Research of The Essence of 'Thinking Sociologically'

 “The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society.” ― C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination

C. Wright Mills defined sociological imagination as 'the vivid awareness of the relationship between personal experience and the wider society'. When he published his book in 1959, his attempt was to connect these two seemingly unrelated and abstract concepts of life- the ‘individual’ and the ‘society’. For most people, their ‘universe’ is made up of relatively small groups like their families, friends, colleagues, neighbours and so on. Their understanding of the world is also derived almost entirely from this understanding of their ‘universe’. However, what Mill attempted to illustrate was that our personal experiences, the people we interact with and the way in which we interact, the positions we occupy in life, our goals and ambitions are all related to larger, complex patterns in society that have been historically created and maintained by the people who came into this world before us. To understand this better, he offered insight into the relationship between structure (social institutions) and agency (personal experience) by explaining that often what we consider to be our “personal troubles” – like not having enough money to buy food or pay bills- is actually a “public issue”- the result of a larger social problem that affects many, like systematic economic inequality and poverty. Thus, what/who we are and where we come from (our biography) is related to the larger world that exists beyond our existence (historically created social constructs) and sociological imagination enables us to think in terms of this relationship and practicing this thinking is the essence of ‘thinking sociologically’.

This seems quite simple to grasp and one might assume that everyone thinks in such a manner already. However, in reality, that is not really the case. I shall further elaborate upon-with reference to the writings of Andre Beteille, Allan Johnson and James F.Garner- what makes such thinking so distinctly “sociological”. And also, what doesn’t.

Understanding sociology in terms of being ‘about’ social life is problematic, since it cultivates the tendency to confuse common-sense with sociological thinking. Both Allan Johnson and Andre Beteille have stressed on the gravity of this misconception since it fosters the misbelief that when anyone comments on something ‘social’, they’re ‘thinking sociologically’. When Beteille mentions, “sociology seems by contrast to be grist to everybody’s mill”, he is referring to this common misbelief and then, he proceeds to challenge this misconception.

Common sensical thinking, by its very nature, is localised, personal and informal. It is localised because it is constrained by time and space and the degree of an individual’s integration with the society. Hence, we can say that ‘common sense is not so common’ since what is common sense for someone from a particular vantage point may turn out to be not-so-common for another from a different geographical, cultural and historical background. Common-sense is personal because it is highly dependent upon the individual. It is informal because common sense lacks technical resources necessary for research-concepts, methods, approach, techniques, schools of thought- that cannot be substituted with even a very well-informed and articulate kind of common sensical thinking.

In contrast, sociological thinking is general, external and disciplined. It is general and external because it demands thinking in terms of the whole of human society. The greatest contribution to this approach was done by Emile Durkheim, Max weber and Karl Marx- the builders of modern sociology. Sociological thinking is not restricted to an individual’s belief but it is rather about ‘where’ and ‘how’ the individual participates with the larger world and ‘why’ their participation unfolds in a particular manner and not in another. As Allan Johnson states, “We are always participating in something larger than ourselves, and if we want to understand social life and what happens to people in it, we have to understand what it is that we’re participating in and how we participate in it” when he elaborates upon what he considers to be the ‘one thing’ that sociology could teach everyone. It is essential to think in terms of not just the individual or just the collective but both the collective and the individual, the relation between them, how they influence and are influenced by each other- it is truly about the ‘forest and the trees’. Sociological thinking makes us realise that for all that we think we know about the world, beneath that is all that we don’t know as well.

Furthermore, sociological thinking is disciplined since it is founded on empirical reasoning, careful observations and extensively requires the systematic use of comparisons. These support a sociologist to think in terms of the wider human society and find interconnections between different domains of social life. Meaningful and unsuspected connections are often reached only by sifting through stacks of connections that are “trivial and easily accessible to common sense”. As a sociologist, one’s thinking and understanding of the world goes beyond the common-sense point of view which is highly variable. All these factors therefore, make sociological thinking anti-fatalistic and anti-utopian in its approach and differentiates its empirical, generalised, critical knowledge from localised common-sense. Durkheim believed that the disciplined application of the sociological method and thinking would help an individual to understand their society better and this understanding would be expanded by the use of systematic comparisons between their own and other societies. To illustrate on this, it would be useful to mention Durkheim’s classic work on ‘Suicide’ which contributed immensely to expose the “illusion of understanding created by common sense”. Durkheim thought beyond his common-sense that looked at suicide as a highly individual act and instead treated it as a ‘social fact’- as ‘general, external and coercive’ - by studying ‘suicide rates’. Through his research he was able to show that suicide rates depend more on an individual’s degree of social integration and that the difference in suicide rates across countries, gender, race, and other contexts is not merely the sum total of individual suicides but actually a reflection of the society they live in.

However, it should be mentioned that the distinction between sociological and common-sense thinking is not to deliberately make the former seem superior and esoteric in nature with the use of sophisticated jargon and “technical virtuosity”. According to NK Bose, “there are two kinds of scientists, those who make complex things simple and those who make simple things complex, and that his preference was for the former”. Although, Beteille argues that common sense by itself is insufficient and often unsuccessful in making complex things simple but it shouldn’t be entirely overlooked since common sense is also an element of our social life. Thus, sociological thinking must be alert and reflective in order to identify an individual’s own biases when they’re studying their own society as well as other knowledge that was created from a common sensical point of view. It must strike a balance in the ‘inter-penetration’ of common sense with the technical virtuosity of the discipline by moderating the fatalistic and utopian elements of the former. In some cases, it has actually been able to influence common-sense on topics such as education, politics, class and inequality.

Allan Johnson has stressed upon the distinction between sociological thinking and the individualistic model of thinking. The individualistic way of thinking tends to see everything only in terms of individuals- this reduces the society to only a collection of individuals existing independently of each other, in a given time and place. This not only affects how we choose to participate in society but also how we think about social life and the larger world. The ‘Individualistic model’ has only existed for a few centuries and its roots date back to the 19th century and the United States, where the work of William James- influenced by the age of ‘European Enlightenment’ and ‘modernist thinking’- and later the unconventional insights of Sigmund Freud-discovery of the psyche and levels of consciousness- influenced people to think increasingly in terms of individual experience with greater ‘self-awareness’ than before. Johnson has illustrated upon the problems of this mode of thinking by explaining that when members of privileged groups react negatively- aggressively or avoid talking about it- to the consequences of their membership resulting in the oppression of the prejudiced group, they’re thinking from an individualistic perspective which shows them as being ‘flawed’ and having a ‘personal need’ to behave in an oppressive way. The individualistic solution to social problems such as inequality or natural disasters or terrorism then becomes “a matter not of collective solutions but of an accumulation of individual solutions. If we want to have less poverty in the world, the individualistic answer lies in raising people out of poverty or keeping them from becoming poor by changing what sort of people they are, one person at a time.”

The main issue that arises from individualistic thinking is that it fails to understand the difference between people and social systems- it misses “the forest for the trees”. People and social systems are not one and the same but they’re closely related to one another and influenced by how the individual chooses to participate in them. Social systems are made up of several different elements that exist in a particular relation to one another and form a distinct pattern that makes it function as a whole, for example, the family system is made up of certain roles such as that of mother, father, son, daughter etc and also of certain ‘ideas’ that are collectively accepted in a society such as ‘being obedient to your parents’ and so on. Understanding what makes up a system, how they function and differ from one another is crucial to understanding the consequences that result when people follow without questioning its legitimacy i.e the path of least resistance. Social systems are strengthened by attaching positive and negative sanctions that ensure adherence to it. This path of least resistance hence, makes common sensical thinking so utopian and fatalistic in nature as there is a tendency to accept things as they are and attach ‘personal reasons’ to ‘public problems’ for example, blaming your ‘luck’ for being born into a ‘poor’ family.

To think sociologically, one has to be able to view everything from different perspectives. It would be useful at this juncture, to mention Max Weber’s work on ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of capitalism’ which showed that the intention and consequences of human actions can be very different from each other. The prevailing dominant view among social theorists until Weber’s time was that for good or bad, religion provided social stability in society. Weber’s approach to religion not only challenged the rhetoric, but he was also able to prove the ‘unsuspected relationship’ between religious values and economic action that ultimately led to the Industrial revolution and caused drastic changes in society. One has to be able to critically examine the dominant discourse of knowledge and explore subaltern perspectives to be able to analyse the impact anything makes on the society. In relation to this, we can practically analyse any aspect of life- from music to stories to humour- to understand what is the discourse promoting/or supressing. James F. Garner took a refreshing initiative when he wrote “politically correct bedtime stories” which is an attempt to rethink the ‘classic’ bedtime stories so that they reflect “more enlightened times”. These classic stories, many written by the Brothers Grimm, had been done so with a distinct hidden curriculum in mind- “to entrench the patriarchy, to estrange people from their own natural impulses, to demonize ‘evil’ and to ‘reward’ an ‘objective’ good”. However, it would be misleading to say that the Brothers Grimm had ‘flawed character’ for writing such stories since their view of the world had been shaped by the times that they lived in.

To conclude, what makes something “sociological” is this ability to ‘think ourselves away’ from our personal ‘universe’ and see the world for the web of connections that it is and to realise that the choices we make as individuals has a larger impact than we can even imagine. We’re all a part of the problems of social life but thinking sociologically can help in being a part of the solution as well and that requires being able to see our personal and social life in terms of the larger social systems and how we choose to participate in them can make a difference.

References

1. Beteille, A. (2009). Sociology: Essays in Approach and Method. Delhi: Oxford University.
2. Durkheim, E. (1938). The Rules of Sociological Method. Glencoe: The Free Press.
3. Durkheim, e. (1951). Suicide: A study in sociology. Glencoe: The Free Press.
4. Garner, J. F. (1994). Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: Modern Tales for Our Life. new jersey: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
5. Johnson, A. G. (2008). The Forest and the Trees: Sociology as Life Practice and Promise. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
6. Mills, C. (1959). The Sociological Imagination. New York: Grove Press.
7. Weber, M. (1976). The Protestant Ethis and Spirit of Capitalism. London: Allen and Unwin.
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