Among the significant number of sciences and teachings sociology always appears the most
controversial and acute. Studying various social issues, this field covers the most interesting
problems and questions related to the interaction between individuals. As long as human beings are
involved in social life every minute, sociology remains relevant science for many years. Therefore
the amount of theories and studies that are derived from sociology is truly enormous. One of these
studies is the theory of sociological imagination, formulated by C. Wright Mills. Let us and try to
analyze the application of sociological imagination theory to the contemporary news article.
To present the analysis adequately let us first briefly observe the object of our research. The
text we will be discussing now is an article called “Racial issues have always been a part of Yale “
written by Jared Malsin, a senior in Berkeley College of Yale University. Published in online news
column of Yale University website at January 29, this writing has raised a serious social problem of
racial inequality. The theme of racism is indeed a significant and acute social phenomenon in the
historical life of our country. Malsin describes an application of this problem to the history of
Yale University. In his article, the author addresses numerous examples from university life of last
centuries that indicated the relationship between outstanding personalities from this institution
and the problems of slavery and racial injustice. Jared Malsin describes historical facts from
biographies of Yale leaders, portraying a vivid and controversial image of university opinion as for
the racial issues. The author emphasizes pro-slavery orientation of the majority of Yale leaders who
owned slaves and plantations themselves. On the other hand, some critical personalities of the
history of Yale were passionate slavery opponents. Therefore, the article of Jared Malsin discusses
the serious social issue of racism through the history of slavery practice in the USA, questioning
the position of these subjects onto the human scale of values. This text is a demonstrative object
for investigation by sociological theories and studies.
First of all, let us concentrate on the essence of sociological imagination theory. C. Wright Mills
had conceived this term in 1959 when the book The Sociological Imagination was published. The major
idea the author put in this theory is a correlation between individual and society. Mills believed
events that occur within the biography of a person might be viewed and analyzed from the standpoint
of history. This means that developments in human life correspond to certain social issues in the
history of society in general. The sociological imagination of Mills rests upon three main
components, history, biography, and social structure. These elements interrelate tightly forming
mutual influence. The author believes his theory is not a social science but rather a mindset with a
specific direction of thinking, understanding, and reasoning. Let’s try to realize how Jared Malsin
applies Mills’ theory of sociological imagination to the description of social issues in his news
article.
The title of the article “Racial issues have always been a part of Yale “ provides a thesis
statement of the entire text, picturing the initial thought Jared Malsin expresses. This phrase
presents a subjective opinion influenced by historical facts, hence is shaped according to a general
theme of sociological imagination. The article itself represents the author’s discourse on the
subject highlighted in its title. To what degree does Malsin use Mills theory of sociological
imagination? As we already mentioned above, the key components of sociological imagination are
history, biography, and social structure. The article refers to multiple events from historical past
concerning both certain individuals and American nation in general. Looking back at seventeenth
through the twenty-first century, the author provides readers with historical facts that occurred
during the development of Yale University. Therefore, the history component of sociological
imagination is present in this article. On the other hand, the article does not describe a biography
of the specific individual. However, the biographical facts of various personalities mentioned in
the text interrelate closely with the life of Yale University. From this standpoint, the story of
Yale can be viewed, to my mind, as the individual biography component of sociological imagination.
Finally, the third element of Mills’ theory that refers to the structure of society affects the
sense of the article soundly. According to Malsin, social issues were playing a significant role in
shaping Yale University. Thus, the social structure component of sociological imagination is present
in the article we observe.
However, the presence of all three major elements of sociological imagination theory in the text is
not enough to make any dangerous conclusions about the degree to which Jared Malsin uses Mills’
study. The most significant indicator of the theory application can be interrelation of history,
biography, and social structure, as well as certain way of reasoning. According to the sociological
imagination, every historical event and phenomenon influences directly individual life of every
society member. On the other hand, each biography including various problems shape the state of
society of current period, subsequently affecting history. The ability to look “beyond the borders
of social trap…” distinguishes sociological imagination, providing us with the opportunity to
look differently at both individual and social issues. In the article “Racial issues have always
been a part of Yale “ the author draws a mutual correlation between individual biographies and
historical events. For instance, we can trace how personalities influenced history (John Calhoun,
Timothy Dwight, Benjamin Silliman, and other Yale leaders supported slavery practice). On the other
hand, we see the opposite process when history shapes biography (historical events in society
affected life and development of Yale University). Moreover, Mills stated that political and
economic entities of organization also interact with individuals directing them to certain behavior.
Malsin considers this aspect in his article, discussing the role that political and economic
situation in various periods of history played in shaping individual biographies. Therefore, as the
interrelation of biographies, history, and society are drawn clearly, I can assume that in his
article Jared Malsin used the sociological imagination theory, however, only partially employing its
significant elements and general principles.
I suppose that the present article would somehow differ if the author used more of sociological
imagination applying more profound knowledge of this theory. For instance, Mills argued that the
area his theory covers contains two stages – “the personal troubles of milieu” (individual problems
a person faces regarding his surroundings) and “the public issues of social structure”
(social-historical problems of entire institutions). By this, he meant that the same phenomenon
could be viewed differently considering the scale of its occurrence. From this standpoint, the
opposite statement also works – each social aspect has a certain reflection in minor
individual scope. Thus, this discourse can lead us to an unexpected conclusion. Yale leaders,
mentioned in the article, which supported slavery, were trapped in a “personal troubles of milieu”
that only reflected a social issue of slavery practice relevant in that period. Hence the biography
of Yale University cannot be blamed for involving support of racial injustice due to inability to
influence this social-historical issue. To my mind, if Malsin considered this particular concept of
sociological imagination among others in his article, its thesis statement would change from “Racial
issues have always been a part of Yale” to “Social issue of racial inequality has always affected
Yale history”.
Regarding our discussion, some other specific sociological ideas besides sociological imagination
may appear relevant to the subject of news article we observe. The purpose of socializing and
cultural agents may partially explain the behavior of society members portrayed in the article. The
theory of multiple layers of interpretation can be useful when considering sublayers of the meaning
of racial inequality social phenomenon. However, some other sociological ideas will be much more
helpful in analyzing social issues discussed in the present article. One of these ideas is Nature
vs. Nurture concept. This expression is used to describe the influence that innate characteristics
of a person (nature) and his experience acquired through entire life (nurture) have upon the
individual behavior. The nature vs. nurture debate was often used to explain pro-racist concepts,
exploiting the statement that genetic nature of individuals prevails over their environmental
experience. This idea is relevant to the article we observe, as for it may explain the essence of
the attitude of mentioned Yale leaders who held slaves to the racial problem in general. The other
relevant sociological idea is an issue of Social Roles in functionalist, social action, and
interactionist theories. Because this issue implies behavior that society expects from an
individual, it can be effectively applied to the subject of Jared Malsin’s article. To some extent,
the personalities mentioned such as Berkeley, Livingston, and others were playing social roles in
their societies, showing adequate behavior regarding social expectation in the particular historical
period. From this point, the individuals of their social status usually had no role conflicts while
supporting slavery or racism.
The issue of racial inequality for many years has been the cutest subject of discussions. Various
sociological theories turned to this question to analyze and explain this phenomenon.
Although I do not underestimate the role sociology plays in understanding diverse spheres of social
life, I think that regardless of theory used to debate racism, slavery should never be excused in
civilized and morality-oriented society.
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