The Old Colony in South Boston is an immensely tight-knit and closed community. It is not rare for people who live in Southie to develop a closed-minded standpoint, or as C. Wright Mills described as the “ordinary way of thinking”. Mills introduces us to the concept of the “ordinary way of thinking” in his book titled The Sociological Imagination. The ordinary way of thinking, according to Mills, refers to the typical way of thinking in which people would live their lives without understanding the connection between their personal lives (their biography) and society as a whole (the history). People with the ordinary way of thinking do not understand their places in society, as they are unable to see the bigger picture. They are only concerned with what is going on with their personal lives, without realizing the connection of our personal problems with the larger-scaled issues that are occurring in the society. In other words, they remain ignorant and oblivious to the things that are happening around them. Michael Patrick MacDonald and his peers in Old Colony adapted this ordinary way of thinking, indicated through their responses and actions described in MacDonald’s memoir, All Souls.
Many Southies exemplify the ordinary way of thinking by showing ignorance towards issues that are occurring in its community. MacDonald, as a child, also possessed this ordinary way of thinking. People in Southie, including MacDonald himself, had the belief that “…we were in the best place in the world …” (p.2). Despite what most people in Southie choose to believe, the neighborhood is clearly shown to be a dangerous and impoverished place. Southie’s ordinary way of thinking can be illustrated in MacDonald’s quote trying to sarcastically mock the way the people in Southie perceives the social problems in their community: “Maybe a few suicides here and there, or maybe an addict “scumbag”, but that was the victim’s own problem. Must have come from a bad family – nothing to do with “Our Beautiful World,”” (p. 4) This mindset demonstrates the lack of sociological imagination, as people are unable to see the connection between people’s personal problems in a milieu with social issues in a society. In All Souls, the ordinary way of thinking is mostly exposed through the people who are oblivion or in denial of serious public issues. They are too closed-minded, too self-absorbed, and too prideful to acknowledge how severe the social problems are in Southie.
An example of the ordinary way of thinking can be seen through MacDonald’s reaction towards the motorcade protesting against Judge Garrity’s decision to allow black kids from other neighborhoods to join schools with the kids from Southie; some people called this project the “forced busing.” When Southies first heard of this news, some of them protested by saying that “Our kids have just as little” (p.76) and “Neither side has a pot to piss in and now they want us to fight over who can piss in what alley.” (p.76). The people of Southie claims that “… it was about poor people being told that they have to do things that rich people don’t have to do,” indirectly admitting that the Southie community is one that is impoverished. MacDonald was surprised to hear that people in Southie are admitting that they are poor by saying that “we weren’t poor; that was a black thing to do, being poor.” His surprised response towards the whole incident reveals how ignorant he is towards the real economic and social climate of Southie.
As previously mentioned, the reason why it is particularly difficult for people in Southie to develop sociological imagination is that of their strong sense of pride. Southie prides themselves on their exclusivity. The “rules of the neighborhood” is a product of their exclusivity; anyone who joins the Old Colony family will be expected to follow certain rules and regulations in order to be a part of the community. These rules are believed to keep Southie as “the best place on Earth.” Most Southies would follow these rules due to their strong sense of loyalty to the neighborhood. However, these rules are a major cause of why people in Southie are unable to develop a sociological imagination. Some of these rules include: to fight someone within the neighborhood as some type of ‘initiation’, to not snitch to the cops, to not dress poor, to not interact with black people or anyone else outside their community, and to not talk about the murders, suicides, and deaths. Most of these rules enforce their exclusivity and thus limit the interaction between people from Southie and people from other communities and blinds them from realizing the social issues that are happening in Southie. For example, the rule to “not bring the blacks or other outsiders in” causes Southies to be extremely closed-minded and ignorant towards the outside world. Southies live in their own world, unaware of the things that are going on and the people that are outside of Southie. Their little interaction with the outside world also causes them to not be able to identify their place in society. Since they do not know any better, they have a distorted perception of Southie and the rest of the world.
MacDonald starts to develop sociological imagination as he starts to spend time outside of the neighborhood. He finally sees the apparent issue that the people of Southie always deal with. After being exposed to a large number of murders, suicides, and drug overdoses, MacDonald has gotten used to these incidents, thus preventing him from recognizing these incidents as issues. When MacDonald’s grandfather died, MacDonald is introduced to another way of dying in which he is unfamiliar with: natural death from old age. During this episode, MacDonald wondered why he “… felt so happy at a funeral,” in which he explained by stating “it was [his] first time [he’d] seen off someone who’d died naturally, from old age.” (p.243) This event exemplifies the development of his sociological imagination. From this experience, he learns that people in Southie actually have an issue on mortality due to homicides, suicides, and drug overdose. He is finally starting to see the issues that the people of Southie did not see previously. From this sociological imagination that MacDonald has developed, he starts to see the dangers of violence and crime. He later encourages other people to think the same way by becoming an activist and arranging a vigil where people share their experiences about violence and crimes that happen to their families.
The people of Southie have been living with an ordinary way of thinking for a long time. All Souls presents numerous tragedies that happened in the neighborhood such as murders, suicides, drug usage, etc. As frequent as these tragedies might happen, most Southies would not acknowledge these problems as social issues in their society. However, as time passes, MacDonald starts to develop a sociological imagination in which he uses to help other people in Southie reduce crimes and violence.