Unit 3 - The Sociological Imagination

Lecture Continued

I could, obviously, provide thousands of other examples about how technology shapes your life (use of automobiles, healthcare, entertainment opportunities) but there are few areas where the link between history and biography shows up more clearly than in the connections between our social institutions and the environment. As we go through our days, we each do things that affect the global environment. We drive a car, turn on a television set, open a can of cat food, or cook a meal from food produced 2000 miles away. Each of these acts has a tiny impact on the environment. The cumulative effect is becoming noticeable. Most of us would prefer not to damage the ecological systems upon which life depends but the culture we have created makes it very difficult to avoid making a contribution in some way. Most of us drive a car because we must, not because we want to. For millions of people, it is impossible to walk or bike to work and the mass transportation systems available are simply not adequate or convenient.

We can keep the TV turned off but it is very hard not to use electricity. We depend on it for refrigeration, light, heat, and other basic requirements of modern life. Just remember how difficult life was the last time your power went out for more than a few hours. Growing our own food is not an option for most of us. The structure of our work lives makes that virtually impossible. Our lives are structured by the technology available to us and by the culture we have created around that technology. The time and place in which we live affects our lives, the way we live affects the environment and the environment in turn affects our future. This analysis is a classic example of the sociological imagination.

In Chapter four Volti writes about how the sources of technological development are rooted in historical circumstances. He points out that technologies don’t develop out of thin air. They are always dependent upon discoveries that occurred earlier in the social context. Widespread use of automobiles, for example, needed not only the development of the assembly line but also the funding of public works projects in the form of roads and bridges. Computers waited in the wings until the complex nature of a global society made them a necessity. The economy needed to reach a certain stage of development before the applications of electronic technologies became useful. Volti’s approach is another example of the sociological imagination in action. Where others might look at inventors or the progress of scientific understanding, sociologists take into the account the entire social context. Making these kinds of connections is the essence of the sociological imagination and is very useful in understanding the role of science and technology in society and in our own lives.

So, while we certainly must take responsibility for some of the decisions we make, much of what happens to us and what we become is out of our control. We may be the captains of our ships but we cannot control the weather or the tides and therefore we are not always the master of our fate. Rather, the fates provide the boundaries within which we live our lives. A sociological imagination helps us to see that process and, perhaps, gives us some understanding of how the technologies we use affect us.