ANATOMY OF SOCIAL THEORY NORBERT ELIAS "CIVILIZING THE PROCESS"

ANATOMY OF SOCIAL THEORY

NORBERT ELIAS "PROCESS OF CIVILIZATION"

CIVILIZING THE PROCESS

When viewed Nazism was rising, Norbert Elias Jews left Germany in 1935. He lived in Paris for two years, then to London where he wrote his first work on the "process of civilization". The book consists of two volumes and published in Bale in 1939 but passed away. For 30 years Norbert Elias as a lecturer in sociology at Cambridge, Leicester, in Ghana and more to stay in the UK. His career re-emerged with the publication of two volumes of the book back in 1939, and in 1969 was followed by a new volume. The third book that changed the title to La Civilization des meuers (Indigenous civilizations-habit), La Dynamique de I'Occident (Dynamics West) and La Societt de cour (People in the Palace). Norbert Elias then regularly invited to teach in Amsterdam and Bielefeld, as well as in Germany where his thoughts appreciated. Embarrassment and ways of being that 'fit' according to Norbert Elias's more a sign of the invisible process of European civilization clearly demonstrated since the renaissance. But whether the self-control skills truly modern human heritage.

Norbert Elias was born in 1897 from relatively well-off family in the city of Breslau (now Wroclaw). Here he received his classical German education, were mobilized in 1915 and at the end of the war he studied medicine and philosophy. In 1925 he turned studied sociology and was about to settle in Heidelberg where Max Weber taught and subsequent work as an assistant to Karl Mannheim, Frankfurt.

Elias did not receive a salary in Heidelberg, but he was very actively involved in a study group of sociology at the University of Heidelberg. Max Weber had died in 1920, but the salon led by his wife, Mariane, and Elias is still actively involved. He also joined the Weber brothers, Alfred, who became chairman of the sociology department at the University of Heidelberg and Karl Mannheim with a somewhat more advanced in his career than Elias. Elias fact become a friend and assistant was paid from Mannheim. When Mannheim was offered the post at the University of Frankfurt in 1930, as an assistant Elias accompanying official payroll (about the relationship between the two men and their work, see Kilminster, 1993).

Elias was born in Breslau, Germany 1897 (Mennel, 1992). His parents Hermann and Sophie Elias.Ayahnya a businessman small factories and family life is quite pleasant. He grew up in a prosperous family that provided him with strong confidence that benefit him later when his work was rewarded: She has been equipped with a great sense of security since childhood. He has a great underlying feeling safe, feeling that in the face of a problem would ultimately result in the best solution. Great sense of security has been implanted parent to him since childhood.

Since childhood, he knew what he wanted to do; he wanted to go to university and want to do research, he knew it since I was young and he has done so even though it sometimes seems impossible. He was confident that the work eventually he will be recognized as a valuable contribution to the knowledge of humanity. (Elias, cited in Mennel, 1992: 6-7).

Elias entered military service when World War II Germany, and after the war he studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Breslau. Although medical studies thrived but eventually he left behind in order to focus entirely on the study of philosophy. Medical studies provide an understanding of the interconnected between the different parts of the human body and understanding it formed its orientation to the relationship between human beings; forming his attention on figuration. Elias received his Ph.D. in January 1924; then he went to Heidelberg to study sociology.

Elias did not receive a salary in Heidelberg, but he was very actively involved in a study group of sociology at the University of Heidelberg. Max Weber had died in 1920, but the salon led by his wife, Mariane, and Elias is still actively involved. He also joined the Weber brothers, Alfred, who became chairman of the sociology department at the University of Heidelberg and Karl Mannheim with a somewhat more advanced in his career than Elias. Elias fact become a friend and assistant was paid from Mannheim. When Mannheim was offered the post at the University of Frankfurt in 1930, as an assistant Elias accompanying official payroll (about the relationship between the two men and their work, see Kilminster, 1993).

Hitler came to power in February 1933 and soon thereafter, Elias, like many other Jewish scholars (including Mannheim), was expelled from Germany, first he lived in Paris, then in London (his mother died in a German concentration camp in 1941). In Londonlah he wrote a large part of his work on the process of civilization (The Civilizing Process) which was published in Germany in 1939. At that time there was no market in Germany for the books written by Jewish scholars and Elias have never received a cent of royalties from his book published , Anyway the book was less honored in other parts of the world.

Both during the war and nearly a decade later, Elias life hanging around with a tenacity no job security and remain a marginalized people in an academic environment in the UK. However, in 1954 Elias was offered two professorships and he received academic posts at the University of Leicester. Thus Elias started his formal academic career at the age of 57 years. Elias combines synthesis of the strongest elements in classical sociological thought with mobilization intellectually rigorous and very independent of it in terms of the synthesis of a wide variety of empirical evidence.

Elias's career flourished in Leicester accompanied by a number of his publications. However, Elias was disappointed with the position of professor at Leicester because he failed in his attempt to institutionalize the approach to development which was established as an alternative to this type of static approach (approach Parsons and others) were then very superior in sociology. He was disappointed few students who accept his approach; he continues to be like a man screaming in the wilderness, even in Leicester where students tend to think of it as lunatic shouting past (Mennel, 1992: 22). It is interesting to note that during the Elias served in Leicester, none of his books are translated into English and a little German.

But on the Continent, especially in the Netherlands and Germany, the work of Elias began to be studied since the 1950s and 1960s. 1970s Elias began to receive awards not only in academic circles, but also among the European public. For the rest of his life, Elias received numerous important awards, received honorary doctorates and numerous awards for his work.

The issues raised Elias-including the history of subjectivity, power, knowledge, violence, the establishment of the state, the attitude towards the body and sexuality-already ahead of science. That concept became central in his thinking about society and human perilku. Elias believes as the product of a long process. As an expression of their own talents are high. European sense of superiority over other nations in the world sema. Since then awareness and superiority of their own civilization will act as a justification for the administration of the nations that have become conquerors colonialism. The highlight them on the penchant terrible savagery, which is the center of the arrangement of reviews Elias concerning the development of modern social life. As the center of structuring social life that characterizes European Contemporary Western society.

The Civilizing Process is a process of civilization by Norbert Elias dideskrepsikan not only through the ordinance at the dinner table, how to show shame and moral sexuality, but more directly this process to reduce the level of violence was ordered by the public morals. In human affairs is already clear that the control of the laws of war, then personal revenge by the state is a product of the evolution of institutions into a monopoly until XVIII view La Dynamique de I'Occident or Dynamics West.

Elias focusing on country western civilization and apply the ideas in other countries, namely Singapore, Elias did not want to declare that there is something inherently good or better regarding civilization as happened in the West or anywhere else. He did not want to declare that civilization has a bad character even though he admits that the difficulties have emerged in western civilization. More generally Elias did not want to state that the more civilized is better, or vice versa, the less civilized is worse. He claimed that people became more civilized, we do not need to declare that they have become better (or getting worse) we merely stating sociological fact. Thus Elias focused on the study of the sociology of what he called "sociogenesis" on civilization at that time Barat.Mulai socially personal use of violence under the supervision of the police and the courts. In medieval times the usual royal soldiers cut off limbs of their victims while the common people watch enough punishment beheaded. In the process of civilization external factors crucial but was replaced by psychological mechanisms that regulate the level of sensitivity of each person.

But then what about the increasing insecurity and advanced modern society as expressed by some sociologists? When this issue is open in the years 1980s, the responses also appear. The first thesis of N. Elias even doubted that there was no evidence of a link between the 'fineness' in ethics (code-way) with the reduced violence against everyone. Both aspects are varied independently of one another, and thus the argument about the violation of the law does not mean that the progress of civilization has reached the limit. While others propose "interrupt the process of civilization" by the destruction of the example of the State (model etatik), which in general terms will reveal also that the institutional dynamics as dideskripsikaban by N. Elias has reached its limit. But for others, violence as a way of relating socially can be restricted to certain places in the social ostracism, and in total foreign fixed on the whole society endlessly self mempersopan.