Abstract

The Big Discourse

Loneliness burdens most college freshmen, though precious few find lasting relief from it in the realm of ideas. So it happened for one freshman in 1935, when he left behind the isolation he had experienced at Texas A&M for the University of Texas and "the big discourse," his term for the Enlightenment humanism that extended him both refuge and inspiration. Once a diffident student who reserved his compositions for private display, he quickly gave to this tradition the allegiance of an apostle. Much ink did indeed flow from the pen of C. Wright Mills. As a professor of sociology at Columbia University, Mills wrote prodigiously throughout the forties and fifties, publishing in major newspapers and journals of opinion and in"little magazines" in equal measure. Two of his books, "White Collar," and "The Power Elite," sold widely outside the academy, exerting a profound influence on the early New Left.