C. Wright Mills is best remembered for his highly acclaimed work The Sociological Imagination, in which he set forth his views on how social science should be pursued. Hailed upon publication as a cogent and hard-hitting critique, The Sociological Imagination took issue with the ascendant schools of sociology in the United States, calling for a humanist sociology connecting the...
C. Wright Mills is best remembered for his highly acclaimed work The Sociological Imagination, in which he set forth his views on how social science should be pursued. Hailed upon publication as a cogent and hard-hitting critique, The Sociological Imagination took issue with the ascendant schools of sociology in the United States, calling for a humanist sociology connecting the social, personal, and historical dimensions of our lives. The sociological imagination Mills calls for is a sociological vision, a way of looking at the world that can see links between the apparently private problems of the individual and important social issues. Leading sociologist Amitai Etzioni brings this fortieth anniversary edition up to date with a lucid introduction in which he considers the ways social analysis has progressed since Mills first published his study in 1959. A classic in the field, this book still provides rich food for our imagination.
The reaffirmation of the instructive responsibilities of sociologists. The critique of ‘Grand Theory’ and ‘ Abstracted Empiricism’ reflects the concern towards methodology of social science. The auth...The reaffirmation of the instructive responsibilities of sociologists. The critique of ‘Grand Theory’ and ‘ Abstracted Empiricism’ reflects the concern towards methodology of social science. The author's fervent antagonism against dogmatic bureaucratism and ideological hegemony. Brief and compendious writing style.(展开)
Some social scientists stress the need for 'research teams of technicians; others for the primacy of the individual scholar. Some expend great energy upon refinements of methods and techniques of investigation; others think the scholarly ways of the intellectual craftsmen are being abandoned and ought now to be rehabilitated. Some go about their work in accordance with a rigid set of mechanical...
2020-11-09 00:062人喜欢
Some social scientists stress the need for 'research teams of technicians; others for the primacy of the individual scholar.
Some expend great energy upon refinements of methods and techniques of investigation; others think the scholarly ways of the intellectual craftsmen are being abandoned and ought now to be rehabilitated.
Some go about their work in accordance with a rigid set of mechanical procedures; others seek to develop, to invite, and to use the sociological imagination.
Some—being addicts of the high formalism of 'theory'—associate and disassociate concepts in what seems to others a curious manner; these others urge the elaboration of terms only when it is clear that it enlarges the scope of sensibility and furthers the reach of reasoning.
Some narrowly study only small-scale milieux, in the hope of ‘building up' to conceptions of larger structures; others examine social structures in which they try 'to locate' many smaller milieux.
Some, neglecting comparative studies altogether, study only one small community in one society at a time; others in a fully comparative way work directly on the national social structures of the world.
Some confine their exact research to very short-run sequences of human affairs; others are concerned with issues which are only apparent in long historical perspective.
Some specialize their work according to academic departments; others, drawing upon all departments, specialize according to topic or problem, regardless of where these lie academically.
Some confront the variety of history, biography, society; others do not.
社会学的想象力*笔记（一）
书名：The Sociological Imagination
作者：C. Wright Mills
背景：1959年初版的作品，冷战时期，马克思主义还没有给人带来绝望，作者对极权没有后来历史学者底气十足的批判，而是暧昧。总之，各种定义含糊的社会主义学，自然包括三大奠基人的理论：马克思、韦伯、涂尔干。米尔斯显然以马克思为首，没有挨到苏维埃解体时狠狠的一巴掌，幸甚至哉！
文学性：我不喜欢米尔斯的文笔，第一章上来就是各种存在意义不明的排比句。一般炫耀自己文笔好的人，基本都是因为言之无物，内容空洞。文笔越华丽越不实诚，何况是一本学术著作？我在第二章继续遇到排山倒海的排比句，对词工整，意义不明……然后是作者絮絮叨叨的自说自话，为什么这样？为什么那样？这样怎么不好了？那样又有什么不好呢？我一开始以为起码给“社会学的想象力”The Sociological Imagination来个定义，至少文献综述源远流长一个历史积淀吧？没有。那些问题是作者思考的好奇心源头，更重要的作用是传承契合基本上没什么逻辑的上下文。他想到哪里就写到哪里。读到第二章好不容易遇见Parsen简洁明了的被引用文字，简直是沙漠中一汪清泉。这个时候米尔斯就写了：如果你不像听我絮絮叨叨这些没哟给的东西，是不是很想快点翻过去grand theory这一章啊？请不要这样嘛！这一章还是有点东西可以看看的，请继续读下去吧。
--这种心里话就不要写在书上了吧？
笔记归笔记，有些话还是不错的：
第一章 The Promise
0-
“It is not information that they need - in this Age of Fact, information often dominates their attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is not the only the skills of reason that they need- although their struggle to acquire these often exhaust their limited moral energy.”
注：那个年代获得信息的途径也就报纸、广播、电视。其中，电视作为媒体就被冠之以“弱化人的行动”的罪名，只要沙发土豆和娱乐就行了。但米尔斯说的是，人们不需要信息，因为信息夺取了人的注意力并且压倒了他们吸收信息的能力——信息的反侵蚀和反同化？
于是排比句开始了，米尔斯才不交代前因后果和逻辑推理了，社会学的傲娇属性。
人们也不需要理性的技能（理性还有技能，这卖弄的文笔啊），虽然他们拼命去寻求理性，结果耗尽了有限的道德力量。——又没有解释了，举例说明都没有。
What they need , and what they feel need , is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves.
注：直接盖棺论定了…怎么盖的？道理和钉子都没用一个。这么长一句话其实就是：
人要了解世界，了解自己。
1-
The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals. It enables him to take into account how individuals, in the welter of their daily experience, often become falsely conscious of their social positions.
注：作者假设我已经知道了社会学的想象力（神器！）的定义，大概是人置于社会下的想象力的字面意思吧。社会学的想象力能够帮助神器持有者更好地借助大历史背景了解个体的内在生活和外在事业。生活在日常的人们常常对自己的社会地位相当无知，也许还存在错位认识。
The first fruit of this imagination—and the first lesson of the social science that embodies it—is the idea that the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by locating himself within his period, that he can know his own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his circumstances.
注：神器的第一功用就是个体能够总结自身经验，在自己的时代中把准自己命脉，了解到自己的天命，好神器！
But in our time we have come to know that the limits of `human nature' are frighteningly broad. We have come to know that every in¬dividual lives, from one generation to the next, in some society; that he lives out a biography, and that he lives it out within some historical sequence. By the fact of his living he contributes, how-ever minutely, to the shaping of this society and to the course of its history, even as he is made by society and by its historical push and shove.
注：排比句又来了。在我们的时代要认识到人性的缺“限”，人是活在历史的车轮下的。事实就是，再微不足道的个人，都可以改变社会，进而改变历史，尽管它是在历史的车辙里被碾平的也没有关系。
其实，读到后面觉得这本书不应该叫“社会学的想象力”，应该叫“对社会体制的幻想”。米尔斯的核心思想似乎是这样的（有错的话在后面更正）：人在体制中常常“自以为觉得”身不由己（都是体制的错），事实上体制是由个体的人组成群体组成组织组成社会构建起来的，所谓“作茧自缚”。米尔斯想说的是：改变体制（进而改变历史）的也只可能是清醒地运用社会学的想象力认识到这一点的人。所谓的“认识”就是：既然作茧自缚，当然可以破茧而出。这就是运用神器对自己天命的把握。
米尔斯好不容易自问自答了：
In large part, contemporary man's self-conscious view of himself as at least an outsider, if not a permanent stranger, rests upon an absorbed realization of social relativity and of the trans-formative power of history. The sociological imagination is the most fruitful form of this self-consciousness.
注：大部分当代人的自我意识很奇怪的，就是把自己当局外人，如果当做永远的陌生人就更加恐怖了。这样一句话根本没有解释清楚好么！个人理解是：就是们都没有当成潜意识的下意识。比如看到别人怎样受苦受难了都不会立刻想到自己就是下一个受害者。这个想法很普遍也很糟糕也很现实吧。请代入极端案例“文革”，都人身伤害了还能把革命搞满十周年庆。再比如毒奶粉，不是立刻不吃国产奶粉的想法，可能是“反正有这么多穷人小孩肯定陪着一起吃怕什么……”。总之不关，不太关、不立刻涉及我的事情。
于是米尔斯强调了神器的第一重要性：真正的自我认识。
2-
Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with which the sociological imagination works is between `the personal troubles of milieu' and `the public issues of social structure.' This distinction is an essential tool of the sociological imagination and a feature of all classic work in social science.
注：直接是神器的最有效功用了（其他功用呢？）：在“背景环境下的个人麻烦”和“社会结构下的公共议题”的乾坤大挪移心法，当当！社会学的想象力作为神器的社会功效性终于得以体现了！
后面的文笔用词终于至少解释下什么是`the personal troubles of milieu' and `the public issues of social structure.' 我盼到了名词解释。以及预料之外的，作者试图模仿霍布斯的野心（= =难怪没有演绎法推导就直接上结论还自以为头头是道的说）。不过霍布斯那种一针见血的犀利，明显是学不到家的。
A trouble is a private matter: values cherished by an individual are felt by him to be threatened.
注：麻烦是私事：即当个体珍惜的价值之物受到了威胁。
An issue is a public matter: some value cherished by publics is felt to be threatened. Often there is a debate about what that value really is and about what it is that really threatens it. This debate is often without focus if only because it is the very nature of an issue, unlike……
注：议题就是公事：即当公众珍惜的某些价值之物受到了威胁。当然我们要再议这个对公众而言价值之物到底有什么价值，受到的威胁到底有什么威胁。这种“再议”本身还都挺没价值的，但受不到任何威胁。
An issue, in fact, often involves a crisis in institutional arrangements, and often too it involves what Marxists call 'contradictions' or `antagonisms:
注：详细地说，议题就是机构管理的危机之类的东西。就是传说中的马哲中最闪耀的两个词：“矛盾”和“仇恨”。国产大脑请不要自动代入主语“阶级”，谢谢。
然后又是一串华丽丽的排比句（《资本论》必出现专有词汇：失业、战争、婚姻、大都会……）增强气势，好歹算例子解释了。米尔斯认为战争期间，人只有两种价值观：考虑怎么从战争中活下去，和怎么使自己的死有意义。但如果反过来推导战争：怎么反动的，你怎么卷进去一场战争的，谁参战了，各个政治经济宗教等等机构组织扮演了什么作用，国家政府做了什么——
你意识到这些，然后你只要把自己的私事变成战争的公事，你就赢了（米尔斯当然不会这么赤裸裸地说）。
3-
未完待续
It is a question of how full a statement is needed to make something clear and of how important that something seems to be: how many experiences it makes intelligible, how great a range of problems it enables us to solve or at least to state. ...... The basic cause of grand theory is the initial choice of a level of thinking so general that its practitioners cannot logically get down to observa...(3回应)
2020-11-09 19:48
It is a question of how full a statement is needed to make something clear and of how important that something seems to be: how many experiences it makes intelligible, how great a range of problems it enables us to solve or at least to state.
......
The basic cause of grand theory is the initial choice of a level of thinking so general that its practitioners cannot logically get down to observation. They never, as grand theorists, get down from the higher generalities to problems in their historical and structural contexts. This absence of a firm sense of genuine problems, in turn, makes for the unreality so noticeable in their pages. One resulting characteristic is a seemingly arbitrary and certainly endless elaboration of distinctions, which neither enlarge our understanding nor make our experience more sensible. This in turn is revealed as a partially organized abdication of the effort to describe and explain human conduct and society plainly.
......
when we define a word we are merely inviting others to use it as we would like it to be used; that the purpose of definition is to focus argument upon fact, and that the proper result of good definition is to transform argument over terms into disagreements about fact, and thus open arguments to further inquiry.
....
最后一节
'many can shuffle cards who cant play' 这骂的也太到位太深刻了。但愿我不会成为洗牌大师😭
Tendency I: Toward a theory of history. Forexample, in thehands of Comte, as in those of Marx, Spencer, and Weber, sociology is an encyclopedic endeavor, concerned with the whole ofman's social life. It is at once historical and systematic—historical, because it deals with and uses the materials of the past;systematic, because it does so in order to discern 'the stages' ofthe course of history...
2020-08-07 11:43
Tendency I: Toward a theory of history. Forexample, in thehands of Comte, as in those of Marx, Spencer, and Weber, sociology is an encyclopedic endeavor, concerned with the whole ofman's social life. It is at once historical and systematic—historical, because it deals with and uses the materials of the past;systematic, because it does so in order to discern 'the stages' ofthe course of history and the regularities of social life.Thetheory of man's history can all too readily become distortedinto a trans-historical strait-jacket into which the materials ofhuman history are forced and out of which issue prophetic views (usually gloomy ones) of the future. The works of Arnold Toynbee and of Oswald Spengler are well-known examples.
Tendency II: Toward a systematic theory of 'the nature of manand society/ For example, in the works of the formalists, notablySimmel and Von Wiese, sociology comes to deal in conceptions intended to be of use in classifying all socialrelations and providing insight into theirsupposedly invariant features. It is, inshort, concerned with a rather static and abstract view of thecomponents of social structure on a quite high level of generality. Perhaps in reaction to the distortion of Tendency I, history canbe altogether abandoned: the systematic theory of the nature ofman and of society all too readily becomes an elaborate andarid formalism in which the splitting of Concepts and their endless rearrangement becomes the central endeavor. Among whatI shall call Grand Theorists,conceptions have indeed become Concepts. The work of Talcott Parsons is the leading contemporary example in American sociology.
Tendency III: Toward empirical studies of contemporary social facts and problems. Although Comte and Spencer were mainstays of American social science until 1914 or thereabout, and German theoretical influence was heavy, the empirical surveybecame central in the United States at an early time. In partthis resulted from the prior academic establishment of economics and political science. Given this, in so far as sociology is defined as a study of some special area of society, it readily becomes a sort of odd job man among the social sciences, consisting of miscellaneous studies of academic leftovers. There arestudies of cities and families, racial and ethnic relations, and ofcourse 'small groups/ As we shall see, the resulting miscellanywas transformed into a style of thought, which I shall examineunder the term 'liberal practicality/Studies of contemporary fact can easily become a series ofrather unrelated and often insignificant facts of milieu. Manycourse offerings in American sociology illustrate this; perhaps textbooks in the field of social disorganization reveal it best. Onthe other hand, sociologists have tended to become specialistsin the technique of research into almost anything; among them methods have become Methodology. Much of the work—andmore of the ethos—of GeorgeLundberg, Samuel Stouffer, StuartDodd, Paul F. Lazarsfeld are present-day examples. Thesetendencies—to scatter one's attention and to cultivate method for its own sake—are fit companions, although they do not necessarilyoccur together.
Uncovering Underlying Structure of Sociological imagination WANG Chengjun 2011/3/23 Laozi says one can know national affairs without going out, which implies a vague picture of understanding the outside world by reflecting personal and local information. C. W. Mills makes his book The Sociological Imagination outlive his life to remind our social scientists about the secret underlying this vagu...
2011-03-25 16:49
Uncovering Underlying Structure of Sociological imagination
WANG Chengjun
2011/3/23
Laozi says one can know national affairs without going out, which implies a vague picture of understanding the outside world by reflecting personal and local information. C. W. Mills makes his book The Sociological Imagination outlive his life to remind our social scientists about the secret underlying this vague picture in terms of how to understand and get our sociological imagination.
Mills outlines the promise of sociological imagination by discussing ordinary peoples’ puzzlement about understanding his/her own life and the vast change of society. In Chomsky’s words, the mass people are panic herds controlled by media not to stamp the interest of the power elites (use the word of Mills) and go forward in the direction of the interests of power elites. Mills is relatively optimistic in the aspect of thinking that outside world can be well known and understood by ordinary people through getting sociological imagination. “The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society.” By stressing on understanding the structure of society in the perspective of history, and the varieties of human, one can gain the “capacity to shift from one perspective to another.”
Given the example of unemployment, war, marriage, and metropolis, Mills reminds us personal experiences root in structural change of society. We must look beyond them to gain insightful picture of the social reality. Our misery of vague uneasiness originates in lacking of formulating the problems of social science.
Mills asserts that social science should avoid being “a set of bureaucratic techniques which inhibit social inquiry by ‘methodological’ pretensions, which congest such work by obscurantist conceptions, or which trivialize it by concern with minor problems unconnected with publicly relevant issues”, Which outlines the aspects Mills focus his critiques on: grand theory, abstracted empiricism, types of practicality, and the bureaucratic ethos. As a sociologist, Mills intend to establish an ideal sociology towards a theory of history, a systematic theory of the “the nature of man and society”, and empirical studies of contemporary social facts and problems, which constructs the content of chapter 7 to chapter 10 (Mills talks about human variety, use of history, reason and freedom, and politics). As we have mentioned before, he give his own practical experience of how to do research in the appendix part.
Apparently, this is a grand building, to build which Mills has to argue with Parsons, Lazarsfeld who were actually in the mainstream of American sociology academic circles. As a young scholar, Mills succeeded in doing so. This is one of my questions. In terms of Thomas Kuhn’s scientific revolution, this is the rise of historical sociology over traditional sociology. However, this explanation seems to be too simple.
Mills talks about many things quite interesting. In chapter 3, he discusses the problems of American public opinion study. In his opinion, scholars devoted to public opinion study limit themselves to historical and structural confinement selected for them. Instead, public opinion should be studied across different countries and long history. This attack seems reasonable, but it’s too ideal. Mills is very sensitive to the word “pubic” and “mass”, which can’t be easily measured because their rich historical meaning. It seems that few media scholars respond to this piece of critique.
The causes of grand theory and abstracted empiricism can be understood in the metaphor of ladders of abstraction. Grand theory chooses to think on a general level that its practitioners can’t get down to observation. While abstracted empiricism stick to the other extremity, it copes with abstract concept using improper measures. Overcoming the threshold of practicality and bureaucratic ethos, Mills suggests us to include comparative and historical structure into our theoretical framework. Also we should have “a sense of real problems”, raise “carefully elaborated hypotheses”, “documented at key points by more detailed information”. Mills discussed the philosophies of science in chapter 6, and stresses on “keeping uppermost a full sense of the problem at hand”. Reflection of the research question is also a re-statement of our problems. A conception is an idea with empirical content. We should stand in the middle of the idea and the content to avoid dropping into the trap of grand theory and abstracted empiricism. The formulation of problems should include explicit attention to a range of public issues and of personal trouble. This is quite enlightening for me to evaluate my research questions.
社会学的想象力*笔记（一）
书名：The Sociological Imagination
作者：C. Wright Mills
背景：1959年初版的作品，冷战时期，马克思主义还没有给人带来绝望，作者对极权没有后来历史学者底气十足的批判，而是暧昧。总之，各种定义含糊的社会主义学，自然包括三大奠基人的理论：马克思、韦伯、涂尔干。米尔斯显然以马克思为首，没有挨到苏维埃解体时狠狠的一巴掌，幸甚至哉！
文学性：我不喜欢米尔斯的文笔，第一章上来就是各种存在意义不明的排比句。一般炫耀自己文笔好的人，基本都是因为言之无物，内容空洞。文笔越华丽越不实诚，何况是一本学术著作？我在第二章继续遇到排山倒海的排比句，对词工整，意义不明……然后是作者絮絮叨叨的自说自话，为什么这样？为什么那样？这样怎么不好了？那样又有什么不好呢？我一开始以为起码给“社会学的想象力”The Sociological Imagination来个定义，至少文献综述源远流长一个历史积淀吧？没有。那些问题是作者思考的好奇心源头，更重要的作用是传承契合基本上没什么逻辑的上下文。他想到哪里就写到哪里。读到第二章好不容易遇见Parsen简洁明了的被引用文字，简直是沙漠中一汪清泉。这个时候米尔斯就写了：如果你不像听我絮絮叨叨这些没哟给的东西，是不是很想快点翻过去grand theory这一章啊？请不要这样嘛！这一章还是有点东西可以看看的，请继续读下去吧。
--这种心里话就不要写在书上了吧？
笔记归笔记，有些话还是不错的：
第一章 The Promise
0-
“It is not information that they need - in this Age of Fact, information often dominates their attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is not the only the skills of reason that they need- although their struggle to acquire these often exhaust their limited moral energy.”
注：那个年代获得信息的途径也就报纸、广播、电视。其中，电视作为媒体就被冠之以“弱化人的行动”的罪名，只要沙发土豆和娱乐就行了。但米尔斯说的是，人们不需要信息，因为信息夺取了人的注意力并且压倒了他们吸收信息的能力——信息的反侵蚀和反同化？
于是排比句开始了，米尔斯才不交代前因后果和逻辑推理了，社会学的傲娇属性。
人们也不需要理性的技能（理性还有技能，这卖弄的文笔啊），虽然他们拼命去寻求理性，结果耗尽了有限的道德力量。——又没有解释了，举例说明都没有。
What they need , and what they feel need , is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves.
注：直接盖棺论定了…怎么盖的？道理和钉子都没用一个。这么长一句话其实就是：
人要了解世界，了解自己。
1-
The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals. It enables him to take into account how individuals, in the welter of their daily experience, often become falsely conscious of their social positions.
注：作者假设我已经知道了社会学的想象力（神器！）的定义，大概是人置于社会下的想象力的字面意思吧。社会学的想象力能够帮助神器持有者更好地借助大历史背景了解个体的内在生活和外在事业。生活在日常的人们常常对自己的社会地位相当无知，也许还存在错位认识。
The first fruit of this imagination—and the first lesson of the social science that embodies it—is the idea that the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by locating himself within his period, that he can know his own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his circumstances.
注：神器的第一功用就是个体能够总结自身经验，在自己的时代中把准自己命脉，了解到自己的天命，好神器！
But in our time we have come to know that the limits of `human nature' are frighteningly broad. We have come to know that every in¬dividual lives, from one generation to the next, in some society; that he lives out a biography, and that he lives it out within some historical sequence. By the fact of his living he contributes, how-ever minutely, to the shaping of this society and to the course of its history, even as he is made by society and by its historical push and shove.
注：排比句又来了。在我们的时代要认识到人性的缺“限”，人是活在历史的车轮下的。事实就是，再微不足道的个人，都可以改变社会，进而改变历史，尽管它是在历史的车辙里被碾平的也没有关系。
其实，读到后面觉得这本书不应该叫“社会学的想象力”，应该叫“对社会体制的幻想”。米尔斯的核心思想似乎是这样的（有错的话在后面更正）：人在体制中常常“自以为觉得”身不由己（都是体制的错），事实上体制是由个体的人组成群体组成组织组成社会构建起来的，所谓“作茧自缚”。米尔斯想说的是：改变体制（进而改变历史）的也只可能是清醒地运用社会学的想象力认识到这一点的人。所谓的“认识”就是：既然作茧自缚，当然可以破茧而出。这就是运用神器对自己天命的把握。
米尔斯好不容易自问自答了：
In large part, contemporary man's self-conscious view of himself as at least an outsider, if not a permanent stranger, rests upon an absorbed realization of social relativity and of the trans-formative power of history. The sociological imagination is the most fruitful form of this self-consciousness.
注：大部分当代人的自我意识很奇怪的，就是把自己当局外人，如果当做永远的陌生人就更加恐怖了。这样一句话根本没有解释清楚好么！个人理解是：就是们都没有当成潜意识的下意识。比如看到别人怎样受苦受难了都不会立刻想到自己就是下一个受害者。这个想法很普遍也很糟糕也很现实吧。请代入极端案例“文革”，都人身伤害了还能把革命搞满十周年庆。再比如毒奶粉，不是立刻不吃国产奶粉的想法，可能是“反正有这么多穷人小孩肯定陪着一起吃怕什么……”。总之不关，不太关、不立刻涉及我的事情。
于是米尔斯强调了神器的第一重要性：真正的自我认识。
2-
Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with which the sociological imagination works is between `the personal troubles of milieu' and `the public issues of social structure.' This distinction is an essential tool of the sociological imagination and a feature of all classic work in social science.
注：直接是神器的最有效功用了（其他功用呢？）：在“背景环境下的个人麻烦”和“社会结构下的公共议题”的乾坤大挪移心法，当当！社会学的想象力作为神器的社会功效性终于得以体现了！
后面的文笔用词终于至少解释下什么是`the personal troubles of milieu' and `the public issues of social structure.' 我盼到了名词解释。以及预料之外的，作者试图模仿霍布斯的野心（= =难怪没有演绎法推导就直接上结论还自以为头头是道的说）。不过霍布斯那种一针见血的犀利，明显是学不到家的。
A trouble is a private matter: values cherished by an individual are felt by him to be threatened.
注：麻烦是私事：即当个体珍惜的价值之物受到了威胁。
An issue is a public matter: some value cherished by publics is felt to be threatened. Often there is a debate about what that value really is and about what it is that really threatens it. This debate is often without focus if only because it is the very nature of an issue, unlike……
注：议题就是公事：即当公众珍惜的某些价值之物受到了威胁。当然我们要再议这个对公众而言价值之物到底有什么价值，受到的威胁到底有什么威胁。这种“再议”本身还都挺没价值的，但受不到任何威胁。
An issue, in fact, often involves a crisis in institutional arrangements, and often too it involves what Marxists call 'contradictions' or `antagonisms:
注：详细地说，议题就是机构管理的危机之类的东西。就是传说中的马哲中最闪耀的两个词：“矛盾”和“仇恨”。国产大脑请不要自动代入主语“阶级”，谢谢。
然后又是一串华丽丽的排比句（《资本论》必出现专有词汇：失业、战争、婚姻、大都会……）增强气势，好歹算例子解释了。米尔斯认为战争期间，人只有两种价值观：考虑怎么从战争中活下去，和怎么使自己的死有意义。但如果反过来推导战争：怎么反动的，你怎么卷进去一场战争的，谁参战了，各个政治经济宗教等等机构组织扮演了什么作用，国家政府做了什么——
你意识到这些，然后你只要把自己的私事变成战争的公事，你就赢了（米尔斯当然不会这么赤裸裸地说）。
3-
未完待续
Notes on the assigned reading "that are organized in a visually memorable way"... [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GMl1wkfNwqU6F9ydSQFGPwlTdKWLmDfD/view?usp=sharing]
2019-01-09 16:53
Intro课作业1
Notes on the assigned reading "that are organized in a visually memorable way"...
The facts of contemporary history are also facts about success and the failure of individual men and women. When a society is individualized, a peasant becomes a worker; a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman. When classes rise or fall, a man is employed or unemployed; when the rate of investment goes up or down, a man takes new heart or goes broke. When wars happen, an insurance ...
2013-04-11 05:49
The facts of contemporary history are also facts about success and the failure of individual men and women. When a society is individualized, a peasant becomes a worker; a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman. When classes rise or fall, a man is employed or unemployed; when the rate of investment goes up or down, a man takes new heart or goes broke. When wars happen, an insurance salesman becomes a rocket launcher; a store clerk, a radar man; a wife lives alone; a child grows up without a father. Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both 引自 The promise
It is a question of how full a statement is needed to make something clear and of how important that something seems to be: how many experiences it makes intelligible, how great a range of problems it enables us to solve or at least to state. ...... The basic cause of grand theory is the initial choice of a level of thinking so general that its practitioners cannot logically get down to observa...(3回应)
2020-11-09 19:48
It is a question of how full a statement is needed to make something clear and of how important that something seems to be: how many experiences it makes intelligible, how great a range of problems it enables us to solve or at least to state.
......
The basic cause of grand theory is the initial choice of a level of thinking so general that its practitioners cannot logically get down to observation. They never, as grand theorists, get down from the higher generalities to problems in their historical and structural contexts. This absence of a firm sense of genuine problems, in turn, makes for the unreality so noticeable in their pages. One resulting characteristic is a seemingly arbitrary and certainly endless elaboration of distinctions, which neither enlarge our understanding nor make our experience more sensible. This in turn is revealed as a partially organized abdication of the effort to describe and explain human conduct and society plainly.
......
when we define a word we are merely inviting others to use it as we would like it to be used; that the purpose of definition is to focus argument upon fact, and that the proper result of good definition is to transform argument over terms into disagreements about fact, and thus open arguments to further inquiry.
....
最后一节
'many can shuffle cards who cant play' 这骂的也太到位太深刻了。但愿我不会成为洗牌大师😭
Some social scientists stress the need for 'research teams of technicians; others for the primacy of the individual scholar. Some expend great energy upon refinements of methods and techniques of investigation; others think the scholarly ways of the intellectual craftsmen are being abandoned and ought now to be rehabilitated. Some go about their work in accordance with a rigid set of mechanical...
2020-11-09 00:062人喜欢
Some social scientists stress the need for 'research teams of technicians; others for the primacy of the individual scholar.
Some expend great energy upon refinements of methods and techniques of investigation; others think the scholarly ways of the intellectual craftsmen are being abandoned and ought now to be rehabilitated.
Some go about their work in accordance with a rigid set of mechanical procedures; others seek to develop, to invite, and to use the sociological imagination.
Some—being addicts of the high formalism of 'theory'—associate and disassociate concepts in what seems to others a curious manner; these others urge the elaboration of terms only when it is clear that it enlarges the scope of sensibility and furthers the reach of reasoning.
Some narrowly study only small-scale milieux, in the hope of ‘building up' to conceptions of larger structures; others examine social structures in which they try 'to locate' many smaller milieux.
Some, neglecting comparative studies altogether, study only one small community in one society at a time; others in a fully comparative way work directly on the national social structures of the world.
Some confine their exact research to very short-run sequences of human affairs; others are concerned with issues which are only apparent in long historical perspective.
Some specialize their work according to academic departments; others, drawing upon all departments, specialize according to topic or problem, regardless of where these lie academically.
Some confront the variety of history, biography, society; others do not.
Tendency I: Toward a theory of history. Forexample, in thehands of Comte, as in those of Marx, Spencer, and Weber, sociology is an encyclopedic endeavor, concerned with the whole ofman's social life. It is at once historical and systematic—historical, because it deals with and uses the materials of the past;systematic, because it does so in order to discern 'the stages' ofthe course of history...
2020-08-07 11:43
Tendency I: Toward a theory of history. Forexample, in thehands of Comte, as in those of Marx, Spencer, and Weber, sociology is an encyclopedic endeavor, concerned with the whole ofman's social life. It is at once historical and systematic—historical, because it deals with and uses the materials of the past;systematic, because it does so in order to discern 'the stages' ofthe course of history and the regularities of social life.Thetheory of man's history can all too readily become distortedinto a trans-historical strait-jacket into which the materials ofhuman history are forced and out of which issue prophetic views (usually gloomy ones) of the future. The works of Arnold Toynbee and of Oswald Spengler are well-known examples.
Tendency II: Toward a systematic theory of 'the nature of manand society/ For example, in the works of the formalists, notablySimmel and Von Wiese, sociology comes to deal in conceptions intended to be of use in classifying all socialrelations and providing insight into theirsupposedly invariant features. It is, inshort, concerned with a rather static and abstract view of thecomponents of social structure on a quite high level of generality. Perhaps in reaction to the distortion of Tendency I, history canbe altogether abandoned: the systematic theory of the nature ofman and of society all too readily becomes an elaborate andarid formalism in which the splitting of Concepts and their endless rearrangement becomes the central endeavor. Among whatI shall call Grand Theorists,conceptions have indeed become Concepts. The work of Talcott Parsons is the leading contemporary example in American sociology.
Tendency III: Toward empirical studies of contemporary social facts and problems. Although Comte and Spencer were mainstays of American social science until 1914 or thereabout, and German theoretical influence was heavy, the empirical surveybecame central in the United States at an early time. In partthis resulted from the prior academic establishment of economics and political science. Given this, in so far as sociology is defined as a study of some special area of society, it readily becomes a sort of odd job man among the social sciences, consisting of miscellaneous studies of academic leftovers. There arestudies of cities and families, racial and ethnic relations, and ofcourse 'small groups/ As we shall see, the resulting miscellanywas transformed into a style of thought, which I shall examineunder the term 'liberal practicality/Studies of contemporary fact can easily become a series ofrather unrelated and often insignificant facts of milieu. Manycourse offerings in American sociology illustrate this; perhaps textbooks in the field of social disorganization reveal it best. Onthe other hand, sociologists have tended to become specialistsin the technique of research into almost anything; among them methods have become Methodology. Much of the work—andmore of the ethos—of GeorgeLundberg, Samuel Stouffer, StuartDodd, Paul F. Lazarsfeld are present-day examples. Thesetendencies—to scatter one's attention and to cultivate method for its own sake—are fit companions, although they do not necessarilyoccur together.
Mill also had a significant impact within the psychological field with his development of axiomata media later modified into the middle principle otherwise known as Media Principia. Media Principia for Mill distinguished ethnology (the concrete science of character formation) from Psychology. The middle principle according to Mill although came from empirical data, but due to ethnologists ways ...
2019-06-14 23:13
Mill also had a significant impact within the psychological field with his development of axiomata media later modified into the middle principle otherwise known as Media Principia. Media Principia for Mill distinguished ethnology (the concrete science of character formation) from Psychology. The middle principle according to Mill although came from empirical data, but due to ethnologists ways of mediation between universal laws of psychology and empirical data, has made it more flexible to change.
林也
北京师范大学出版社2017版
Helicopter
生活·读书·新知三联书店2005版
朱朱朱朱七小姐
生活·读书·新知三联书店2005版
夕烧
生活·读书·新知三联书店2005版
ROW
生活·读书·新知三联书店2005版
董二千
生活·读书·新知三联书店2005版
方可成
生活·读书·新知三联书店2005版
Some social scientists stress the need for 'research teams of technicians; others for the primacy of the individual scholar. Some expend great energy upon refinements of methods and techniques of investigation; others think the scholarly ways of the intellectual craftsmen are being abandoned and ought now to be rehabilitated. Some go about their work in accordance with a rigid set of mechanical...![[已注销]](https://img9.doubanio.com/icon/user_normal.jpg)
Tendency I: Toward a theory of history. Forexample, in thehands of Comte, as in those of Marx, Spencer, and Weber, sociology is an encyclopedic endeavor, concerned with the whole ofman's social life. It is at once historical and systematic—historical, because it deals with and uses the materials of the past;systematic, because it does so in order to discern 'the stages' ofthe course of history...
0 有用 バニ兔大 2011-10-28
我力求客观，但绝不冷漠
0 有用 牛奶配送员 2019-06-11
不仅是社会学，整个社科都能用。
1 有用 人类学生 2019-03-19
Hello again ——推荐appendix，有趣且有用。
1 有用 limpidves 2014-12-12
freedom and rational 199
0 有用 李阿斗 2016-10-04
如果你砸碎了什么，请帮忙想想下一步用什么替代它。
0 有用 🐧是นก 2021-02-11
Appendix，有启发，但本质上，动手最重要吧！
0 有用 ca7thy 2021-01-31
“志存高远，脚踏实地”
0 有用 一張飛毯 2021-01-16
Ch 1
0 有用 斩首玫瑰 2021-01-06
The reaffirmation of the instructive responsibilities of sociologists. The critique of ‘Grand Theory’ and ‘ Abstracted Empiricism’ reflects the concern towards methodology of social science. The auth... The reaffirmation of the instructive responsibilities of sociologists. The critique of ‘Grand Theory’ and ‘ Abstracted Empiricism’ reflects the concern towards methodology of social science. The author's fervent antagonism against dogmatic bureaucratism and ideological hegemony. Brief and compendious writing style. (展开)
0 有用 舟粥 2020-11-28
诶，写得真好