Violence and the Need to Be Imaginatively Aware

By Peter Kaufman

“It’s always one damn thing after another.” This was a favorite phrase of my advisor in graduate school. He was referring both to the relatively minor irritations of grad school—getting papers rejected, having data troubles, worrying about qualifying exams—as well as the daily annoyances of life—finding a parking ticket on your car, getting into an argument with a friend, having a long wait at the doctor’s office. 

I’ve thought of this phrase quite a bit lately as I followed the tragic events in Boston. It wasn’t so much the bombing at the Boston Marathon that brought these words back to me as much as it was the cumulative effect of recent events: Boston, Sandy Hook, Hurricane Sandy, Aurora, Penn State, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and the list could go on.

 In the realm of current events my advisor was only partially correct: It’s not just one damn thing after another; rather, it is multiple damn things after another. With so much happening in the world at what seems like a dizzying pace we are often left asking ourselves—in a tone that encapsulates resignation, speechlessness, confusion, and hopelessness: What the hell is going on here? 

This is not only an important question it is also a radical question. In the words of historian Howard Zinn to be radical is to comprehend the root of the problem. If we want to understand terrorism, school shootings, climate change, the on-going war in the Middle East, sexual abuse, or any other social problem that we hear about on a daily basis, we must strive to know about these issues in a thorough and systematic manner. So where do we begin? What can help guide us to gain this type of deep awareness?

Not surprisingly, I advocate that we turn to sociology. Specifically, I believe we can readily find such analytical direction in one of the most overlooked passages of one of the most oft-cited books: The Sociological Imagination. If you have ever studied sociology or read posts on this site you have no doubt heard of the sociological imagination. You have probably even heard about the intersection of biography and history and the distinction between personal troubles and pubic issues.

My interest here, however, is less in these popular concepts and more in how C. Wright Mills instructs us to become what he calls “imaginatively aware.” For Mills, this type of awareness is both the method and the outcome of acquiring the sociological imagination. To understand what is happening in the world as well as to understand our place in the world we need to gain this imaginative awareness. Mills outlines three sets of questions that are consistently asked by those who have this awareness and therefore truly embody the sociological imagination:

(1) What is the structure of this particular society as a whole? What are its essential components, and how are they related to one another? How does it differ from other varieties of social order? Within it, what is the meaning of any particular feature for its continuance and for its change?

(2) Where does this society stand in human history? What are the mechanics by which it is changing? What is its place within and its meaning for the development of humanity as a whole? How does any particular feature we are examining affect, and how is it affected by, the historical period in which it moves? And this period - what are its essential features? How does it differ from other periods? What are its characteristic ways of history-making?

(3) What varieties of men and women now prevail in this society and in this period? And what varieties are coming to prevail? In what ways are they selected and formed, liberated and repressed, made sensitive and blunted? What kinds of”human nature” are revealed in the conduct and character we observe in this society in this period? And what is the meaning for ”human nature” of each and every feature of the society we are examining?

Mills refers to these three sets of questions as the “intellectual pivots” that allow us to access a deep understanding of all social issues: from the micro to macro, from the political to the psychological, and form the personal to the remotely impersonal. Asking these questions takes us well beyond the superficial sound bites, stereotypical assumptions, and false accusations that we all too commonly consume from the mainstream media. In developing answers to these three sets of questions we equip ourselves with the cognitive calipers to grasp what the hell is going on.

As I try to make sense of the recent events in Boston I find myself repeatedly asking these questions in order to gain the imaginative awareness that Mills is suggesting. I certainly don’t have answers to all of these questions and even the ones that I feel confident about do not necessarily provide me with the type of lucidity of explanation I would prefer. Nevertheless, I know that by asking and then seeking answers to these questions I am slowly putting the pieces together of a very complex and ever-changing puzzle. In the process, I am able to transform resignation into resilience, speechlessness into self-expression, confusion into clarity, and hopelessness into hopefulness.  As C. Wright Mills proclaimed, this is the task and the promise of being imaginatively aware.