"The Promise of Sociology"

“The Promise of Sociology” by C. Wright Mills (1959) illustrates that our lives are in many ways products of our society. The context in which we live helps to shape and define who we are. As a former history major, this is something that I have always been intrigued by and held to be very true. I have often wondered how my own life may have been different had I been born in a different era or in a different place. In a time before the industrial revolution, would I be a farmer with 6 kids by the age of 23? In a time before the internet, would I have ever been able to get through college? In a time before our current economic issues, would I have decided to come back to BG for grad school? All of these examples show how the world around me has influenced both my lifestyle and my decision-making process.

Mills (1959) describes societal issues as “matters that transcend [local] environments of the individual and the range of his inner life (p. 5),” and instead affect all members of the society. In today’s world, some of those issues included terrorism, economic collapse, the internet, increasing mobility, and environmental change. These are all issues that affect us all, and how we deal with them individually will collectively shape the way that our society moves, thus, as Mills (1959) says, “[by] the fact of his living [the individual] contributes, however minutely, to the shaping of this society and to the course of its history (p. 3).” As our society moves forward, I can only wonder how the actions that we take as individuals now will shape the world that we live in tomorrow.