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.