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The Politics of Truth: Selected Writings of C. Wright Mills
C. Wright Mills was a radical public intellectual, a tough-talking, motorcycle-riding anarchist from Texas who taught sociology at Columbia University. Mills's three most influential books-- The Power Elite, White Collar , and The Sociological Imagination --were originally published by OUP and are considered classics. The first collection of his writings to be published since 1963, The Politics of Truth contains 23 out-of-print and hard-to-find writings which show his growth from academic sociologist to an intellectual maestro in command of a mature style, a dissenter who sought to inspire the public to oppose the drift toward permanent war. Given the political deceptions of recent years, Mills's truth-telling is more relevant than ever. Seminal papers including "Letter to the New Left" appear alongside lesser known meditations such as "Are We Losing Our Sense of Belonging?" John Summers provides fresh insights in his introduction, which gives an overview of Mills's life and
career. Summers has also written annotations that establish each piece's context and has drawn up a comprehensive bibliography of Mills's published and unpublished writings.
career. Summers has also written annotations that establish each piece's context and has drawn up a comprehensive bibliography of Mills's published and unpublished writings.
320 pages, Paperback
First published August 13, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 25, 2017
I’ve become very interested in C Wright Mills – I have reviewed his Sociological Imagination and keep meaning to get around to reviewing his The Power Elite too, a stunningly interesting book. This is also well worth getting hold of. In fact, this one is where I would start if I was to start reading him again. It is a series of short and often very passionate essays on a remarkably broad range of subjects. I kept thinking of Chomsky while reading them – not least since I was reading Chomsky's Necessary Illusions at about the same time. And they really do speak to each other.
As I said, this book covers a remarkably broad range of topics – from the Cuban Revolution to Socialist Realism in the USSR and why intellectuals there all seemed to speak the party line. However, the bits I found most interesting where about the US. He covers some of the territory here he covers in the Power Elite too – essentially, that the US has three major power elites in its business men, politicians and military men (men isn't a mistake, by the way) and that what is interesting about these groups is how they groom the next generation by selection and systemic rewards to be much like themselves. It is clear that Mills sees this unconscious reproduction of ‘men like us’ as a key aspect of how power works and also that it is a key function of sociology to help uncover.
If you do mention reproduction people often then feel that this means things never really change – but that would not be an accurate or fair depiction of this book at all. Mills is particularly conscious of how the world is in a state of flux and he sees sociology as providing tools that might help us understand that flux and seeming confusion - not to predict the future, that he realised was impossible, but to understand the present.
The vision he presents of the US is not one that would have made him lots of friends among the power elite of his day – he presents the US as being constantly at war, an often unfriendly neighbour to the nations around it and dominated by ‘men of the enlightenment’ who, because they knew how to be rational, were planning the nuclear destruction of the planet with hardly a second thought about the consequences. Mills saw this as reason enough for us to move beyond the ‘liberal’ prejudices of our age – calling for an injection of emotion into the cold calculations that seemed to be leading us to our doom.
The clash between the American dream and the horrible reality as played out in Korea, for example, makes the focus here on the need for the intellectual to speak back to power something that certainly hasn’t aged with the passing years. One of the must-read essays in this is A Pagan Sermon to Christian Clergy – and hardly a word of it needs to be updated and every word of it is as urgent today as it was when it was written. Basically, if Christianity is to be more than a secular pastime of no consequence other than an opiate of the people, if Christians are to be able to speak with any authority, then they must confront the issues that are threatening the very existence of life on the planet today.
The bits of this that particularly reminded me of Chomsky involved Mills' notion of how the media has been constructed to make us cheerful robots. Mills sees Capitalism as having moved beyond being a system of production to one that is chiefly of distribution. Having reached a stage where the basic needs of society have been met, Capitalism today must, if it is to avoid a crisis of over-supply, constantly create new markets, new needs, new desires. It does this by turning everything into a fashion – and one that, as the fashion changes, a cry goes up ‘out with the old and in with the new’ and is responded to by us cheerful robots buying the new iPhone or lipstick. The astonishing wastefulness of Capitalism is its primary feature – in fact, without this wastefulness Capitalism would be impossible. Mills is interesting as he could already see this was not a sustainable way for a social system to be – unlike, say, Galbraith, who saw the same problem, but did not seem to think it ultimately fatal to either capitalism or life on earth.
The book ends with some calls to the left – Mills was concerned that the left had been damaged by Stalinism, that Marx had been writing for a world that no longer existed, describing a revolution (lead by the industrial working class) that had not really eventuated and seemed increasingly unlikely to eventuate in ways Marx predicted. But this did not mean that there was no need for the left – even if the left seemed consumed by either apathy or guilt. Mills ended his life, it seems, seeking a way to revitalise the left by focusing on how the intellectuals might form a kind of vanguard – again by having the courage to speak back to power.
It is surprising how rarely this has been the case, though. There are a couple of essays here where he calls on scientist, for instance, to refuse to work on military projects – years ago I remember seeing figures that said two-in-five of the scientist in the world where working on military means to more effectively kill people. Mills is right, the moral thing to do would be to refuse such work. But our system confronts morality with threats to one’s livelihood – so, the high moral ground is not always all that easy to take, and anyway, one is forced too frequently to sell one’s soul piecemeal, rather than all at once.
These essays are 60 years old, they have no right to be as current as they still are. There is almost as much time separating us from when they were written as there was separating Mills from Marx. The world is fundamentally different now, but what is terrifying is how much we have become a kind of paradoxically terrified version of his cheerful robots. More of us need to speak back to power in the name of peace and truth.
As I said, this book covers a remarkably broad range of topics – from the Cuban Revolution to Socialist Realism in the USSR and why intellectuals there all seemed to speak the party line. However, the bits I found most interesting where about the US. He covers some of the territory here he covers in the Power Elite too – essentially, that the US has three major power elites in its business men, politicians and military men (men isn't a mistake, by the way) and that what is interesting about these groups is how they groom the next generation by selection and systemic rewards to be much like themselves. It is clear that Mills sees this unconscious reproduction of ‘men like us’ as a key aspect of how power works and also that it is a key function of sociology to help uncover.
If you do mention reproduction people often then feel that this means things never really change – but that would not be an accurate or fair depiction of this book at all. Mills is particularly conscious of how the world is in a state of flux and he sees sociology as providing tools that might help us understand that flux and seeming confusion - not to predict the future, that he realised was impossible, but to understand the present.
The vision he presents of the US is not one that would have made him lots of friends among the power elite of his day – he presents the US as being constantly at war, an often unfriendly neighbour to the nations around it and dominated by ‘men of the enlightenment’ who, because they knew how to be rational, were planning the nuclear destruction of the planet with hardly a second thought about the consequences. Mills saw this as reason enough for us to move beyond the ‘liberal’ prejudices of our age – calling for an injection of emotion into the cold calculations that seemed to be leading us to our doom.
The clash between the American dream and the horrible reality as played out in Korea, for example, makes the focus here on the need for the intellectual to speak back to power something that certainly hasn’t aged with the passing years. One of the must-read essays in this is A Pagan Sermon to Christian Clergy – and hardly a word of it needs to be updated and every word of it is as urgent today as it was when it was written. Basically, if Christianity is to be more than a secular pastime of no consequence other than an opiate of the people, if Christians are to be able to speak with any authority, then they must confront the issues that are threatening the very existence of life on the planet today.
The bits of this that particularly reminded me of Chomsky involved Mills' notion of how the media has been constructed to make us cheerful robots. Mills sees Capitalism as having moved beyond being a system of production to one that is chiefly of distribution. Having reached a stage where the basic needs of society have been met, Capitalism today must, if it is to avoid a crisis of over-supply, constantly create new markets, new needs, new desires. It does this by turning everything into a fashion – and one that, as the fashion changes, a cry goes up ‘out with the old and in with the new’ and is responded to by us cheerful robots buying the new iPhone or lipstick. The astonishing wastefulness of Capitalism is its primary feature – in fact, without this wastefulness Capitalism would be impossible. Mills is interesting as he could already see this was not a sustainable way for a social system to be – unlike, say, Galbraith, who saw the same problem, but did not seem to think it ultimately fatal to either capitalism or life on earth.
The book ends with some calls to the left – Mills was concerned that the left had been damaged by Stalinism, that Marx had been writing for a world that no longer existed, describing a revolution (lead by the industrial working class) that had not really eventuated and seemed increasingly unlikely to eventuate in ways Marx predicted. But this did not mean that there was no need for the left – even if the left seemed consumed by either apathy or guilt. Mills ended his life, it seems, seeking a way to revitalise the left by focusing on how the intellectuals might form a kind of vanguard – again by having the courage to speak back to power.
It is surprising how rarely this has been the case, though. There are a couple of essays here where he calls on scientist, for instance, to refuse to work on military projects – years ago I remember seeing figures that said two-in-five of the scientist in the world where working on military means to more effectively kill people. Mills is right, the moral thing to do would be to refuse such work. But our system confronts morality with threats to one’s livelihood – so, the high moral ground is not always all that easy to take, and anyway, one is forced too frequently to sell one’s soul piecemeal, rather than all at once.
These essays are 60 years old, they have no right to be as current as they still are. There is almost as much time separating us from when they were written as there was separating Mills from Marx. The world is fundamentally different now, but what is terrifying is how much we have become a kind of paradoxically terrified version of his cheerful robots. More of us need to speak back to power in the name of peace and truth.
May 14, 2020
An excellent primer to get you started on C. Wright Mills. I was a bit intimidated to start both The Power Elite and White Collar. Now, I feel more comfortable with Mills' wriing style and humor. Read to jump into both now.
April 15, 2014
Crisply written and very interesting. Most talk about Mills' intelligence but I've never heard mentioned before how well he could turn a phrase. I was not expecting to enjoy this book but I very much did.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews