Charles Wright Mills. Critical and controversial American sociologist, with a work that is still valid, is nevertheless a sociologist with a classical profile, who observes, analyzes and describes basic relationships in the environment, the emerging values of society, the new class structures, the relationships of power. An acid analyst of everyday life. In his thought a long line is discovered that goes from Karl Marx to
Max Weber , the authors who most influence his training and the projection of his intellectual concern.
Summary
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- 1 Biographical synthesis
- 1 Birth
- 2 Studies
- 2.1 Most important studies
- 3 Career path
- 4 Main books
- 2 Sources
- 3 External links
Biographical synthesis
Birth
Born in Waco , Texas , United States , in 1916 .
Studies
He received a BA in Philosophy from the University of Texas , and two years later, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin . He began his academic life at the University of Maryland , where he stayed for four years, before joining New York’s Columbia University in 1945 , where he taught Sociology . With an intense and controversial life and work as a sociologist, he participated in the debates of the public scene through his newspaper articles on American society.
He cultivated a critical sociology, along the lines of Carlos Marx and Max Weber, although with the aim of overcoming the economic determinism typical of the proposals of these authors, and trying to go further, towards a new comparative universal sociology, capable of interpreting the problems modern and to renew the possibility of making human freedom explicit and achievable.
The central element of the time, according to the author, is the fact that rationality, unlike previous centuries, no longer produces and does not ensure freedom. Therefore, it puts a notable emphasis on the intellectual elite and their defeats, derived from their low social responsibility towards the masses. A central idea of his thought was precisely that intellectuals in general, and especially social scientists, could not limit themselves to playing the role of disinterested observers, but should exercise social responsibility.
Most important studies
Consistent with this idea, Wright Mills chose to study problems related to social change, mainly in the United States . Although he did not oppose empirical research (which, in fact, he conducted notably), he decidedly opted against “abstract empiricism”, convinced of the close relationship between the results and the methodology employed.
In “White Collar: The Middle Classes in North America” ( 1951 ), he showed a methodological orientation to which he refers extensively in The Sociological Imagination ( 1959 ). Also The Power Elite ( 1956 ) is a later evolution of the same methodological tendency, destined in this case to decipher the complex power structure of American society. Other works by the author are The New Men of Power: American Labor Leaders ( 1948 ), The Causes of the Third World War ( 1958 ) and Listen, Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba ( 1960 ).
In his last work, Los marxistas ( 1962 ), despite his critical stance in relation to Marxist theories, he became increasingly interested in Marxism, understood as a working method. Charles is regarded as a landmark in the New American Left of the 1960s and 1970s.
Career path
Wright Mills on a motorcycle ride
Critical and controversial, with a work that is still current, he is, however, a sociologist with a classical profile, who observes, analyzes and describes basic relationships in the environment, the emerging values of society, the new class structures, and power relations. . An acid analyst of everyday life. In his thought a long line is discovered that goes from Karl Marx to Max Weber , the authors who most influence his training and the projection of his intellectual concern.
His provocations, many times transferred to the columns of the newspapers, warn about the degradation of democracy and social control by the oligarchies. Analyze the bureaucracy in industrial society. And power relations in hierarchical structures. He is especially interested in the formation, configuration and administration of the power of the elites. It describes the techniques of the productive system aimed at controlling the workers, and pays special attention to the ‘white collar’ proletarians, to the office workers, unclassified, unprotected and wrapped under the umbrella of the bureaucracy. He writes about international conflicts, the cold war, the threats of new world conflagrations, Cuba, of Marxism. In short, from mass society and the media.
The media are, in his opinion, those in charge of creating the conditions that displace power and accentuate the political center of the elites, with economic, political and military domains, while entertaining the public scene with the democratic simulation of the debate. An action to which the new technologies that, for Mills’ time, fundamentally go through the massive implementation of television, contribute in a way. The media do not reveal the true face of power, they do not ‘identify the oppressor’, and consequently they carry out a work of manipulation and adulteration of public opinion.
Mills is one of the first authors to consider the problems of information overflow. Already in the 1950s, he understood that the technological changes that allow instantaneity and the increase in information flows do not favor communication, but rather create a real assimilation problem. In general, his work has a radical critical expression, but also, to an equal or greater extent, a sense of anticipation that surprises his analysts and keeps many of his plot values current.
The media contribute to give cohesion to the American way of life, molding public opinion and political expression to the values and references of the world that its contents offer. Increasingly, the perception of individuals is fed by the media, to the detriment of direct experience; it is, therefore, more vulnerable or more dependent or more controlled.
Mills calls for the role of intellectuals as a critical conscience of society to limit the progressive erosion of the values of democracy, culture, and social pact, which lead to apathy, to the psychological instability of individuals and of society. its civic dimension. His thinking significantly influenced the argumentation of numerous alternative and vindictive groups of the 1960s in the United States .
Main books
His best known books:
- The New Men of Power: America’s Labor Leaders, Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York , 1948
- White Collar: The American Middle Classes, Oxford Press, New York , 1951 ;
- The Power Elite, Oxford Press, New York , 1956 ;
- The Causes of World War Three, Secker & Warburg, London , 1958 ;
- The Sociological Imagination, Oxford Press, New York , 1959 ;
- Listen, Yankee. The Revolution in Cuba , Ballantine Books, New York , 1960 ;
- The Marxists, Dell Publishing Company, New York , 1962 ;
- Power, Politics & People: The Collected Essays of C. Wright Mills. Oxford University Press, New York , 1963 .
Among other works, they have been translated into the Spanish language: La élite del poder, Fondo de Cultura Económica, México , 1960 ; White-collar. The middle classes in North America, Aguilar, Madrid , 1973 ; The sociological imagination, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico , 1987 .
