8.5 The Importance of Norbert Elias

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Из курса от партнера University of Amsterdam

Classical Sociological Theory

913 оценки

University of Amsterdam

Classical Sociological Theory

913 оценки

This Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) will offer the participants an introduction into the most important classical sociological readings between the 18th and 20th century. Highly influential social science scholars, such as Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, will be discussed during 8 sessions. Combined with small tests, based on the video’s and recommended readings, the participants will be encouraged to dive deeply into the complex texts and get familiar with classical sociological concepts that are still very relevant today.

Из урока

Session 8: Norbert Elias (1897-1990)

Elias is the last of the Classical Sociologists. Elias' theory focusses on long term trends, with his so called process or figurational sociology. He shows us how the civilisation proces can be explained in terms like Self-Constraint and Figurations.

8.1 The Last of the Great Classic Sociologists5:43

8.2 Introduction to the Civilizing Process6:55

8.3 The Social Constraint Towards Self-Constraint8:26

8.4 The Conditions of Civilisation6:48

8.5 The Importance of Norbert Elias6:13

8.6 A Base for Contemporary Studies7:09

8.7 Figurational Processes6:14

8.8 Classical Sociological Theories: a Focus on Long Term Trends6:11

Познакомьтесь с преподавателями

Bart van Heerikhuizen
Dr.
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

>> When he was an assistant professor in Frankfurt, Norbert Elias worked in

the same building as the members of the famous Frankfurt School.

He told us once that often he shared in the morning the elevator with Ardorno or

with Horkheimer and they very politely said good morning.

And that was it.

There was no further contact.

The social scientists and the philosophers of the Frankfurt School

tried to integrate the outcomes of philosophy and

of the social sciences, into one encompassing critical theory.

And in order to achieve that goal, they created work groups where political

scientists, and psychologists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists.

To mention just a few disciplines collaborated

in working on what they considered central problems.

That was a huge task for those great thinkers.

It was difficult to,

to synthesize all those ideas from very dissimilar disciplines.

Norbert Thalias, who was not very interested in the work of the critical

school of Frankfurt, went his own way but he did just that.

In his work you see how elements from Freudian psychoanalytic theory,

elements from wayberian sociology, some building blocks that were laid

down by Marx, a lot of insights from historians, etc.,

etc., are brought together and integrated in such a self-evident

way that you do not even realize it when you are reading the book.

And one of the reasons for that may be that the lie is right in such an easy way.

You just don't notice what he's actually doing.

Let me illustrate this with a quote from the second volume

of "The Civilizing Process" to show what I mean.

This is what he says.

What changed was the way in which people were bonded to each other.

This is why their behavior changed and why their consciousness and

their drive economy, and in fact their personality structure as a whole, changed.

The circumstances that change are not something that comes

upon people from outside.

They are the relationships between people themselves.

Now that is a sentence that the reader can easily overlook.

And it even seems a bit outdated with that reference to the drive economy.

The [FOREIGN] in German.

The way in which our drives and impulses are organized in our personality.

But it is an amazing sentence, because here,

psychology and sociology are united.

Here, Freud talks to Marx.

Here, the sociological emergantism of Durkheim

is effortlessly united with Weberian individualism.

What is says is this, the changes in the consciousness of individual human beings,

the way they order their urges, their personality structure,

is not just related to the way in which they are bonded to each other, no.

What we should realize is that those so-called social circumstances under

which they live do not exist in a world outside of them.

Those circumstances are their own interdependencies.

As a network of people they are those circumstances.

And the only way to really see this is to follow Marx and Weber, who demonstrated

that you must study the social changes over a period of several centuries.

You'll have to start from the fact that human societies are always moving and

flowing and that you must step back and focus on the long term trends.

If you want to stand a chance of understanding how in our own society

the way we think and feel and act is intertwined with

the way in which we are bound together in those

long chains of interdependency that developed over a long period of time.

Now this is why I believe that the theoretical approach of Elias is still

very important.

The famous Dutch sociologist Yohan famous Amsterdam professor

who has been by the way very instrumental in disseminating the ideas of Elias.

Amongst contemporary sociologists has called Elias' work

in 1970 in an article of paradigmatic importance.

Of course you refer there to the concept of paradigmatic change in that

famous book by Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,

a book that was very popular in those days.

But, I think it's still true today that the theory of Elias contains

implicit solutions to many problems that sociology is faced with today.

Elias has become a very important name in sociology, but

at the same time it seems as if the deeper implications of a theory have not yet

followed that downward movement of the models of civilized behavior.

They have not yet trickled down through the whole body of sociological fault.

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