Читать книгу Essentials of Sociology - George Ritzer - Страница 26

The systematic study of the social world has always required imagination on the part of sociologists. There are various ways to look at the social world. For example, instead of looking at the world from the point of view of an insider, one can, at least psychologically, place oneself outside that world. The U.S. “war on terror” might look defensible from the perspective of an American, especially one who lived through 9/11, but it would look quite different if you imagined yourself in the place of an innocent Muslim caught in the middle of that war (Philips 2016).

The phenomenon of being able to look at the social world from different, imaginative perspectives attracted the attention of the famous sociologist C. Wright Mills, who in 1959 wrote a very important book titled The Sociological Imagination. He argued that sociologists have a unique perspective—the sociological imagination—that gives them a distinctive way of looking at data or reflecting on the world around them (Selwyn 2015). For example, the fact that many of us no longer use cash is not simply an individual preference, but the consequence of technological changes. Cash is not a viable option for online shopping. Most retailers make it easy and convenient to use credit cards instead of cash at drive-through windows and gasoline stations. Not long ago, Amazon began opening physical grocery stores (Amazon Go) that require consumers to use a mobile app on their smartphones to purchase items. Consumers scan their smartphones when they enter the store, and digital technology detects what they place in their carts. There is no need to stand in line to pay for any items because they are charged to a customer’s Amazon account when the person leaves the store (Rao 2016).

C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) was a prominent post–World War II sociologist who urged the use of the “sociological imagination” to study issues of concern to sociology . . . and to you.

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