35 pages • 1 hour read
The Sociological Imagination
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BetaChapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
Mills first addresses the fact that many misunderstand sociology as an “objective” study of human society. For Mills, whether social scientists acknowledge it or not, they remain bound by, and implicated within, their social, historical, political, and economic context. The key implication being that the work sociologists produce can and may be used for nefarious political purposes. As Mills puts it:
The social scientist who spends his intellectual force on the details of small-scale milieux is not putting his work outside the political conflicts and forces of his time. He is, at least indirectly and in effect, “accepting” the framework of his society. But no one who accepts the full intellectual tasks of social science can merely assume that structure. In fact, it is his job to make that structure explicit and to study it as a whole. To take on this job is his major judgment (78-79).
Thus, social scientists are obliged to be vigilant in their undertakings. Their contribution to society is never free from the power relations and struggles that shape and define the conditions under which they conduct research. It is these blind spots within sociologists’ work that Mills terms “liberal practicality.” As Mills writes, “Liberal practicality tends to be a-political or to aspire to a kind of democratic opportunism [...] The political order itself is seldom examined; it is merely assumed as a quite fixed and distant framework” (88).
Chapter 5 Summary
Mills outlines the “bureaucratic ethos,” which he sees as the latest trend in sociological research. According to Mills, the bureaucratic ethos comes from a particular combination between the method of abstracted empiricism and the institutional centers to which this sociological method of inquiry has become most popular:
Since work in the abstracted empirical manner is expensive, only large institutions can readily afford it. Among these are corporations, army, state, and also their adjuncts, especially advertising, promotion, and public relations [...] As a result, the style has become embodied in definite institutional centers: since the twenties in advertising and marketing agencies; since the thirties in corporations and syndicated polling agencies; since the forties, in academic life, at several research bureaus; and during World War Two, in research branches of the federal government. The institutional pattern is now spreading, but these remain its strongholds (102).
The problem with this trend in sociology, says Mills, is that sociologists who “promote and practice this style of research readily assume the political perspective of their bureaucratic clients and chieftains. To assume the perspective is often in due course to accept it” (101). And so, Mills concludes with the following warning for all would-be sociologists: “if social science is not autonomous, it cannot be a publicly responsible enterprise” (106).
Chapter 6 Summary
Mills outlines the basic elements of any sociological study. He examines the possible traps social scientists may fall prey to in acquiring the tools for epistemic inquiry. For Mills, the two most basic elements that constitute social science are method and theory. As he writes:
“Method” has to do, first of all, with how to ask and answer questions with some assurance that the answers are more or less durable. “Theory” has to do, above all, with paying close attention to the words one is using, especially their degree of generality and their logical relations. The primary purpose of both is clarity of conception and economy of procedure, and most importantly, just now, the release rather than the restriction of the sociological imagination. To have mastered “method” and “theory” is to have become a self-conscious thinker. [...] To be mastered by “method” and “theory” is simply to be kept from working (120-121).
However, Mills notes that “neither Method nor Theory alone can taken as part of the actual work of the social studies. In fact, both are often just the opposite: they are statesmanlike withdrawals from the problems of social science” (122). On this point, Mills is referring to the sociologist’s desire for a unified theory of all sociological methods and theories; a theory which then would serve as the basis for all future study.
This desire for a unified theory, says Mills, contains perhaps the worst of all traps for the intellectual, a “little game” that:
leads less to further work than to the kind of scientific know-nothingism, of which Max Horkheimer has written: “The constant warning against premature conclusions and foggy generalities implies, unless properly qualified, a possible taboo against all thinking. If every thought has to be held in abeyance until it has been completely corroborated, no basic approach seems possible and we would limit ourselves to the level of mere symptoms” (122-123).
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
In these chapters, Mills outlines three errors in sociological study and their implications for the work of the social scientist: liberal practicality, a bureaucratic ethos, and the desire for a unified theory of all methods and theories. For Mills, the most important aspect of social science research is the fact that social science is not a neutral activity; sociology, in other words, has real world effects and can easily play into the hands of emancipatory or repressive political regimes. To ignore this fact leads to what Mills terms “liberal practicality”—a side effect rooted in sociologists desire for efficiency and quantitative results. Liberal practicality meets the criteria set by institutions that are implicitly or explicitly political.
In Chapter 5, regarding the trend of liberal practicality, Mills claims that it has gotten worse in its marriage with the bureaucratic ethos. The problem with liberal practicality, says Mills, is that sociologists who “promote and practice this style of research readily assume the political perspective of their bureaucratic clients and chieftains. To assume the perspective is often in due course to accept it” (101). And so, Mills concludes with the following warning for all would be sociologists: “if social science is not autonomous, it cannot be a publicly responsible enterprise” (106). Social scientists who do not conduct research independent of corporations or political institutions are engaging in irresponsible behavior.
In Chapter 6, Mills provides advice to younger sociologists who may be tempted to view a unified theory of all sociological methods as a way of overcoming the limitations of liberal practicality and the bureaucratic ethos. According to Mills, nothing could be further from the truth. Thus, the sociological imagination remains the sole framework capable of addressing the shortcomings and trappings within the field of sociology.
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