The Difference Between Sociological Imagination and Common Sense

Making assumptions keeps everything in society in order, for example having road signs helps prevent traffic, without it everything would be in chaos. However, it is very uncommon for people to contemplate simpler things in life and their significance of it in our society. This depicts how much everyone takes for granted as suggested by Berger (1963). He explains that if one is just satisfied for what they see or if one has no curiosity and is blindly following the so-called established facts then they are taking the world for granted. The individuals should explore underneath the surface and unmask the social reality but at the same time, they shouldn’t emphasize on reforming or making changes in the human society if one wants to intervene with sociology. For instance, it is common sense for people to believe that individuals who marry each other are actually mostly in love but Berger contradicts by explaining that there is a societal pattern which consists for several social factors which affects the individual’s choice of his/her spouse. Hence, this essay argues that sociological imagination is not common sense as many sociological perspectives would be able to implicate many daily life illustrations that common sense couldn’t. The arguments raised will distinguish the difference between sociological imagination and common sense through daily life examples.

It might seem that it is just common sense to explain many of the significance of many daily life things and hence so is sociological imagination. However, there has to be a more clear and deeper explanation as everything is more complicated and complex than it seems so by just saying its common sense is very illogical.Common sense has different interpretations at different time period for example about a century ago (Farr, 1993) it was common sense for the earth to be flat or that girls are always shorter than men but try saying it in this era, it would just seem absurd so how can we just say its common sense when who knows maybe a few decades later what we thought was common sense is actually a great misunderstanding or illusion. It can also be comprehended that common sense may just be a fake social consciousness or ignorance of social facts (Durkheim,1895). And in order to see the bigger picture or acquire the knowledge and reasonable explanations, it is necessary to understand sociological imagination. Mills (1959) stated that it is crucial to understand both the life of an individual and the history of a society as it permits us to have a clearer mindset about the relationship between personal issues and social issues. In other words, the outcomes of the decisions that an individual makes may be influenced or shaped by the values in society. Likewise, the sociological imagination also has a clear framework for understanding our social world, which is more reasonable than the notion of common sense that society derives from limited social experiences, as Mills (1959) emphasized. A great example would be unemployment, if an individual cannot obtain a job it is his/her personal issue but if a million people in a country can’t then it becomes a social problem. This intricate the relationship between personal dilemmas and the society as what a person does may not be of their own personal preference so this shows how a personal issue might have a larger purpose. From Allan G. Johnson’s literary work “The Forest The Trees and The One Thing” where he uses as a metaphor that the forest represents the society and the trees are the individuals. The interaction between the ecosystem signifies the link between personal trouble and larger social dynamics. One small feature of a tree can affect the whole forest or a problem in the forest can affect the tree, this is the relationship between ordinary life problems of an individual and the social problems.

Sociological perspective often guides us to question our normal routine and to question whether it has any link to societal influence. Let’s take exercise as an example stated by Kaufman (2008), the personal benefit of it is lower blood pressure and to relieve stress but it can be expanded into more aspect in terms of society, for example, it can inspire health communities to make more trails of facilities for exercise which can further influence more people to exercise. This shows how a small routine that is very common among people connect with societal influence and how a small routine of ours makes a big impact on society. This highlights how society can shape individuals. Sociological thinking attempts view society as a whole rather than distinct individuals. According to Brown (1970), society is very abstract as it contains a conceptual network of relations between people and society. Let’s take HKU Starbucks as an example, many students and professors in University of Hong Kong buy coffee from there as students are delving into pits of assignments and need coffee to function so it is a supplement to stay awake but it can also be seen a social ritual as when we look around a lot of students are drinking coffee and also around the world. But it can also be seen as an addiction as coffee does contain caffeine. Moreover, it can be further enhanced into a social activity as we might ask our friends out for a coffee which is basically less interest in the coffee but more on the people around us.The example above shows how we can just strip away a so-called common sense notion and really look at it from a different perspective. So sociological imagination is basically looking into it deeper and thinking out of the box which is very different from common sense.

Sociological Imaginations encourages people to challenge assumed knowledge that is put before them and to question why the things around them happen in the way they do. This will help them gain a better understanding about their surroundings. Sociological imagination is really just seeing the strange in common and seeing an individual’s life contribute to the changing societal process. It allows individuals to combine other social forces with individuals and the application helps develop an understanding higher public issue affecting someone’s personal issues and with this, whip will further help identify the solutions to wide societal problems.