Feel free to post answers to any one of the following questions (or a topic of your own choosing). This is your space to converse with classmates. My questions are just to get the discussion started—you do not have to address more than one issue to get full credit for the discussion component of this module. This means you are required to only post one comment per module.

Wright Mills and “The Promise”

1. Do you in any way feel that your life or the life of those around you includes “a series of traps”? If so, describe. How might you escape this trap?
2. Can you think of ways in which “history” has affected your personal biography? Again, describe.
3. Why might it be useful to distinguish between a “public issue” and “personal trouble”? Can you think of an example of public issues that are often interpreted as a personal trouble?
4. When C. Wright Mills says that some problems are “incapable of personal solution” what is he suggesting as an alternative form of action? What would be an example of a problem “incapable of personal solution,” but perhaps remediable through social action?

Link to the Promise: https://sites.middlebury.edu/utopias/files/2013/02/The-Promise.pdf