Explaining Modern Social Reality
Few thinkers have contributed more to the understanding of modern civilization than Norbert Elias. Given the significance and relevance of his ideas in explaining social reality, this book seeks to make his complex concepts more accessible.
A biographical account of his life (1897–1990) facilitates the comprehension of Elias’s concepts. Elias’s most famous work, “The Civilizing Process”, is the focus of this discussion of his theoretical frameworks, with class structure, the patterns of behavior, and the role of the state as key factors. The book also dedicates special treatment to figurational sociology, an important research field linked especially to Elias.
Elias was an innovator. He criticized accepted concepts and introduced numerous new constructs (habitus is perhaps the best known) discussed in this book. Respective chapters review Elias’s theory of knowledge, the concept of de-civilization—with an emphasis on violence, his analysis of nations and nationalism, and emotions—and his focus on shame.
Elias borrowed ideas from iconic figures in philosophy and the social sciences such as Edmund Husserl, Karl Mannheim, Max Weber, Sigmund Freud, and Talcott Parsons. This book describes the characteristic way Elias interprets them.
The book concludes with an overview of the most significant critiques of Norbert Elias's work.
I. NORBERT ELIAS: BIOGRAPHY, CHARACTERISTICS, RELATIONS
1. Life path
2. The place of Norbert Elias in sociology
3. Theory of Knowledge
4. Influences and impacts
Edmund Husserl
Karl Mannheim
Max Weber
Sigmund Freud
5. Figurational Sociology
Figurational sociology and the relationship to Talcott Parsons
Basic characteristics of figurational sociology
Figurational sociology and the interdependence of individuals
Figurations and processes
6. Evolutionism
7. The process of individualization
8. Value neutrality
II. SOCIOGENESIS OF THE SOCIETY
9. Reflections on the book "Civilization Process"
Civilization as a concept
Contradiction of civilization as a concept
Civilization or culture
The process of civilization and social stratification
The evolution of class structure in Elias’s opus
The process of civilization and the behavior of individuals
10. Survival Units
Civilization and the state
National States and Nations
Nations and nationalism
Process of Civilization and the Political History of Europe
The process of civilization and the European Union
The EU's evolutionary path
European identity and Elias
11. Decivilization process
The social preconditions for the decivilization of Germany
National Socialism and Decivilization
Decivilization and the Holocaust
12. Violence
The role of the state in regulating violence
Norbert Elias’s Power Conceptualization
Violence and wars
Violence and global interdependencies
III. PSYCHOGENESIS OF THE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
13. The structure of the personality in the work of Norbert Elias
The concept of habitus in the work of Elias
14. In and Out groups
15. The concept of inclusion, distance and detachment in the work of Elias
16. The meaning of emotions in the work of Elias
Emotions and Manners of Behavior
The role of shame in the process of civilization
The origin of shame
Types of shame
The evolutionary development of shame
How shame has become invisible in modern society
17. The difference between shame and humiliation
The role of the feeling of humiliation in the process of civilization
The concept of humiliation in the work of Elias
18. Informalization
Civilization and sexuality
The relationship between the sexes in the work of Elias
Transformation of the attitude towards the body
19. A critical review of Norbert Elias' work
20. References