The More We Understand What Is Happening

The Mass Production Of Distraction Is Now As Much A Part Of The American Way Of Life As The Mass Production Of Automobiles.

The Life-fate Of The Modern Individual Depends Not Only Upon The Family Into Which He Was Born Or Which He Enters By Marriage, But Increasingly Upon The Corporation In Which He Spends The Most Alert Hours Of His Best Years.

America Is A Nation With No Truly National City, No Paris, No Rome, No London, No City Which Is At Once The Social Center, The Political Capital, And The Financial Hub.

As A Social And As A Personal Force, Religion Has Become A Dependent Variable. It Does Not Originate; It Reacts. It Does Not Denounce; It Adapts. It Does Not Set Forth New Models Of Conduct And Sensibility; It Imitates. Its Rhetoric Is Without Deep Appeal; The Worship It Organizes Is Without Piety. It Has Become Less A Revitalization Of The Spirit In Permanent Tension With The World Than A Respectable Distraction From The Sourness Of Life.

It Is The Political Task Of The Social Scientist — As Of Any Liberal Educator — Continually To Translate Personal Troubles Into Public Issues, And Public Issues Into The Terms Of Their Human Meaning For A Variety Of Individuals. It Is His Task To Display In His Work — And, As An Educator, In His Life As Well — This Kind Of Sociological Imagination. And It Is His Purpose To Cultivate Such Habits Of Mind Among The Men And Women Who Are Publicly Exposed To Him. To Secure These Ends Is To Secure Reason And Individuality, And To Make These The Predominant Values Of A Democratic Society.