what?  history. you figure that out.

USELESS HEIGHTS

In soc'y some observe without thinking

some think without observing

[34] when we define a word, invite others to use it.  Purpose of def. is to focus on facts.  proper result of good definition is to transform argument over terms into disagreement about facts.

semantic vs. syntactic (meaning vs. rel. of all words to each other)

Grand theory is drunk on syntax

when we say Capitalism, what do we mean?

  1. ownership of means of production?

  2. free market

  3. certain political organization

[35] no one would prefer TP over CWM

which people want and cherish and how that changes so some do/some don't

avoids power.

 

[36\ master symbols - what are LA's master symbols

[37] values orientations and normative structure

has to do with master symbols of legitimate rels of symbs to institus. but symbols don't just sit there and inhere.

symbols are used to justify or oppose power

Phychology is all about adhere or don't.

 

symbol spheres self determining.  Moot - it works that way because people work it that way.

 

describe groups according to values?

[38] no, rather than begin there, see where people are entrenched.  What do they do. 

Many fams held together by a mixture of hatred and disgust

[39] some pure (we want)  some discipline  (we must )  Need vs. Want.

POWER

Authority  manipulation  coercion

modern malaise is that peeps aren't engaged. Belief not necessary. 

43  "As if two sets of books were being kept:  one for the analysis of equilibrium; another for the investigation of change.[44]  history can only say the vaguest things before we get down to investigation

social structure has institutional orders

political

kinship

military

economic

religious

acc to Tocqueville, each is  independent

 

 what else have we got today?

internet

Hollywood

invasive TV

 

see the ideological implications for this starting place or that starting place

 

 

IA1 Soc301 M.Tabor “Sociology is Sociological Imagination (SI)”

Sociology looks at how people adapt at every moment to what they have been told and what they believe. to be true.  The “been told” part comes through families, child care, schools, peers, media, church or spirit groups, neighborhoods, marriages and partnerships, friendships, and marketplace networks.   We humans adapt to necessity and to what we see as truth and possibility; we negotiate our ways through life following, more or less consciously, two eternal pull-lines of desire:  the desire to belong and the desire for independence. 

Social structure creates humans, but humans create social structure by our situational adaptations.  Through continual and routine collective involvement, we acquire get predispositions to act and to see things in certain ways. The complexity is great: at each intersection, the zone of potential varies with personhood (individuality) and habitus (aspects of culture that bind us to groups). 

To belong is to be attached to a group, voluntarily or involuntarily; the attachment comes to us and through us.  Group sounds like a noun but it is an ongoing process of communicating symbols:  language, auditory tone, body language, dress, handshake, territory, vibrations, rituals, and traits (age, sex, ethnicity, vigor).  A group may be “face to face” or threaded through other groups, as in sex or race or height or agility or presence.

Groups are yin and groups are yang; that is, they are held in equilibrium with ritual and they are also maintained in power.  There can be dominance within or dominance without:  our clique is nicer than their clique, this fad better than that.  Gangs, political parties, homelands, sexes, races, religions, nations, and families are all groups held by values and ranked by power. 

The Sociological Imagination [SI] is liberating. SI sees human desires and private choice making on webs woven by social structure.  Choices are lucid if “troubles” are grasped as “issues” and seen against social structure. Concepts are to be argued with rather than argued about. Everybody needs SI, even sociologists.

 

 

Breakdown of afterward chapter

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PA#1 SOC301 M.Tabor “Gitlan’s Afterword is a Beginning”

C. Wright Mills, a popular sociologist, had a blast of unconventional energy in the 50s and 60s, breaking out of pedantic grand theory and blinding empiricism.  His invitation remains open to ask questions about values, human energy, and human disappointment.  We lead our lives on intersections seen only by the sociological imagination [SI]:   SI notices that we experience privately but we act out on social networks not of our own making.

      I.      Mills broke out of his time – and remains pertinent

A.    Complacency – people didn’t notice power amassing

B.    Scientism was growing:  business used science

C.    Mills excoriates puffed up theory and boring empiricism

D.   Values:  Man has energy and Man is disappointed

E.    Saw man’s private troubles as collectively based

F.     Wrote pamphlets instead of books, scoffed at fellow intellectuals, predicted the success of sociology could bite

  II.      Our time:  how have we changed

A.    Disrespectful of everything:  so it seems “normal”

B.    Complacency and anxiety might be the same

C.    We all name who is responsible:  the liberals say the media; the conservatives say the media; feminists say the patriarchs; patriarchs say the feminists; secular humanists say moral relativists; one religion says the other.

D.   Consumerism – hedonism – has taken over hugely

E.    Celebrity-watch just on the horizon in CWM day

F.     Media turned the private public –not as CWM intended

G.   The promise of Sociology turned out to be a gloss over every public speaker, over our consciousness; Sociology is trivialized by success but hasn’t asked the questions

H.   Social history remains hidden

III.      What can we get today from the type of questions Mills asks?

A.    We still need values based questions for people to share

                                        1.      how are private lives affected by public structure

                                        2.      not to genuflect to technical rationality sans values

                                       3.      cogent criticism for “hidden authority” today?

B.    Re-enter passion 

                                               1.      A political philosophy needs analysis and ideals

                                                2.      Analyze social life – societies as wholes

Mills broke out and made Sociology popular across the world, so popular it forgot its purpose.  The value and direction of lives at this intersection of history remains open questions.  We are invited to ask them now and to answer with Sociological Imagination.