The PromiseC. Wright Mills

"The Promise," published in 1959 by C. Wright Mills, is probably the mostfamous essay ever written by a modern sociologist. In this article, Mills cap-tures the essential lesson of sociologr': To trulv understand people's behav-iot we must look beyond those individuals to the larger social contexts inwhich they live. Individuals make choices, to be sure, but their choices areconstrained by social, historical, cultural, political, and economic factors.Most important, people frequentlv do not even realize the extent to whichtheir lives are affected by things that are external to them and outside oftheir control. Mills's point is that if we are to understand people's behavior,we must take into account these nonindividual factors. (This is not an espe-cially easy article to read, but it is fundamental. You might find it helpful toread the section on Mills in The Practical Skeptic: Core Concepts in Sociology,chapter 2,before you tackle this reading.)

Nowadays men often feel that their privatelives are a series of traps. They sense that withintheir everyday worlds, they cannot overcometheir troubles, and in this feeling, they are oftenquite correct'\A/hat ordinary men are directlyaware of and what they try to do are boundedby the private orbits in which they live; their vi-sions and their powers are limited to the close-up scenes of job, family, neighborhood; in othermilieuxl they move vicariously and remainspectators. And the more aware they become,however vaguely, of ambitions and of threatswhich transcend their immediate locales, themore ffappe{ they seem to feel.

lMilieux is French; it means "social environments." (Milieux tsplwal; milieu is singular.) - Ed.

"The Promise" ftom Sociological lmagination by C. Wright Mills.Copyright @ "1959, 2000 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Usedby permission of Oxford Universi$ Press, lnc.

Underlying this sense of being trapped areseemingly impersonal changes in the verystructure of continent-wide societies. Thefacts of contemporary history are also factsabout the success and the failure of individ-ual men and women. When a society is in-dustrialized, a peasant becomes a worker; afeudal lord is liquidated or becomes a busi-nessman. When classes rise or fall, a man isemployed or unemployed; when the rate ofinvestment goes up or down, a man takesnew heart or goes broke. When wars happen,an insurance salesman becomes a rocketlauncheu a store clerk, a radar man; a wifelives alonei a child grows up without a father.Neither the life of an individual nor the his-tory of a society can be understood withoutunderstanding both.

Yet men do not usually define the troublesthey endure in terms of historical change and

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institutional contradictirr2 The well-beingthey enjoy, they do rot Guatly impute to thebig ups and dowrs of OE saL'ties in whichthey live. Seldmr awar€ of fte intricate con-nection betrreelr ttc pamns of their ownlives and thecqr-of world history, ordinarymen do not uflnlly lcruv what this connec-tion means for OE Hnds of men they are be-coming and fr OE Hnds of history-making inwhich Otey udglil ake part. They do not pos-sess the quaEty d mind essendal to grasp theinterphy of uranand sciety, of biography andhistory, of setr and world. They cannot copewift fteir pefsral tsoubles in such ways as tocontrol ttn stnrtural transformations that usu-dly lie b€fdnd OErL

Sutly it b rp wonder. In what period haveso Euny ssr been so totally exposed at so fasta pre b sudr earthquakes of change? ThatArrsizns have not known such catastrophicchanges as have the men and women of othersci€tb is due to historical facts that are nowqut*ty becorring "merely history." The historydrat rnw afu every nurn is world history.Wiftin this scrne and this period in the courseof a single gerreration, one sixth of mankind istransfomed from all that is feudal and back-

q\.{ilb b rdng 0rc term institution in its sociological sense-whi{r b a tit different from the way this term is used in every-day or corlmtional speech. To the sociologist, institutionre'fets to a n of xcial anangemmts, an accepted way of resoloinginpttutt slr:ial problems. Thus, the institution of the family isour sciety's way of resolving the important social problem ofraising children. The institution of the economy is how we re-solve tlre problem of distributing goods and services (for ex-ample, in tlre case of the United States, capitalism). The con-c€pt of institutional contradiction refers to situations in whichtlre demands of one institution are not compatible with the de-mands of another institution. For example, there is institu-tional contradiction when the institution of the family is basedon the norm that dad goes to work and mom stays home withthe kids but the institution of the economy is such that it takestwo employed adults to support a family. You will find moreexamples of institutional contradictions in reading 2 byStephanie Coontz. You can read more about the nature of in-stitutirns in The Practical SkEtic: Core ConcEts in Sociology,chaptbr 9, "Society and Social Institutions." -Ed.

ward into all that is modem, advanced, andfearful. Political colonies are freed; new andless visible forms of imperialism installed. Rev-olutions occur; men feel the intimate grip ofnew kinds of authority. Totalitarian societiesrise, and are smashd to bits-or succeed fabu-lously. After two centuries of ascendancy, capi-talism is shown up as only one way to makesociety into an industrial apparatus. After twocenfuries of hope, even formal democracy is re-stricted to a quite small portion of mankind.Everywhere in the underdeveloped world,ancient ways of life are broken up and vagueexpectations become urgent demands. Every-where in the overdeveloped world, the meansof authority and of violence become total inscope and bureaucratic in form. Humanity it-self now lies before us/ the super-nation at ei-ther pole concentrating its most coordinatedand massive efforts upon the preparation ofWorld War Three.

The very shaping of history now outpacesthe ability of men to orient themselves in ac-cordance with cherished values. And whichvalues? Even when they do not panic, menoften sense that older ways of feeling andthinking have collapsed and that newer be-ginnings are ambiguous to the point of moralstasis. Is it any wonder that ordinary men feel ,th-ey cannot cope with the larger worlds with /which they are so suddenly confronted? That/they cannot understand the meaning of theirepoch for their own lives? That-in defense ofselfhood-they become morally insensible,trying to remain altogether private men? Is itany wonder that they come to be possessed bya sense of the trap?

It is not only information that they need -

in this Age of Fact, information often domi-nates their attention and overwhehns their ca-pacities to assimilate it. It is not only the skillsof reason that they need-although theirstruggles to acquire these often exhaust theirlimited moral energy.

What they need, and what they feel theyneed, is a quality of mind that will help themto use information and to develop reason inorder to achieve lucid summations of what isgoing on in the world and of what may behappening within themselves. It is this qual-ity, I am going to contend, that journalists andscholars, artists and publics, scientists andeditors are coming to expect of what may becalled the sociological imagination.

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The sociological imagination enables its pos-sessor to understand the larger historical scenein terms of its meaning for the inner life and theexternal career of a variety of individuals. It en-ables him to take into account how individuals,in the welter of their daily experience, often be-come falsely conscious of their social positions.Within that welter. the framework of modernsociety is sought, and within that frameworkthe psychologies of a variety of men andwomen are formulated. By such means the per-sonal uneasiness of individuals is focused uponexplicit troubles and the indifference of publicsis transformed into involvement with publicissues.

The first fruit of this imagination-and thefirst lesson of the social science that embodiesit-is the idea that the individual can under-stand his own experience and gauge his ownfate on-ly by locating himself within his period,that he can know his own chances in life onlyby becoming aware of those of all individualsin his circumstances. In many ways it is a terri-ble lesson; in many ways a magnificent one.We do not know the limits of man's capacitiesfor supreme effort or willing degradation, foragony or glee, for pleasurable brutality or thesweetness of reason. But in our time we havecome to know that the limits of "human na-ture" are frighteningly broad. We have come tolinow that every individual lives, from one

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generation to the rrt 'r.t. i :r :.\ ' :: ' . ! ' .. , '

l ives out a biographr', <rnr1 in,r : 'r ... -

within some historical sequ.'n... i i ' . :: ' , '

his living he contributes, hon'c'r'tr i::' .. i, . .the shaping of this society anci to ti1t. .. '-::xits history, even as he is made bt' str.it:', .-':'..:by its historical push and shove.

The sociological imagination enableS uS tt'grasp history and biography and the relatiorr:between the two within society. That is its t.rskand its promise. . . . And it is the signal of n'h.-rtis best in contemporary studies of man anclsociety.

No social study that does not come back tothe problems of biography, of history and oftheir intersections within a society has com-pleted its intellectual journey. Whatever thespecific problems of the classic social analysts,however limited or however broad the fea-tures of social reality they have examined,those who have been imaginatively aware ofthe promise of their work have consistentlyasked three sorts of questions:

L. What is the structure of this particularsociety as a whole? What are its essen-tial components, and how are they re-lated to one another? How does it differfrom other varieties of social order?Within it, what is the meaning of anyparticular feature for its continuanceand for its change?

2. Where does this society stand in humanhistory? What are the mechanics bywhich it is changing? \Atrhat is its placewithin and its meaning for the develop-ment of humanity as a whole? Howdoes any particular feature we are ex-amining affect, and how is it affected by,the historical period in which it moves?And this period - what are its essentialfeatures? How does it differ from otherperiods? What are its characteristicways of history-making?

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3. \44rat varieties of men and women nowprevail in this society and in this pe-riod? And what varieties are coming toprevail? In what ways are they selectedand formed, liberated and repressed,made sensitive and blunted? Whatkinds of "human nature" are revealedin the conduct and character we observein this societv in this period? And whatis the meaning for "human nature" ofeach and even' feature of the society weare examining?

l{hether the pelnl of interest is a greatpo\\'er state or a minor lite-ran' mood, a family,a prison, a creed - these are the kinds of ques-tions the best sociai analvsts have asked. Theyare the intellectual pivots of classic studies ofman in society-and they are the questions in-evitably raised by any mind possessing the so-ciological imagination. For that imagination isthe capacity to shift from one perspective toanother-from the political to the psvchologi-cali from examination of a single familv tocomparative assessment of the national bud-gets of the world; from the theological schoolto the military establishment; from considera-tions of an oil industry to studies of contempo-rary poetry. It is the capacity to range from themost impersonal and remote transformationsto the most intimate features of the humanself -and to see the relations between the two.Back of its use there is always the urge toknow the social and historical meaning of theindividual in the society and in the period inwhich he has his quality and his being.

That, in brief, is why it is by means of thesociological imagination that men now hopeto grasp what is going on in the world, and tounderstand what is happening in themselvesas minute points of the intersections of biog-raphy and history within society. In largepart, contemporary man's self-consciousview of himself as at least an outsidet if not apermanent stranger, rests upon an absorbed

realization trf :t\:. i . :r-.. i :rvitv and of the trans-formative p(r\\ tr .ri r.:-ior\:. The sociologicalimagination is tht nr.*i iruitful form of thisself-consciousnes:. Br li- u:r' men whose men-talities have sn'ept oni\ .t -trirx of limited or-bits often come to ieel .r: ri .udelenlv awakenedin a house with which thev h.rcl onlv supposedthemselves to be familiar. C('rrLrthi or incor-rectly, they often come to fet'l th.rt thev can nowprovide themselves with ac'ltgu.1te surnma-tions, cohesive assessments, comprehensive ori-entations. Older decisions that once appearedsound now seem to them products of a mindunaccountably dense. Their capacih' for aston-ishment is made lively again. Th"y acquire anew way of thinking, they experience a trans-valuation of values; in a word, by their reflec-tion and by their sensibiliry they realize thecultural meaning of the social sciences.

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Perhaps the most fruitful distinction withwhich the sociological imagination works isbetween "the personal troubles of milieu" and"the public issues of social structure." Thisdistinction is an essential tool of the sociologi-cal imagination and a feature of all classicwork in social science.

- Trouhles occur within the character of the in-dividual and n'ithin the range of his immedi-ate relations with others; they have to do withhis self and with those limited areas of sociallife of which he is directly and personallyaware. Accordingly, the statement and the res-olution of troubles properly lie within the indi-vidual as a biological entity and within thescope of his immediate milieu-the social set-ting that is directly open to his personal expe-rience and to some extent his willful activity. Atrouble is a private matter: values cherished byan individual are felt by him to be threatened.

Issueshave to do with matters that transcendthese local environments of the individual andthe range of his inner life. They have to do with

the organization of many such milieux into theinstitutions of an historical society as a whole,with the ways in which various milieux over-lap and interpenetrate to form the larger struc-ture of social and historical life. An issue is apublic matter: some value cherished by publicsis felt to be threatened. Often there is a debateabout what that value really is and about whatit is that really threatens it. This debate is oftenwithout focus if only because it is the very na-ture of an issue, unlike even widespread trou-ble, that it cannot very well be defined in termsof the immediate and everyday environmentsof ordinary men. An issue, in fact, often in-volves a crisis in institutional arrangements,and often too it involves what Marxists call"contradictions" or "antagonisms."

In these terms, consider unemployment.\A/heru in a city of 100,000, only one man is un-employed, that is his personal trouble, and forits relief we properly look to the character ofthe man, his skills, and his immediate oppor-tunities. But when in a nation of 50 millionemployees, 15 million men are unemployed,that is an issue, and we may not hope to findits solution within the range of opportunitiesopen to any one individual. The very struc-ture of opportunities has collapsed. Both thecorrect statement of the problem and therange of possible solutions require us to con-sider the economic and political institutions ofthe society, and not merely the personal situa-tion and character of a scatter of individuals.

Consider war. The personal problem ofwar, when it occurs, may be how to survive itor how to die in it with honor; how to makemoney out of i! how to climb into the highersafety of the military apparatus; or how tocontribute to the war's termination. In short,according to one's values, to find a set of mi-lieux and within it to survive the war or makeone's death in it meaningful. But the struc-

fiural issues of war have to do with its causes;with what types of men it throws up intocommand; with its effects upon economic and

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political, familv and religrous ursotuh.rr! -€the unorganized irresponsibilin' or a h \rr^:, .anation-states.

Consider marriage. Inside a rratrlaff Iman and a woman mav experience Fr.rrrraitroubles, but when the divorce rate dunnt :!xfirst four years of marriage is 250 out of etqn1,000 attempts, this is an indication of a srru.--tural issue having to do with the institutronsof marriage and the family and other institu-tions that bear upon them.

Or consider the metropolis-the horrible.beaufiful, ugly, magnificent sprawl of the greatcity. For many upper-class people, the personalsolution to "the problem of the city" is to havean apartrnent with private garage under it inthe heart of the city, and forty miles out, a houseby Henry Hill, garden by Garrett Eckbo, on ahundred acres of private land. In these two con-trolled environments -with a small staff at eachend and a private helicopter connection-mostpeople could solve many of the problems ofpersonal milieux caused by the facts of the city.But all this, however splendid, does not solvethe public issues that the structural fact of thecity poses. What should be done with this won-derful monstrosity? Break it all up into scat-tered units, combining residence and work? Re-furbish it as it stands? Or, after evacuatioodynamite it and build new cities according tonew plans in new places? \,Vhat should thoseplans be? And who is to decide and to accom-plish whatever choice is made? These are struc-fural issues; to confront them and to solve themrequires us to consider political and economicissues that affect innumerable milieux.

In so far as an economy is so arranged thatslumps occur, the problem of unemploymentbecomes incapable of personal solution. In sofar as war is inherent in the nation-state sys-tem and in the uneven industrialization of theworld, the ordinary individual in his restrictedmilieu will be powerless-with or withoutpsychiatric aid-to solve the troubles this sys-tem or lack of system imposes upon him. Lr so

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far as the family as an institution tums womeninto darling little slaves and men into theirchief providers and unweaned dependents,the problem of a satisfactory marriage remainsincapable of purely private solution. In so far asthe overdeveloped megalopolis and the overde-veloped automobile are built-in features of theoverdeveloped societv, tlre issues of urban liv-ing will not be solved by personal ingenuityand private wealtlr-

What rve experience in various and spe-cific milieux, I have noted, is often caused by

structural changes. Accordingly, to understandthe changes of many personal milieux we arerequired to look beyond them. And the num-ber and variety of such structural changes in-crease as the institutions within which we livebecome more embracing and more intricatelyconnected with one another. To be aware ofthe idea of social structure and to use it withsensibility is to be capable of tracing such link-ages among a great variety of milieux. To beable to do that is to possess the sociologicalimaginat ion.. . .

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Questions

t\}Et is the sociological imagination? (You 3.might betin vvith quoting Mills's definition,but tn' to describe this phenomenon in youros.rr n'ords as well.)

In brief, n'hat kinds of questions are asked bythose rr'ho possess a sociological imagination?

What are "personal troubles of milieu"?What are "public issues of social structure"?lAy'hy does Mills say that the distinction be-tween troubles and issues is "an essentialtool of the sociological imagination"?