Mills - Charles Wright Mills

American sociologist. Born in Texas. Spending his 20s during the New Deal period following the Great Depression, he completed his undergraduate and master's studies at the University of Texas, then went on to a doctoral program at the University of Wisconsin, where he received his doctorate in 1941. He taught at the University of Maryland, and then at Columbia University after World War II. Although it was only for a short period until his sudden death from heart disease on March 20, 1962, he continued to be active in research, writing, and lecturing in Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Latin America.

The foundations of Mills' early thought were Veblen and Dewey, and Dewey's pragmatism in particular became the pillar of Mills' research approach, which emphasized positivist behavior, throughout his life. At the University of Wisconsin, he met Hans Heinrich Gerth (1908-1978), a sociologist who had fled from Germany, and learned about Max Weber, which led Mills to link American pragmatism with European classical sociology.

The United States in the 1950s, when Mills was active academically, was enjoying post-World War II stability and economic prosperity, but its social structure was polarizing between a powerful ruling organization and a mass social situation created by people who were immersed in their private lives but were actually becoming "organizational people." Mills' academic interests were first directed toward the study of Puerto Rican immigrants and the working class at the bottom of the social hierarchy, then moved on to empirical research on the middle class, resulting in one of his representative works, "White Collar" (1951). In 1956, Mills wrote "The Power Elite," considered his greatest work, in which he critically analyzed the core of the power structure that reigned at the top of the American mass social situation. This was a major shock to the established ideals of American society and the American sociological community, and combined with the ideological changes that seemed to have occurred within Mills himself, from this period onwards he gradually became isolated from the academic community, distanced himself from his friend Garth, and began to walk the path of an academic heretic.

Mills later struggled with the conflict between his own internal self-assertion and self-criticism, but after visiting Mexico, Cuba, and the Soviet Union, he gradually leaned toward anti-establishment radical sociology.In the year before his death, he wrote A Voice of Cuba, clearly taking the side of the revolution, and in a sense played a leading role in the subsequent American school of radical sociology.

[Masataka Sugi]

"White Collar" translated by Sugi Masataka (1957/Revised edition, 1971, Tokyo Sogensha)" ▽ "The Power Elite, Volumes 1 and 2, translated by Ukai Nobunari and Watanuki Joji (1958/UP Sensho, 1969, University of Tokyo Press) " ▽ "Mills' Theory, by Suzuki Hiroshi (included in The Essence of Modern Sociology, edited by Shinmei Masamichi, 1971/Revised edition, 1996, Pelican)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

アメリカの社会学者。テキサス州に生まれる。大恐慌に続くニューディール期に20歳代を過ごしながら、テキサス大学で学部と大学院修士課程を終え、ウィスコンシン大学の大学院博士課程に進む。1941年に博士号を得る。メリーランド大学、ついで第二次世界大戦後はコロンビア大学で教職につき、1962年3月20日心臓病のため急死するまで、短い期間ではありながら、研究調査活動あるいは著作や講演に、ヨーロッパや旧ソ連、中南米諸国にまで足を伸ばし活躍を続けた。

　ミルズの初期の思想の基盤となったのはベブレンとデューイであり、とくにデューイのプラグマティズムは、ミルズの生涯を通じて、その実証主義的な行動を重視する研究姿勢の支柱となった。ウィスコンシン大学でドイツから亡命してきた社会学者ガースHans Heinrich Gerth（1908―1978）と会ってマックス・ウェーバーの存在を教えられ、ミルズのなかでアメリカ的プラグマティズムとヨーロッパの古典的社会学とが結び付けられた。

　ミルズが学問的に活躍した1950年代のアメリカは、第二次世界大戦後の安定と経済的繁栄を謳歌(おうか)しながら、社会構造的には、強大な支配統治機構と、私的生活に没入しながら実は「組織人」化していく人々のつくりだす大衆社会状況とに二極化しつつあった。ミルズの学問的関心は、まず、その底辺層のプエルト・リコ移民および労働者階級の研究に向けられ、ついで中間層の実証的調査研究に進み、代表的著作の一つ『ホワイト・カラー』(1951)を生む。そして1956年、ミルズはその最大の労作とされる『パワー・エリート』を著して、アメリカの大衆社会状況の頂点に君臨する権力機構の中核を、批判的に分析した。それは、アメリカ社会およびアメリカ社会学界の既成の理念に対する一大衝撃であり、ミルズ自身の内部に生じたと思われる思想的変化と相まって、この時期以後、学界からしだいに孤立し、親交のあったガースからも離れて、学問的には異端者の道を歩み始める。

　その後のミルズは、自らの内部における自己主張と自己批判との相克に悩みながら、メキシコ、キューバ、ソ連への訪問を契機に、しだいに反体制的なラディカル社会学radical sociologyに傾斜し、死の前年には『キューバの声』を著して明瞭(めいりょう)に革命の側にたち、その後のアメリカのラディカル社会学派のある意味での先導者的な役割を演じた。

［杉　政孝］

『杉政孝訳『ホワイト・カラー』（1957／改訂版・1971・東京創元社）』▽『鵜飼信成・綿貫譲治訳『パワー・エリート』上下（1958／UP選書・1969・東京大学出版会）』▽『鈴木広著『ミルズの理論』（新明正道監修『現代社会学のエッセンス』所収・1971／改訂版・1996・ぺりかん社）』

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