The Civilizing Process (Paperback)

The study is furthermore concerned with explaining how individuals and groups demonstrate their ‘civilisation’ as a means of association with and distinction from one another, what factors have contributed towards the evolution of this notion and how these various factors have interacted in creating the contemporary notion of ‘Civilisation’.

Elias examines the historical development of the notion of ‘Civilisation’ in order to explain why and how ‘to be civilised’ implies what it does today. The Civilising Process is concerned with illustrating how a set of terms and their associated connotations (civilisation, civilised etc.) move from socially manifesting or ‘sociogenetic’ values (the use of cutlery at the dinner table as an unquestionable requirement of conduct amongst company) towards psychologically internalised or ‘psychogenetic’ ones (an individual continuing to demonstrate such ‘table manners’ even when they are alone) through continuous, gradual and ongoing processes of human interaction and interdependency.

Elias illustrates the role of symbolic demonstrations and artefacts of civilisation such as extravagant dinner table spreads and etiquette guides in creating a means of distinction for the bourgeois upper classes, distinction on the basis of enhanced and elevated civilisation with respect to others.

There was a time when the notion of civilisation and its associated connotations did not exist and in terms relative to the entire history of mankind that time was not too long ago. Nowadays we take artefacts such as cutlery for granted, we consider the likes of spitting indoors (or even spitting in general) disgusting, we regard sex in public as somehow wrong and we imagine violence as somehow primitive or animalistic. In the ‘civilised society’ of today these and indeed many more values go unquestioned and to a large extent will remain unquestionable.

Elias was concerned with demonstrating how these notions of ‘civilisation’ are socially constructed, developed and constantly reinforced (they are sociogenetic) to the extent that they become internalised (psychogenetic) through such interactive processes. Today it is important for people ‘to be civilised’ if they are to be accepted whereas in the past the very notion of ‘being civilised’ did not exist.

The Civilising Process hence examines the many processes of human interaction whereby this need to be civilised developed and proliferated to the extent that the need is now a taken for granted aspect of modern life. It is a must read for those willing to question and demystify taken for granted aspects of modern society and modern life

This is a piece of sociological genius that no student nor authority of sociology should pass by-it is essential reading.

He provides an organizing principle for understanding how and why life and people were different in different periods of Western history. Until I read Elias I could only guess at what life was like in earlier eras by inferring from social, economic, and technical conditions. Elias provides a clear and reasonable way to look much closer.

I strongly recommend this book.