Module 2: Sociological Imagination

Mills, a radical Texan, rode his motorcylce and wore black leather.

I. Sociological Imagination: An Introduction

Johnson argues that we are all participating in social systems. Social systems affect how we think, feel and behave as participants by setting up paths of least resistance. Social systems affect the range of possibilities we see; different social systems have different paths of least resistance.

Johnson argues on p. 34 that we aren't all in the same situation. We occupy a variety of social positions within each system, we means that we tend to experience situations differently. We are shaped differently by them, limited by them in different ways, and tend to participate differently. Where we are “socially located” within specific social systems thus influences how we think, feel and behave in that situation and what range of possibilities we envision. We’'ll come back to this idea later when we study stratification and inequality.

II. Sociological Imagination
View Lecture Excerpt

Mills writes, "The individual can understand his [or her] own experience and gauge his [or her] own fate only by locating his [or her] self within his [or her] period...he or [she] can know his [or her] own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his [or her] circumstances."

QUESTION TO LECTURE…Look over Chapter One: what can you say about the sociological imagination?…What is one thing you got out of the reading.

1. In our daily lives, we don't often stop to think about the meaning of what we have gone through or compare our experiences to that of others; in the words of Mills, “"What we are aware of and try to do are bounded by the private orbits in which we live."”

2. The sociological imagination asks us to take a step beyond our own individual spheres of life to think about the larger structural forces that influence our lives

3. The sociological imagination is the ability to grasp the relations between biography and history

think of biography as your social location

think of history as where we are in time

4. The sociological imagination is the capacity to shift back and forth from the perspective of impersonal and remote societal transformations to the most intimate features of the human self and to see the relations between the two

5. The sociological imagination is the ability to investigate how things that seem to be private troubles may actually be public issues

6. Troubles : occur within the character of the individual and within the range of her immediate relations with others; private matters; resolutions lie within the individual and the social setting directly open to her personal experience

7. Public issues have to do with the institutions of society as a whole, with matters the transcend the local environments of the individual and the range of her inner life; public matters; incapable of personal solution

• Mills talks about several examples in Chapter 1; you will get the chance to discuss it further in depth in section

8. To use our sociological imaginations is to be aware of the idea of social structure and use it with sensibility

9. Imagination comes in because we are asked to imagine the "makability" of the world--the notion that the world could be different from what it is

9. When Mills wrote that what we experience in specific milieux [environment or setting] is often caused by structural changes, so that to understand the changes of many personal milieux, we must look beyond them, this is very similar to when Johnson wrote that in order to understand the forest, we can’'t just look at individual trees.

III. Suicide

The founder of the first sociology department in France. According to a recent encyclopedia of social thought, Durkheim’s work over a hundred years ago (1897) remains the most complete and influential social theory of suicide.

Topic How might we use our sociological imaginations to make sense of suicide? What kinds of questions might we ask about suicide?

We typically think of suicide as a very personal event –caused by stress, mental illness, or depression. Sociologist think about suicide in another way.

A. Fact: Protestants have higher rates of suicide than Catholics.

1. Question: How does Durkheim explain this fact from a sociological perspective?

B. Argument: Suicide results from the disintegration of society, the loosening of social bonds. To put it another way, the bond attaching us to life loosens when the bond attaching us to society goes slack.

C. Lecture and summary on Durkheim and suicide

1. Background on the article

a. According to a recent encyclopedia of social thought, Durkheim’'s work over a hundred years ago (1897) remains the most complete and influential social theory of suicide.

b. Durkheim chose to study suicide because it’'s a good illustration of the need for sociological explanations; despite the fact that it is a private and individual act, it is still influenced by social forces and therefore requires a sociological explanation

• At the time he did his research, Protestants considered suicide just as sinful as Catholics did, so that difference in believe alone doesn’'t explain the difference in suicide rates

2 Key points of Durkheim’'s argument

a. The tendency to suicide depends on the nature of the individual’'s relation to society

b. The causal order in Durkheim’'s theory of suicide:

• Humans are social creatures

• As social creatures, we have a basic need to have relationships with others, to be integrated into social groups.

• When those needs aren’'t met, negative consequences follow.

• Humans who lack integration into groups, whose need to have meaningful relationships isn’'t met, will suffer negative consequences, such as suicide.

• The more a group is integrated, the lower the rate of suicide

• Catholicism is a more socially integrated religion than Protestantism.

• Therefore, there is more suicide among Protestants than Catholics

c. 4 types of suicide –-- not just one…

1. Egoistic suicide results from under-integration of the individual by society

2. Altruistic suicide results from the over-integration of the individual by society

3. Anomic suicide results from under-regulation of the individual by society

4. Fatalistic suicide results from the over-regulation of the individual by society

d. Suicide rates are a social thing/fact, explained by the extent to which individuals are integrated into and regulated by the constraining moral forces of collective life

3. Durkheim’'s legacy

a. Since Durkheim’'s work, suicide has been shown to be correlated with urbanization, isolation, unemployment, lack of status integration, and lack of external restraint.

b. Folks have criticized his work because he used data about suicide RATES to make inferences about individuals; also folks have argued that the statistics aren’'t accurate because how suicide is defined/what it means differs across cultures

 

IV. Exploring the Internet: Suicide Trends

Goal: Explore the data presented on the suicide table link.
Task: Look at some themes between groups. You can use gender, race, age, year born, etc. to come up with your ideas. The idea is for you to identify a trend. What do you observe? Be creative.
View Assignment Introduction
Link: Death Rates From Suicide, by Sex and Race: 1950 to 2000

Posting:

Put up your results! What trend did you discover? Use actual data to prove your point. How might you make a sociological statement or observation using Durkheim. Try your best. Remember to respond to each other.