INTRODUCTION
Every Sociologist has an origin story; a tale
of how they got to be where they are, and when they first were introduced to Sociology
itself. Then, enthralled in its passion for the revelatory understanding of
human beings and group behavior, decide (economically unwisely in many cases) to
become Sociologists. Much of this origin story is steered by mentors and their
perception of society. The mentor’s perception of society lays the foundation
for their student’s “Sociological awakening”.
A person can easily zero in on the perception of a Sociologist by asking
about Sociological Theory.
In Sociology, at the undergraduate
level, where “the passion” for sociology often gets ignited, students learn
about the Three Main Sociological Theoretical Perspectives[1]
From those three perspectives students also learn about the “Holy Trinity” of
Sociologists (Namely Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and Karl Marx). Usually, one can
trace back any and all Sociologist, and Sociological Thought back to these
three principles and the work of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. Thus, for many of us
contemporary Sociologists, our perception of society can be traced back through
all of our theoretical parents and grandparents to (usually) one of these three
men.
Unfortunately, this brings to mind the
sobering reality that most of Classical Social Theory has a “Dead White Dude” problem[2].
This problem born out of colonialism/ imperialism, dehumanization and genocide
results in the elevation of the written work of upper class, heterosexual white
men to be considered classical, or important to the discipline to the point
that historically, people have been able to get a Sociology degree (not to
mention others) without reading the work of both people of color or women. It
is a problem that still stays with us today and is something that all Sociology
professors today should take part in correcting.[3]
When a sociologist often completes a genealogy
of their theoretical ancestry, they are liable to come across” forks” and “broken
lines”. Some theorist you enjoy, combine ideas of other theorist in an attempt
to advance and coalesce similar or divergent ideas (which become your forks), while
other theorists you only embrace them on one singular idea or explanation of
social behavior. (broken lines). For
example: a sociologist may like Robert Merton because he synthesizes ideas from
Durkheim and Comte (fork) but you may only like Georg Simmel for his views on
the Sociology of Religion (broken line).
My theoretical genealogy, from the very
beginning, was full of radicals, revolutionaries and cultural critics of
society. From the inception point of Sociology into my young mind, I was on the
road to being the Post-Structure Critical Sociologist that I am today. Individuals
that were integral in that process were Karl Marx (for
understanding Conflict), Max Weber (for
understanding Structures) and (more contemporarily) Michel Foucault, Adrianne Rich and Gayle Rubin (for understanding
Sexuality and Relational Power Dynamics), Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Audre Lorde and Patricia Hill
Collins
(for understandings of Race), Judith Butler, Judith Lorber and Candace West ( for
understanding gender) Zigmunt Bauman[4] (for his notion
of Liquidity) all of whom have been well established and analyzed
by individuals smarter and with a higher pedigree in Sociology than I. Yet,
there is one Sociologist whose work, personality and perspective is vital to my
understanding of society, and whom (comparably) little has been written
about…which is the work of C. Wright
Mills.
BRIEF BACKGROUND
Compared to many of the other
theorists mentioned above, little has been written about C. Wright Mills biography,
especially his early life[5]
Born on August 28th 1916 in Waco Texas, Mills had a pretty
substantial middle class background (his father’s middle class white collar job
would impact Mills’ perception on social class later on) he grew up in the
company of many women, at a time when the gender binary was aggressively
reproduced in all interactions and institutions, Mills often felt “lonely”(Kerr
2009: 25). Growing
up without a lot of male role models, Mills idolized his maternal grandfather.
An intellectual and radical in his own right, Mills became a chip off the old
block that embodied the masculinity of the stereotypical Texas cowboy of the
time.
Belligerent and uncompromising in his
attitudes especially of his disdain for the system and the general status quo
of institutions and the broader society, Mills at every turn attempted to buck
the system beyond simple ideology. In his freshman year of military school,
Mills penned a letter that challenged the hierarchical structure of the cadets;
promoting a more egalitarian model (Kerr 2009).
In that letter, at such a young age, Mills resisted and challenged any
type of social control that was created by force, and believed that criticism of society was the highest
form of patriotism[6] Mills seemed to embody that criticism later in
his adult and professional career, through both his dress (refusing to wear the
standard suit and tie, electing instead to wear soiled boots and motorcycle
chaps) and demeanor (becoming increasingly combative with his colleagues[7])
solidifying himself as an outsider. By the time he became a professor at
Columbia University he quickly not only became an outcast, but a pariah.
Embodying the personification of the
“Radical Cowboy” cost Mills as much as it mythologized him. For every story of
his whimsical eccentricities[8]
there were stories about the price he had to pay for being a systemic
contrarian. Mills became such an
unwanted entity at Columbia that he wasn’t assigned any graduate-level classes[9]. This greatly affected Mills’ legacy and is
the chief reason why many sociologists only know a fraction of his work. By not
teaching any graduate-level courses, Mills’ ideas and influence over the
student body at Columbia was minimized. Whether this was deliberate or not has
yet to be confirmed[10].
What is known is that this greatly reduced the likelihood that he would be able
to pass on his ideas directly to a group of students, effectively isolating
Mills, and solidifying his reclusiveness. Because he had no grad students that
he could mentor and mold into a revolutionary sociological army, there is no
“Millsian” School of Sociology as there is with other sociologists (Such as
Marx, Weber and Durkheim) which has caused a lot of Mills work to go unread
(the notable exception being the first chapter of his most famous book[11]).
C. Wright Mills died on March 20th
1962 from a fourth and subsequently fatal heart attack.
There are several contributing factors to
C. Wright Mills’ limited notoriety in addition to his lack of
disciples/acolytes. Firstly, Mills died young at the age of 45 in 1962. Which
means that his early death compromised the breadth of knowledge he could have
provided over the span of an average lifetime. Secondly, as of this writing
Mills has been dead for over half a century. In that time, a lot of his work
has either ceased to be published (Listen
Yankee! and New Men of Power, or
difficult to come by (The Causes of World
War III and The Marxist). In
fact, the latest editions of his most famous books still in print were last
published in 2000.[12]
Therefore, with the inevitable passage of time, and a lack of a true
comprehensive understanding of Mills’ work, many contemporary sociologist
(plausibly) believe that many if not most of Mills’ ideas are often unrelatable
or are out of touch with the current analysis of society today[13].
While I concede that Mills’ does have weakness in his overall scope of society
(mostly by omission, rather than false claims), in order to understand our
changing multi-variant world, and produce a population of aggressive and allied
activists, we need the work of C. Wright Mills.
THEMES AND KEY
IDEAS
Mills as a theorist and a critical
sociologist, was a “fork” for me between Weber and Marx. He had the revolutionary flavor and
deconstructive spirit of Marx, while having an understanding of the inner
workings of the system (and how it tries to resist change) from Weber. With these influences, in these proper
proportions, he was uniquely posed to be the cultural critical of his
generation. He was able to understand the failing system, but also how it
worked so he could promote change from both ends, outside the establishment,
(which can be epitomized in his book Listen
Yankee!) or within it (through his college teaching). It is my contention
that Mills was writing in the wrong decade. If much of his work was published
in the late sixties through the seventies I believe that the general public
would have had a powerful response to Mills ideas. Mills was, when he was
alive, the intellectual that we that we deserved, but not the one we needed in
the 1950’s. Now, a half century after his death his themes and ideas still have
relevance and speak truth.
Biography and History
“Neither the life
of an individual, or the history of a society can be understood without
understanding both.”-C.
Wright Mills
The concepts of biography and history are
chiefly speaking about the relationship between the individual and larger
social groups. Sociology has been
grappling with this issue of the persons versus groups of people since its inception. In a thinly veiled attempt to seem novel,
this idea has been written about and discussed under many pseudonyms. Whether
that is the general idea of Micro Sociology and Macro Sociology, or something
more esoteric like “agency and “structure”, the relationship between the
individual and some type of group organization (whether it be formulated by an
authority or not) has always been central to the study of society; and
therefore Sociology. What Mills emphasizes
with his notion of biography and history is the interconnected nature of the
individual with the group. He isn’t so prosaic to say that a group is nothing
more than a bunch of individuals (since all Sociologists worth their degree
understand that the group often behaves in ways separate individuals never
would on their own), instead he discusses how this symbiotic relationship can
move us out of complacent attitudes we often find ourselves in.
For Mills, the ideas of biography
and history and the understanding of both, that allows one to embrace and
utilize The Sociological Imagination (his
word for what has come to be known as “the sociological perspective”) which is
one’s ability to look at the world beyond the individual and see the world as
an interconnected web. The choices an individual makes, is not outside of society,
in a social vacuum. Instead, choices are made within a very specific set of
social circumstances and context. Essentially, the relationship between
biography and history is complex and interwoven to the point where neither one
is independent. This understanding can
motivate for people into action, whatever that action might be. This is
because, through an understanding of the relationship between biography and
history, a person can understand that they are not isolated from the world, in
fact they are very much a part of it; and therefore can create change.
Power, Knowledge,
and the Elite
Mills’ ideas of power began with
his adoption of its Weberian definition (paraphrased): Power is the ability to
realize your will even when others resist. He expanded Weber’s idea to state
that Power itself was localized in particular social institutions, namely: The
government, politics and the economy.
Using a Power/Conflict perspective, these powerful social institutions have
access or can gain access (usually by physical force) to natural and social
resources resulting in their ability to shape the socio-political structure to
their will.
The “They” Mills speaks of is “The Power Elite” a small group
of individuals that operate within high positions of the powerful social
institutions. It is through their
positions (not necessarily themselves) that these “elite” wield power, and from
them gain prestige (status), prosperity (wealth) and persuasion
(influences). They are often a collusive
and intimate circle that isolates themselves from the general public. If and when people speak of The Power Elite
these are often names that you do not know or at most only vaguely heard
of. They are not celebrities, they are
the visibly invisible. All of their actions are transparent and can be
contentious but are far removed from the general public. It’s this collective’s
decisions, or indecisions that shape society itself. This is the 1% of the 1%.
Examples would be: Joint chiefs,
Congressional Committee members, C.E.O.s, Military Leaders, Think Tanks etc.
After “The Elite” Mills identifies “The Middle levels of Power”. These are individuals who are often employed
by the Power Elite to act as regulators of and distractions for the
non-powerful. For Mills, an example of
the former would be the white collar
workers of middle management. They may have money and a slight amount of
influence over the everyday relationships within the microcosm of their job, but it is the influence afforded to them by
The Power Elite. An example of the
latter, for Mills, would be Celebrities
and other public personalities whose job it is to distract the non-powerful
away from the actions and decisions of the powerful. Entertainment and
trivialities are often used to achieve this end. In
both cases, they are the instrument of the higher authority; the mechanism by
which The Power Elite exercise their power.
The Enforcers of the structural organization.
Finally, Mills identifies “The Mass Society” which is
basically everyone else within the social structure. These are the non-powerful everyday
individuals whose trajectory of their daily lives is out of their control. The public
is constantly being alienated from that which gives them agency (free
non-coerced choice) usually, through the elements of the middle levels of
power. An example of this alienation for Mills is indirect representation in
decision making (i.e. our democratic republic) This is all meant to limit
popular participation in the decision making process. As a result, the
decisions of the powerful are less debated because the “Mass society” are
maintained to be ignorant, politically ambivalent lemmings whom are disoriented
by personal anxieties stemming from their manufactured trap of false
consciousness within their own private orbits.
This
structure, in its control, effects the knowledge that is seen as important
within our society. Mills sees that there are Men of Knowledge (those who are intellectuals and a part of the
Intelligentsia) and Men of Power
(Those with high positions of authority in the social institutions of Politics,
the Military and the Government). Men of Knowledge are usually advisers or
experts to the Men of Power. They are
“the hired men” of the powerful. Thus because of this subservience of
“Knowledge” to “Power”, Power shapes Knowledge, leading to the assumption that
The powerful are also the most knowledgeable. Think of the way in which we project intelligence upon our social and
political leaders making the false assumption that the achievement of their
high ranking social status was due to their smarts. Ex: Political Candidates
This makes Power into Knowledge and Knowledge
an instrument of the powerful. The
unfortunate result of which is the alienation of knowledge from the populace,
culminating in the public's absent mindedness and fear of Knowledge as
something untrustworthy. As an example think of less rigorous educational
paradigms (No child left behind Common Core), Basic skills initiatives, the
idea of students as customers, and experience as intelligence.
Mills
solution is to create a knowledgeable and effective public that embrace
knowledge as a weapon of liberation.
Mills states that it is the duty of “Men of Knowledge” to be Prometheus
giving Knowledge of worth to the people, leading them in this endeavor.
“[We need] a free and knowledgeable public to which
men of knowledge may address themselves and to which men of power are truly
responsible; [that] public and such men-either of power or knowledge, do not
now prevail, and accordingly, knowledge does not now have democratic
relevance.” (Mills 2008: 136)[14]
WORK
The
bulk of Mills’ contribution to the discipline of Sociology is a critical
analysis of the American Society in the form of three separate texts: White Collar (1951), The Power Elite (1956) and The Sociological Imagination (1959).
This trilogy is striking deconstruction of American Society at the time, and
holds with it prophetic messages for the future.
“The existence of middle managers
indicates a further separation of worker from owner or top manager.”- C.
Wright Mills
This
book was a long time coming for Mills.
Drawing from Weber’s Economy and
Society, Marx’s Das Capital and
his own biography (His father was in middle management), Mills presents us with
a scathing dismantling of the US class structure of the time. He begins with a
general explanation of corporate America and the US class system, playing close
attention to the middle class. But as
the book continues, he reveals the unsettling truth that being “middle class”
is a state of false consciousness of the powerful. Those that define themselves as “middle class”
are controlled by those above them. Mills
goes through many different institutions and industries (from education,
lawyers, medicine, and corporations), indicating how they all are systematized;
a part of the same symbiotic bureaucratic organism. In this bureaucracy, dehumanization and
rationalization are the new normal (creating what Weber called “an Iron Cage”)
that causes careers to dry up just as there is an outpouring of low wage, low
skill jobs. The result is a social stratification that is so acute, there is
nothing in the middle. Since education
is farther and farther out of reach, there is a limited number of people who
can get a high paying career while too many people are trying to fight for the “scraps”
of minimum wage work. Mills believes this will not stop and will inevitably
lead to regulation of the expression of emotion, mutated into a state of bureaucratic
“false friendliness” which outside of any type of hierarchical structure we
call “manners”.
Another
major outcome of this bureaucratization is the “personality market”; where we
attempt to create, unique and divergent identities, then try and sell them to
others. Meanwhile, we feign interest in other’s lives just to manipulate them.
Mills then adds to this the Marxian idea of alienation, that in such a
bureaucratized system men are estranged from each other, therefore allowing for
the control to be complete.
Of
the three major text that make up Mills core treatise, White Collar is the book that is read the least. This could be due to the fact that it was his
first major work to get attention. Another reason could be that here he rests
on the work of classic scholars like Marx and Weber that his work seems lacking
in its contribution by comparison.[15]
Finally, in true movie trilogy style, this text is often overshadowed by its
impressive sequel The Power Elite.
“The class and status and power
systems of local societies are not equality weighted; they are not autonomous.
Like the economic and political systems of the nation, the prestige and the
power systems are no longer made up of decentralized little hierarchies, each
having only thin and distant connections, if any at all with the others.”- C.
Wright Mills
The
second book in C. Wright Mills’ American criticism trilogy is also widely
considered to be his magnum opus. Much
of Mills ideas and themes that he is known for (see above) are explored in this
text. This is also the text that is the
most widely influential outside the discipline of Sociology. Written in 1956,
many of the key ideas of the text showed up in President Eisenhower’s farewell
Presidential address in the form of The
Military Industrial Complex (MIC)[16]
The
Military Industrial complex is the term[17]
that explain the collusion between the three most powerful social institutions
in the United States; the military, the economy, and the government. These institutions have particular
representatives that are members of the titular “Power Elite” (namely CEOs,
high ranking military officials, and politicians). Mills makes it a point to
say that this structure is outside of party politics. This system continues to be in place
regardless of who’s in power. Since its
inception after WWII, when we learned that war and military production
stimulates the economy (it having saved us from the great depression of the 1930’s),
the military industrial complex has been maintained even in times of peace.
President Clinton used it in the routine bombing of the Balkans particularly Kosovo,
and later Iraq. President Bush used in to expand Military presence in the Middle
East and beginning the War on Terror after Sept 11, 2001 which granted more
military power in the executive office. It was this power that President Obama not
only didn’t give up, he
refined it into a seamless drone
war machine. Given the rhetoric President
Trump has been spewing, I do not see this long history
stopping anytime soon.
It
was through The Power Elite that
Mills is the most prophetic. He outlines a system that we not only still use
(as I have illustrated above) but expanded; bringing think
tanks and the
media into the fold. Think tanks being the private
organizations that write public policy which get introduced into congress by
politicians. The media is the catchall
term for the news and entertainment industry which shapes public perception,
and in turn, policy. Since its
publication the ideas brimming from the pages of The Power Elite have been expanded on by authors, journalists,
activists and scholars[18]
keeping the spirit of Mills’ work alive and well.
In
The Sociological Imagination the
final third of his critical analysis of American society, Mills becomes
reflective. Much of his criticism, which in the previous books were focused
externally, in this text it is focused internally on what good academia and the
intellectual community can do to eliminate, or at least greatly reduce social
ills. Mills criticizes academia that we have not done enough. To the point that he mentions that the ideals
of reason and freedom are in direct
peril. This is due to the way social
complacency has been bureaucratized in to a system of distraction and
consumption. It is this complacency that blurs the line between the access, use
and outcome of that behavior, resource or opportunity.
Mills
explains (1959)
A High level of
bureaucratic rationality and of technology does not mean a high level of
individual or social intelligence. From the first you cannot infer the second.
For social technological, or bureaucratic rationality is not merely a grand
summation of the individual will and capacity to reason. The very chance to
acquire that will and that capacity seems in fact often to be decreased by it.
[Bureaucratization and Rationality] are a means of tyranny and manipulation; a
means of expropriating the very chance to reason, the very capacity to act as a
free man. (p.168-169).
One solution that Mills came up with was a set
of guidelines
for fledgling intellectuals. Through these guidelines (in the Appendix of the
book) Mills gave us a blueprint on how to be better academics, intellectuals
and scholars. Mills believes that through this solution we can challenge the
bureaucracy and become a populace, and more importantly an electorate, that is
intelligent, knowledgeable and informed. By becoming independent intellectuals, Mills also
believes we can not only break out of this toxic and treacherous apathy that
the bureaucracy lulls us into, but challenge the system to move from an oligarchy
to something more egalitarian.
My Favorite Text
“Democracy requires that those who
bear the consequences of decisions have enough knowledge to hold the decision
makers accountable.”- C. Wright Mills in The Causes of World War III
Outside
of his critical Analysis of America trilogy.
Much of Mills’ work is forgotten lost or put by the wayside. Books like The Marxists, Listen Yankee (which Tom Hayden
is reviving)
and my personal favorite… The Causes of World War III. Like his other work, The Causes of World War III is a scathing critique of the American
socio-political system. What makes this text different is in detail and tone.
Written in 1958, post The Power Elite, Mills
seems angry, more aggressive in his tone. The attacks he wages seems more
personal in nature as he dismantles the organizational system he had explained
in the previous book. He outlines a list
of six criteria that will inevitably lead to world war three, which Mills
believes, that if we fail to change our ways, it will lead to a perpetual war,
one without end.
The Causes of
WWIII
1) Bureaucracies
2) Military
institutions shape economic life- (a war machine)
3)
The permanent war economy- (Capitalism)
4) Lack
of diplomacy – tanks before talking
5) Mass
indifference of the Public –Media (p 78)
6) “Crackpot
Realism” Ideology (p 89)
The
first two of these causes Mills expertly outlines in The Power Elite. The rest of the causes are exclusive to this
particular text. In explaining the third cause of “Capitalism” Mills takes his
cues from Marx, believing as he did, that we needed to explore other options
other than Capitalism (especially one that is based in Military production and
proliferation) such as an economic
democracy. But it is in
the causes of a lack of diplomacy, indifference of the public and what he coins
as “Crackpot Realism” that eerily predicts our recent, and current political
climate.
Mills believes that the lack of diplomacy
Americans generally have is due, in part, to our history of imperialism and
colonialism. Speaking generationally,
many of us have not had to compromise. Usually any geo-political difficulty we
face is often met with military action.
We have a long history of genocide and the use of force to promote and
achieve our interests around the world. When historically you have been able to
get what you want, by a superior show of force, you do not even have the social
tools (language)[19]
to begin a dialogue with someone else let alone properly ask for what you want
in order to come to a mutually beneficial agreement with another party.
Therefore, blissful in our ignorance and misunderstanding we often rationalize
this polemic behavior through national rhetoric and calls for patriotism[20].
As Mills says in no uncertain terms: “The
Absence of an American Program for Peace is the major cause of the thrust and
drift of toward World War III.”
A
tool in the creation and maintenance of war is the control of the public and
public perception. Mills believed that as people become politically
indifferent, they will also become morally indifferent, a mass society of
individuals whom have willfully given up their power sometimes without their
knowledge. The media is a tool that constructs this indifference. A perfect example of this dangerous
complacency is the internet. While there
is the potential to use the internet to be well informed and politically and
morally active/invested in our society; many of us (if not most) use it to
escape, to decompress and relieve ourselves of the stress of our private orbits.[21]
Through social media and streaming video services we can live within a
personal bubble, mainly because that bubble is exponentially mobile, never
having to step outside of it, or have our ideas values and behaviors challenged
in any way[22]
Additionally, since most media that people consume are owned by only 6
corporations (Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, CBS, News Corp and Comcast) we being
provided with not only limited information but a limited perspective on the
world. Mills makes a point to say that
when this happens, we become desensitized to the real horrors of the world,
especially war. It is this mass
indifference, moral or otherwise, that leads to war and allows it to continue.
“Crackpot
Realism” is a term coined by Mills to define the perception of the world held
by the elite-and by acting upon this perception of the world results in World
War III. Mills’ explanation of “crackpot realism” has ten components.
Chief
among them are:
·
Preparing for war rather than peace
·
War is complex so trust governing to
military leaders
·
Tying the economy to war and military
production
·
Problems of war are easier to handle…peace
is more difficult
·
Believe in “Winning” but winning is not
clearly defined
Crackpot realism easily
explains every military endeavor since World War II. But the military action
that epitomizes the notion of Crackpot realism is “The War on Terror”. This is the first time we have declared war
on an ideology rather than a specific enemy outright[23]
Therefore, our enemies will change and be cycled out like a revolving door. In
his state of the union address, then President Bush outlined “the access of
evil” that not only included Iraq and Afghanistan, but included Syria, North Korea,
and Iran. This means that since its
inception, The War on Terror was never designed to have an end. It was the perpetual war that would allow the
never ending continuance of the military war machine. The
War on Terror is the Millsian World War III.
LIMITATIONS
“The personal, is political”- C. Wright
Mills
All sociologists have limitations. Individually, we do
not have all of the answers to every aspect of society that is out there. It is
just not humanly possible. The structure and operation of graduate school
intensifies and makes clearly visible a Sociologist’s limitations, mainly
because through the process of getting advanced degrees we have to specialize in a particular area of our
field. Typically in the specialization begins in the Master’s Program when we
are asked to choose an area in our discipline where we would focus our
efforts. Since the school is designed
for students to follow a particular sequence, and the cost of school increasing
exponentially, most student’s specialize
early in graduate school to minimize the cost of taking ”unnecessary”
courses. This is only compounded when
students have to produce their own research during their pursuit of a Ph.D.
Therefore, there are a lot of gaps in an individual Sociologist’s knowledge of
society, and C. Wright Mills is no different.
Mills’ greatest limitation in his work is that he fails
to consider the impact of race and gender in our society. Mills is very terse
on the subject if he talked about it at all.
Some scholars would look to his work in Listen Yankee the narrative about a family in Cuba as his
contribution to the discussion of race. I disagree. As someone who specializes
in the study of inequality; specifically stratification and injustice that
focuses on race, gender, class, sexuality and disability discrimination; it
pains me that Mills very brief on this subject outside of his discussions of
social class.
Mills’
silence on the issues of race and gender can partially be explained by
historical context and through Mills own biography. It is plausible to believe
that growing up in the early 1920’s, in Texas that he would have adopted a form
of toxic masculinity that was common among abrasive white blue collar heterosexual
men of the time. If you couple this historical context with Mills’ biographical
experiences of not having strong male role models (neither his father or other
male figures in his life) and having an abundance of female relatives as
company (Kerr: 2009). It is understandable that in such a gender divisive
climate (where the gender binary is considered, publically, to be set in stone…normalized
through biological explanations) without a male reference group to look up to,
being around a majority of women, it is plausible that Mills was pressured to
prove his masculinity. Mills’
subsequently did this when he rejected the female relationships he had within
his family and began, at an early age, to emulate his grandfather, an
intellectual in his own right, but a stereotypical Texas in both look an
attitude (Kerr, 2009). This division was
so complete within Mills that later in his work he disparaged women’s place
within society, and their aptitude (Mills, 1951). Yet, while we understand it,
it cannot be condoned. Mills’ remarks
are still upsetting and deflates Mills as an academic for me, personally. I am
still able to go back to Mills’ work, despite this glaring omission, because
much like Marx or any other classical, white, heterosexual scholar; their work
speaks from a place of privilege that is invisible to them.
What makes this race and gender criticism
unique in Mills’ case is the way in which his work is often used by marginalized
groups in an attempt to
amass political and social power. Even though Mills never spoke to them
directly, since his death, civil rights groups dealing with race and gender
have been using his work to motivate their struggle. The most notable example of
this is feminisms use of Millsian quote “
The personal is political.”. While
Mills was talking about the relationship between biography and history in an
attempt to motivate people out of complacency; the feminist movement used his
words to identify their plight, and to use their collective biography as a
mechanism to foster worth within society in the form of access to jobs and
other resources, equal pay, sexual equality and many more issues that
are still being fought today.
There
are those that have written and spoken about Mills and his impact on the civil
rights movement (Hayden: 2006). Yet, I agree with Michael Burawoy (2008)
and often wonder what Mills’ response to these social movements would have
been. What brilliance did we miss out on? Or, equally possible, what horrific
remark or text could he have created?
Burawoy’s motivation behind his curiosity is his belief that Mills would
support this social movements because they are an example of public sociology,
of which Mills was the founder (posthumously) (Burawoy 2008). I wonder if the
use of the kinds of grassroots social activism/antagonism (that Mills promoted
in in his work and in his life) by the feminist movement and other marginalized
groups would have softened him, made him supportive of the peril they are in. I
would like to think so. Thus, despite his limitations C. Wright Mills is an
important Sociologist and needs to be continuously read and remembered.
CONCLUSION
C. Wright Mills is one of the most important Sociologist.
If there was a Mount Rushmore of Sociology he would be right next to Marx,
Weber and Durkheim. Not only is his work still being read and written about
nearly sixty years after his death, but many have acknowledged him for his
contributions to subfields/topics in Sociology that he never directly addressed
by name. One such field is the study of Social problems. All of Mills work
revolve around the identification and the elimination of Social Problems. Mills is often cited in introduction to
Social Problems textbooks as a way to lay the foundations of a course/study of
Social problems. This link is further
strengthened by the existence of the C. Wright Mills Award.
Starting
in 1964, just two years after his death, The
Society for the Study of Social Problems created the C. Wright Mills award
for the work that best exemplifies “spirit” of C. Wright Mills work. The book
needs to fit the following criteria:
1)
Critically addresses an issue of contemporary public importance,
2)
Brings to the topic a fresh, imaginative perspective,
3)
Advances social scientific understanding of the topic,
4)
Displays a theoretically informed view and empirical orientation,
5)
Evinces quality in style of writing,
6)
Explicitly or implicitly contains implications for courses of action
In the spirit of
revisionist history, the awarding of this prize to many scholars that write
about the numerous threats experienced by people of color and women, allows Mills’
academic descendants the ability to transcend Mills’ academic limitations. That is an enduring legacy.
VIDEOS
Here are a couple of great lectures on the brilliance of C. Wright Mills
1) John Summers
2) Colin Samson
REFERENCES
Burawoy,
Michael (2008) “An Open Letter to C. Wright Mills” Antipode 10:3 pp-365-375 retrieved on [ January 23rd
2017] http://burawoy.berkeley.edu/PS/Open%20Letter%20to%20Mills.pdf
Kerr
Keith (2009) Postmodern Cowboy: C. Wright
Mills and the New 21st Century Sociology Boulder, CO: Paradigm
Hayden T (2006) Radical
Nomad: C. Wright Mills and his times Boulder, CO: Paradigm
Summers,
John H. eds. (2008) The Politics of
Truth: Selected Writings of C. Wright Mills New York: Oxford University
Press
Wright Mills C (1951) White Collar: The American Middle Classes New York: Oxford University Press
Wright Mills C (1951) White Collar: The American Middle Classes New York: Oxford University Press
_________ (1956) The Power Elite. New York: Oxford
University Press
_________ (1958) The Causes of World War Three New York:
Oxford University Press
_________
(1959) The Sociological Imagination.
New York: Oxford University Press
[1]
Structural Functionalism, Symbolic Interactionism and Power/Conflict
[2]
There is also W. E. B. Dubois, Harriet Martineau Jane Addams, Fredrick Douglas,
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Marianne Weber and Sojourner Truth
[3]
This is an easy task, and it is the bare minimum we can do in order to have
representation. Just as film and television needs to do its part in increasing
diversity in the media, so to do Professors (especially oblivious white ones)
to include the work of people of color and women.
[4] As
of this writing Bauman recently passed away at the age of 91
[5] Postmodern Cowboy: C. Wright Mills and a New
21st Century Sociology by Keith Kerr
[6] A
Perception I whole heartedly agree with.
[7]
After his doctorial defense with Famed Sociologist Howard
P. Becker at the University of Madison, Mills reportedly blurted out “Fuck
You Howard!” (Kerr 2009:50)
[8]
Kerr (2009) speaks of a time when the establishment once demanded that Mills
wear a tie when he lecture. The next day he proceeded to lecture wearing just a
tie, undershirt and jeans.
[9] C. Wright Mills: An American Utopian by
Alan Horowitz
[10] Though due to Mills’ personality
being described as “corrosive” by a lot of his colleagues at the time I tend to
think this restriction was purposeful
[11]
The would be “The Promise” in the book titled The Sociological Imagination
[12]
Granted, since 2000 there have been a retrospective,
a biography,
an a
book of selected writings published
[13]
It should be noted Mills did enjoy
a brief resurgence in 2012 during the occupy wall street movement along
with Karl Marx
[14] The Politics of Truth: Selected Writings of
C. Wright Mills
[15] I
find this idea false, considering that the extension of Marxian and Weberian
ideas outlined in White Collar sets
up his prophetic message of corporate greed and the alienation of labor. He
basically predicted the 1980’s nearly 30 years before. Also, since President
Trump is going back to the Economic plan of the 1980’s I would assume that all
of the problems Mills predicted (that came true in the 1980’s) will soon be
relevant again.
[16] Eisenhower was the president of Columbia
University when C. Wright Mills was a Professor there and composing The Power Elite
[17]
Credited to Eisenhower but the idea was Mills
[18]
Most notably G. William Domhoff
[19] This
basically means that we don’t know how to talk to other countries often times
due to our retention of cultural ethnocentric ideas. This can be illustrated at the micro level by
identifying just how many Americans (especially those who are white) can only
speak one language.
[20]
Whether that be “Make America Great
again”; or “America First” as an example.
[21]
This is another Millsian term to explain the trap of complacency that most
people find themselves in. The idea is that, people who are trapped in their
own private orbit only care about what is in front of them in their daily
lives. Never looking outside their own biography.
[22]
This is compounded by dejure and defacto forms of segregation whether that be
by race, class, gender, sexuality or disability
[23]
Yes in World War II we were fighting fascism but it wasn’t fascism as a concept
we still had three major enemies in that war.
