MISSION STATEMENT

Our name is adopted from the title of the C. Wright Mills’ book rated by the International Sociological Association as the second most influential book for sociologists published during the entire 20th century, The Sociological Imagination. Our mission builds on Mills’ intersectional and interdisciplinary orientation, his efforts at continuing personal development, and his work toward solving world problems.

First, we point toward books yielding the development of a science of human behavior broad enough to include the focus of the social sciences and relevant knowledge from other academic disciplines. This approach necessarily requires attention to the fundamental or paradigmatic assumptions guiding present-day societies, such as hierarchy, narrow specialization and personal conformity. And it equally points to alternative assumptions, such as equality, broad understanding, and individual evolution. 

Second, we will publish those books which help readers actually fulfill their incredible intellectual, emotional, and problem-solving potentials. We note that this includes not just knowledge and action, but also the human heart, including optimism, love, confidence and joy. We see the further development of the individual not only as an end in itself, but also as the basis for the continuing evolution of society.

Third, we follow the founders of sociology in their emphasis on working to solve the enormous problems of their society. We look toward books which look toward solving our own disastrous problems. We see this approach as calling for both a broad approach to knowledge and placing that understanding in the hands of the individual. By so doing, we can foster the development of an evolutionary social movement which can fulfill the aims of the founders of sociology.

We call this three-fold direction a focus on a paradigmatic sociology. Our first published book, CREATING LIFE BEFORE DEATH Before Disaster Strikes the Ship of State (2024), illustrates our approach.We are planning an edited volume entitled PARADIGMATIC SOCIOLOGY: Toward an Interdisciplinary Science of Human Behavior. 

In addition to our publishing efforts, we see ourselves as a free school for anyone and everyone on the planet who chooses to visit our website. We will center on teaching and learning how we can fulfill our extraordinary potentials for continuing personal development in all areas of life, including our addressing world problems.

We invite visitors to communicate with us about their own efforts, including both problems and achievements, to move in an evolutionary direction. We see such interaction as  essential for fulfilling the aims of our school.

To illustrate our efforts, starting in early April, 2024, we will present seven weekly seminar sessions taking place in Sarasota, Florida, accessed on our website, sociologicalimaginationpublishing.com. The seminar’s title and textbook will be our just-published CREATING LIFE BEFORE DEATH Before Disaster Strikes the Ship of State.

We have no illusions about the difficulties involved in an education that moves us all away from present-day bureaucratic patterns of behavior, given how deeply we are enmeshed in that way of life.

Yet we see the development of a paradigmatic sociology as fostering a powerful social movement throughout the world toward an alternative way of life.