Петербургская социология сегодня – 2012 : Сборник научных трудов Социологического института РАН. Вып. 4. — СПб.: Нестор-История, 2013. (original) (raw)

In The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations (1939) Norbert Elias formulated a theory to explain the long-term process of continuous change that led to the emergence of modern society. His theory encompasses both the development of human personality structures and behaviour (psychogenetic research) and the development of the social structures of inequality, power, and order (sociogenetic research). Violence and its control are central themes of the theory of the civilizing process. On the question of why the de-civilization processes occur, Elias failed to answer satisfactorily. For his students and followers this omission is a motivation to consider furthering Elias's thinking. The concept of civilization is used in the social sciences in both singular and plural. The singular we encounter when considering the universal historical process of development in which what is called civilization takes shape, develops and is transformed. The plural is most often used to compare various civilizations in terms of their socio-cultural formations. The concept of civilization in the singular occurs in roughly four diff erent contexts 1. In the fi rst, which is now often regarded as politically incorrect, the term simply refers to a " civilized way of life " , meaning certain achieved forms of human coexistence, rules and standards. In the second case, civilization becomes a synonym for social progress in terms of the historical development of human capabilities (we can fi nd this understanding in Marx when he speaks of the " civilizing mission " of capitalism which he associated with the development of productive forces and the territorial expansion of the capitalist mode of production). The third concept, associated with an eff ort to draw a certain dividing line between the diff erent stages of history, appears in anthropology , archaeology and prehistory (an example is Lewis Henry Morgan, who uses the expression " civilization " for the third epoch of human development , replacing the stage of savagery and barbarism). The fourth case is the most important in terms of historical sociology because it is represented by the civilization theory of Norbert Elias, in which he talks about the process of civilization, where changes in human behaviour relate to the development 1 Arnason J.P., Šubrt J. Kultury, civilizace, světový systém. Praha: Karolinum, 2010. P. 10.