Mills writes, "They do not possess the quality of mind essential to grasp the interplay of individuals and society, of biography and history, of self and world. People often do not possess the perspective to understand the things that happen in their everyday lives" (Mills, 3-4). He asserts that this narrow focus leads to people feeling as if their private lives are just a series of "traps" which they are ill prepared to overcome. Further, when confronted with adversity stemming from public societal forces that they cannot comprehend, the common man withdraws into apathy or anxiety. .
Mills postulates that in order for man to understand how he effects society and visa versa, he must possess the 'sociological imagination.' He writes, "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" (Mills, 5). Put differently, the sociological imagination enables the individual the vivid awareness of the relationship between the private individual and public society. Mills asserts that the promise of the social imagination is to allow mankind to understand the link between history and biography, and how the two are connected in society. Further, the social imagination allows the possessor to understand that the state of the individual and of society are a product of the junction between history and biology. Mills highlights the impact that man has on the history of society. He writes, "We have come to know that every individual lives, from one generation to the next, in some society; that he lives out a biography, and lives it out within some historical sequence. By the fact of this living, he contributes, however 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" (Mills, 6).
