Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The figurational tradition of sociological research and theory was pioneered by Norbert Elias (1897–1990), a German of Jewish descent who became a naturalized Englishman in 1952. His work is best seen as an attempt to synthesize the central ideas of Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Sigmund Freud. Other influences were: Georg Simmel, Kurt Lewin, Wolfgang Koehler, J. B. Watson, and W. B. Cannon. Elias studied philosophy and medicine to doctoral level in Breslau before switching to sociology in Heidelberg in 1925. There, he came under the influence of Karl Mannheim, a founder of the sociology of knowledge, and Alfred Weber, brother of the more famous Max and a leading cultural sociologist. Three aspects of Elias's life help to explain characteristic features of his sociology. First, his experience of World War I, in which he served in the Kaiser's army on the eastern and western fronts, and the rise of the Nazis sensitized Elias to the part played by violence and war in human life. Such experiences also intensified his awareness of “decivilizing” as well as “civilizing” processes – he described the rise of the Nazis as a “breakdown of civilization” – and reinforced his view that “civilizing controls” rarely, if ever, amount to more than a relatively thin veneer. Second, the repeated interruption of his career by wider events – World War I, the German hyperinflation of 1923, ... log in or subscribe to read full text