The Sociological Imagination

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 Promise0-“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

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.

http://fampeople.com/cat-john-stuart-mill_6

到底principia media 是个什么球

In doing so, let us not forget what it is we are studying and how little we know of man, of history, of biography, and of the societies of which we are at once creatures and creators.

因为课业要求目前只看了第一章和第八章。觉得第一章很好地解释了我想强调的社会学的重要性。一直以来就觉得社会学应该是一种必修科目，不论学什么专业，但是并不能很好地说明为什么。Mills的第一章就让我频频称是。50年代的书，如果按照他自己的理论来说的话，也要放在当时的context里面去读，所以可能需要理解有些他要强调的东西。但看下来并不觉得难看，也不觉得很枯燥，给我的印象是这人很聪明还不至于是卖弄令人想打的那种聪明。当然目前只看了两章也不太好说什么，打算看全书。

Social theorists are those who can articulate things that I feel but cannot make them into concrete words.

Notes on the assigned reading "that are organized in a visually memorable way"...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GMl1wkfNwqU6F9ydSQFGPwlTdKWLmDfD/view?usp=sharing