Life
Norbert Elias (1897–1990) was a German-born sociologist who later became a British citizen. Born in Breslau (then Germany, now Wrocław, Poland), he studied philosophy, psychology, and medicine. After serving in World War I, he earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Breslau in 1924. He later moved to Heidelberg and then Frankfurt, where he worked as Karl Mannheim’s assistant. Forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1933 due to his Jewish ancestry, he completed his magnum opus in exile, eventually settling in England, where he taught at the University of Leicester (1954–1962) and later at the University of Ghana.
People Who Influenced Their Thought
- Max Weber: Elias extended Weber’s analysis of rationalization and state formation into a long-term, processual framework focused on psychic and social self-control.
- Sigmund Freud: Freud’s psychoanalytic theories on drives, repression, and the civilizing of instincts directly informed Elias’s concept of the “civilizing process” as the internalization of social constraints.
- Karl Mannheim: As Mannheim’s assistant, Elias was influenced by the sociology of knowledge and the idea that social position shapes thought, though he later moved toward a more figurational approach.
- Georg Simmel: Simmel’s work on social forms, interaction, and the dynamics of group affiliations shaped Elias’s focus on interdependencies and social configurations.
Main Ideas and Publications
- The Civilizing Process (1939, republished 1969): Elias’s central work, tracing how Western European societies developed increasingly refined standards of behavior, emotional control, and bodily conduct from the Middle Ages onward, driven by state formation and social interdependence.
- Figurational Sociology (or Process Sociology): A theoretical framework rejecting the static dichotomy of individual versus society, instead analyzing shifting networks of interdependent human beings called “figurations.”
- The Established and the Outsiders (1965, with John L. Scotson): A study of power relations and stigmatization in a small English community, introducing the concept of “established–outsider relations.”
- Involvement and Detachment (1987): An examination of the relationship between emotional engagement and scientific objectivity in the social sciences.
- The Society of Individuals (1987, posthumously expanded): A collection of essays arguing that individual identity and society are mutually constitutive over time.
Controversies around his main work or thought
- Neglect and Late Recognition: The Civilizing Process was largely ignored upon its first publication in 1939 due to the war and Elias’s exile, only gaining major recognition in the 1970s—leading to debate over whether his marginalization was due to academic politics or the book’s unconventional historical-sociological method.
- Eurocentrism Accusations: Critics (e.g., Hans-Peter Duerr in the 1980s) charged Elias with projecting a linear, Western-centric narrative of “progress” and “civilization,” overlooking non-European forms of self-regulation and suggesting a hierarchy of cultures.
- Empirical and Methodological Criticisms: Some historians argued that Elias’s evidence on manners (e.g., table manners, nose-blowing) was selective and that his “civilizing” trajectory oversimplified complex reversals and regional variations in emotional control.
- Teleology and Normativity: Later sociologists contended that Elias’s framework carries an implicit teleology—that “more civilized” equals “more self-restrained”—which risks legitimating Western modernity as the endpoint of social development.
Key People Influenced by Their Thought
- Pierre Bourdieu: Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and symbolic violence draw heavily on Elias’s analysis of internalized social constraints and bodily hexis, though Bourdieu critiqued Elias for insufficient attention to class conflict.
- Eric Dunning: A sociologist of sport who applied Elias’s figurational approach to the study of violence, soccer hooliganism, and the “quest for excitement” in modern leisure.
- Stephen Mennell: A leading Elias scholar who extended figurational sociology to the study of cuisine, taste, and civilizing processes in food habits.
- Johan Goudsblom: A Dutch sociologist who synthesized Elias’s work with global history and the study of “civilizing” and “decivilizing” processes.
- Cas Wouters: Developed Elias’s theory further with the concept of “informalization,” showing how manners have become more relaxed yet still demand high levels of self-regulation.
Legacy
Norbert Elias transformed historical and sociological understanding by showing that seemingly personal habits of emotion and bodily control are shaped by long-term, unplanned shifts in social interdependencies and state power.