The Imagined Cultural Community: C·Wright Mills On Intellectuals

C· Wright Mills was an outstanding American sociologist in the mid of the20thcentury.As the subplot of Mills’s thoughts, the topic of “intellectuals” not only has provided scholarsa very important aspect to study his thoughts system but also a solid theoretic basis for thefollowing scholars to study intellectuals. Although there were some studies about histhoughts on “Intellectuals”, the systematic and deep studies are further needed. This papertries to make out Mills’s thoughts on intellectuals and consider the intellectuals that Millsdiscussed as an “imagined cultural community”. The topic will focused on three aspects,namely, the social identity of intellectuals, the social role of intellectuals, and therepresentations and influences of Mills’s intellectual thoughts on other scholars.The author of this paper will use Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of “Cultural Field” toconstruct the thesis. Meanwhile, the author will borrow Bourdieu’s theory of “CulturalReproduction” and Antonio Gramsci’s theory of “Cultural Hegemony” to make a deeperanalysis of Mills’s thoughts on intellectuals. Firstly, Mills had been exploring the intellectualcommunity which could lead a social revolution and change the American unbalanced socialstatus after war. He denied that the white collar cultural bourgeoisie and power elite couldbring American a balanced society and laid his great expectations on the young intelligentsiawith “sociological imagination”. Furthermore, he discussed intellectuals’ cultural capital thatgrounded them as the agent of cultural reproduction in and out of bureaucracy and as theagent of social change. At last, Mills’s discussion of intellectuals had his distinctive features.He initiated his topic from the relationship between “Intellectuals and Bureaucracy”, “Intellectuals and Power” and “Intellectuals and the Public”, which not only influencedAmerican Students’ Movement in1960s but also influenced later scholars, like Alvin WGouldner, Michael Foucault and Russell Jacoby, to study intellectuals.During the study, the author will consider the intellectuals that Mills touched on as an“imagined cultural community”. It is called “imagined” is because this intellectualcommunity was Mills’s imagination and exploration in his whole life, and this communitymight not exist or would appear in future as an entity in society; it is called a “culturalcommunity” is because Mills expected intellectuals in this community, if exist, could mainlyplay their role as social agent in the cultural field instead of in the economic and politicfields. In fact, Mills’s thoughts on intellectuals are not only very important for readers tounderstand his thoughts on “Sociological Imagination”,“Social Stratification” and “SocialPower” but also very important for scholars to study intellectuals in the academic circle.Thus, it is meaningful to make this study.