What is the Sociological Imagination and how would such an approach likely to differ to ‘common-sense’ ideas?
The Sociological Imagination is an idea first proposed by C. Wright Mills to describe a perspective on society that is “informed” (based on theory and research) rather than “common sense,” which is a gut-level reaction based on what you learned growing up. Common sense is not necessarily wrong, but it tends to reinforce, rather than challenge the existing scheme of things. Mills wrote an entire book on this, but I’d say the main benefit of the sociological imagination is that it allows you to look at your own society as though you were an outsider, much as an anthropologist studying a nonliterate culture with the benefit of a knowledge of human and social behavior. A common-sense idea of unemployment would be that it is a moral failure. According to common sense, if you lose your job and don’t find another one, you aren’t trying hard enough. A sociological perspective on unemployment would go deeper and ask such questions as, “Who benefits from unemployment?” When many people are out o
