Public Sociology and the Lost Legacy of C. Wright Mills

Abstract

This chapter provides the definition of what public sociology is and what it is not and offers contributions of C. Wright Mills, which the author believes strengthens public sociology, beginning with his most well-known concept, that of the sociological imagination. The sociological imagination is “predicated on the belief that individuals must engage in forms of social action that enable them to be active participants and not passive spectators in their own destinies”. This is a vital part of Mills’ lost legacy. It was the role of the sociological imagination to point out the constraints – a role that in his view, sociology had abdicated in its failure to call attention to the fact that America was moving toward becoming a nation of “cheerful robots.” The concept of the “higher morality” is as important to understanding what Mills was saying about power than is his notion of the power elite, because Mills saw the higher immorality as pervasive throughout American society.