The Sociological Imagination and the American Dream

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The Sociological Imaginationand the American
Dream
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Sociological ImaginationC. Wright Mills, 1959

• The Intersection of History and Biography within
  the context of Social Structure.
• Sociology helps us to see our lives and the lives
  of others in social and historical context.

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Each Component is Essential

• History how a society came to be and how it is
  changing and how history is being made in it.
  The great narrative.
• Biography the nature of "human nature" in a
  society what people in a particular society are
  experiencing, and how they interpret that
  experience.
• Human nature is a social creation.
• Social structure how the various institutional
  orders in a society operate, which ones are
  dominant, how they persist and how they change.

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Sociological Imagination, Restated

• How individual experience and life narrative
  (little story) is shaped and made meaningful by
  the playing out of the narrative of history (big
  story) which we understand by analyzing various
  social structures and institutions.

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Personal Issues in Social Context

• Connection between
• Personal issues
• Public issues of social structure
• Individual experiences in various and specific
  situations are shaped by structural changes.
• Personal problems can only be understood in
  larger structural context and thus take on social
  significance.
• Durkheims Suicide
• Our most intimate thoughts and feelings have a
  profound social component.

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Sociological Imagination Remains Counter-Cultural

• Explanations for troubles are individualistic,
  psychological.
• Psychological explanations are dominant (in
  popular culture, etc.).
• Oprah, Dr. Phil.

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The American Dream
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The American Dream

• The American Dream is the faith held by many in
  the United States that through hard work,
  courage, and determination one can achieve
  financial prosperity and security.
• Connected to belief in Progress.
• Connected to belief in Equal Opportunity.
• Specific content evolves as social conditions
  change.

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Changing Dream

• Post Civil War Personal Autonomy,
  Self-sufficiency
• Be your own boss
• Homestead Act
• Little House on the Prairie
• Post World War II
• Consensus America
• Company, Union, Govt. cooperation
• Middle class life available to blue collar
  workers with high school education
• Lifetime employment
• Single breadwinner
• Rise of Suburbia (Like Littleton)
• Cheap energy, housing, education
• Freeway System
• G.I. Bill
• Community College System
• Clear Path to Middle Class Security

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American Dream in the 21st Century

• Postwar structure has radically changed.
• Globalization
• Investment, jobs
• Labor Outsourcing
• Role of digital technologies Internet and the
  Death of Distance
• From Production to Consumption Orientation
• From GM to Wal-Mart
• Bubble economy, huge debt levels.
• Industrial Economy to Knowledge Economy
• From manipulation of objects to manipulation of
  symbols
• Importance of Human Capital
• Middle-class risk
• Increasing income inequality (hidden by housing
  bubble)
• Pensions to 401K. Risk shifting.
• Housing, healthcare, education become much more
  expensive
• Path to secure middle-class life much less clear,
  changing rapidly

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Conclusion

• Biography intersects history in our own time in a
  powerful way.
• Understanding this can empower both our private
  and public selves.
• All human phenomenafrom the tragic to the
  trivialcan be understood sociologically.