Journal of Hktorical Socidogy Vol. 2 No.

2 June 1989
ISSN 0952-1909

SCHOOLS AND S C H O M S
With the following two articles by Brigitte Niestroj and Keith Tester on the work of
Norbert Elias. we inaugurate an occasional series of critical appreciations of major
scholars and schools who have contributed to the development of historical
sociology. Schools and scholars considered under this rubric do not have to be
sociological by disciplinary affiliation; and we will publish commentaries both
sympathetic (like Niestroj) and sceptical (like Tester). Suggestions and contributions
for this section of The Journal Of Historical Sociology are very welcome.

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Norbert Elias: A Milestone in Historical

Psycho-Sociolo@
The Making of the Social Person
BRIGITTE H.E. NIESTROJ

Abstract The originality of Eliass perspective and the significance of the subject he
has chosen in his main works Ihe Ciuilizing Process and Ihe Court soCi.etg will be
evaluated and explained in the light of the history and rediscovery of his work in West
Germany and of some roots of the psycho-sociologicalNstorical approach. The paper
begins with an intellectual-biographical note, introduces the crucial aspects of
Eliassmainwork, offers a critical debate and concludes with a historical-intellectual
rooting of the investigation.

Norbert Ellas: a Biographical Note

Norbert Elias, born in Breslau in June 1897. grew up the son of

bourgeois Jewish parents, His father was a merchant and factory
owner. Like all of his school friends, he volunteered to serve in the
First World War from 1915 until 1918 and was to go through
traumatic war experiences. Most of those friends who had joined up
with him were to fall (Korte 1988:70). At the University of Breslau,
where he had been an enrolled student since 1915, he began to study
medicine, but changed to philosophy in 1919. However, he retained
a strong interest in neurophysiology beyond his student years. In his
Notizen zum Lebenslauf (Elias 1984: 9-82) he drew particular
attention to the importance of medicine in his intellectual
development. It was here that he received the impulse to investigate

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the relationship between sociological and biological factors (ibid.:

18).The theme which recurs in all of his works is the relation of
individuals and society, in the elucidation of which he draws on his
knowledge of medicine. He considers it significant that, in contrast
to animals, human beings possess among other things variable facial
muscles including the Risus sardonicus which permit them to
engage in prolonged communication with their own kind relying only
on facial expression. Such expression reactivates inborn social
patterns (ibid: 14-15 and Elias 1983 CPI: 257). The idea that the 1
does not exist independently of other people and that the wall which
divides the rousing of emotions and the movement of facial muscles
and body gestures has been created by patterns of civilization was
beginning to emerge in Elias, although not until fifteen years later did
it take concrete shape in his scientific work. Due to notions of this
kind, he was to encounter difficulties with his doctoral dissertation
under the Neo-Kantian scholar R. Honigswald. In his thesis Idee und
Indiuiduum (Elias 1984: 19-20) Elias questions the apriorierdstence
of causality and of moral law. He maintains that both are acquired
knowledge.
He was obliged to omit this passage to secure his promotion to
doctor of philosophy, which was conferred in 1924. In order to
become a university teacher in Germany, it was necessary to have
written an independent scholarly work (Habilitationsschi. To this
end, in 1924, Elias dropped philosophy in favour of sociology,
moving from Breslau to Heidelberg, the former University of Max
Weber, where the latter's widow, Marianne, was still running an
academic salon. Weber's brother Alfred was teaching there as
professor of sociology,Karl Jaspers as a professor of philosophy and
Karl Mannheim as a young lecturer of sociology. In his Notizen zum
LebenslaufElias depicts in detail the antagonism which existed
between the 'idealist' Alfred Weber and the 'materialist' Karl
Mannheim, which erupted in controversy at the Soziologentag in
Zurich in 1928. While Mannheim emphasized 'Seinsuerbundenheit',
the dependency of thought on the concrete existence of man,
stressing that conflicts are incapable of being solved using
supertemporal concepts, Weber saw concealed in this argument the
old materialist (Marxist)view of history and continued to insist on the
possibility of objective knowledge, In the discussion which followed,
the young Elias also spoke: 'I myself then tried In the limited time
available to a young sociologist who had yet to obtain a respected
position - to explain (not wholly correctly) the antagonism between
Weber and Mannheim, interpreting it as what today I see more
clearly as the conflict between the representatives of thought in
terms of eternal laws and the representatives of thought in terms of
structured processes - not quite correctly, for Mannheim. though

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seeing the current of history, saw it in a relativistic way, as a mere

unstructured coming and going. He did not emerge from relativism,
because the nature of social processes which were unplanned in the
long term but not without direction - among other things that of
knowledge - were beyond the scope of his vision (Elias 1984:46;
italics added).
The questions posed and basic assumptions made in later works
can be seen in his contribution to the sociologicaldiscussion in 1928.
The themes of Eliass work can already be recognised in his early
writings. Elements of his work which are important even today
include thinking in processes, the possibility of differentiating
between individual phases of process development, and a stress on
the need for sociologiststo attempt to achieve distance in relation to
society (Korte 1988: 103).
When, in 1930, Karl Mannheim was appointed Professor of
Sociology (Oppenheimer-Chair) at Frankfurt, he invited Elias to
become his assistant and work under him for his lecturing
qualification (HabiZitation).This was Frankfurt Universitys golden
age. The chair of philosophy was occupied by Paul Tillich, while in
1930 Max Horkheimer was appointed professor of socialphilosophy. The latters assistant was Theodor Wiesengrund
(Adorno).I t was, according toTiLlich, themost modem and liberal of
universities (Korte 1988:111). The Frankfurt Znstitut fiir
Psychoanalyse was housed in the same building as the Znstitutfi
Sozialforschung and the Soziologische Seminar.There was a busy
intellectual and social life: friendships did not suffer as a result even
of the sharpest criticism; men - and women - from all walks of life
beyond the university attended courses a t the seminars. As a
seminar lecturer, Elias was pleased to find among his students those
who had been engaged in other activities prior to study, encouraging
them to become involved in sociological research in their particular
field. It was thanks to his influence that Gisele Freund, now an
internationally known photographer, wrote her book on
photography in France in the nineteenth century (HF 1977:12).His
particular method of exercising the sociological imagination of his
students was to make them concentrate their research on relations
of interdependence (Goudsblom in HF 1977:39).
I t was in Frankfurt that Elias wrote his HabiZitationsschrii, an
early version of his book The Court Society.Yet he was never to be
appointed to the academic status of Privatdozent (Gleichmann
1987:406-417).1933 saw the end of Elias promising beginnings in
Frankfurt. After Hitlers seizure of power Elias was forced into exile
in France. The prospects of obtaining an academic position there
were so poor that he moved to England, where he was interned
during the Second World War. Prior to his internment, however,

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139

between 1934 and 1939, a small research grant from a Jewish

refugee organisation enabled Elias to devote his energies to his main
work, The Ciuilizing Process, which he wrote in the Reading Room of
the British Museum in London. He sent out advance copies and these
met with avaried response. Freud sent his thanks on a postcard. The
psychoanalyst, Foulkes, and the Marxist, Borkenau, wrote reviews
in respected journals. Referring to the first volume Franz Borkenau
wrote in The Sociological Reuiew 1938: In this remarkable study
accurate historical research and generalizing theoretical
interpretation are interwoven in an almost unique manner, which
recalls the best traditions ofMaxWeber and his school(HF 1977:41).
Walter Benjamin, himself living in very difficult circumstances in
Paris, sent the following reply to Elias when requested to review his
work in the Zeitschri,fffurSozialforschung:

... what we should understand by social psychology can, in my view, only be decided
on the basis of a theory of society the core of which.is class antagonism - that is to
say, the prevailing exploitationof the work of the majority by the minority in any given
society ...
(Schottker 1988: 595).
Thirty more years were to pass before a second impression of the
work appeared in 1969. Elias was then, just as in 1939,an unknown
German author. Class antagonism was the core theme of thought
(Zeitgeist) in 1969 and there was hardly a subject, especially in the
social sciences and the humanities, which was not considered from
this angle. It was not yet time for an enthusiastic reception of Eliass
work.
During this period, from 1939 to 1976, the two volumes of The
Civilizing Process remained -like the socjologist and the man Norbert
Elias -very much in the background of pbblic and academicinterest.
After his time in the internment camp during the Second World War
he taught courses for the Workers Education Association and was
appointed to teach in adult education at London University. In 1954,
at the age of almost 60 he obtained a lectureship in the Department
of Sociology at University of Leicester in England. At the beginning
of the sixties he was living and teaching as a professor of sociology
in Ghana and from 1964 was emeritus professor at the Universities
of Ghana and Leicester.
In 1976 The Civilizing Process was published in a paperback
edition by the Frankfurt publisher Suhrkamp. I t was at this time that
lecturers and students at the universities were ceasing to treat class
analysis as the major theme. When, in 1977, Elias was awarded the
first Theodor W. Adorno Prize by the city of Frankfurt, the climate for
reception had become considerably more favourable than at the time
of the publication in 1969 of his main work. As a consequence of this

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historic turn in the social sciences from the beginning of the 1970s,
interest in the history of the human psyche and mind has been
growing steadily in West Germany, as in other western countries. To
the present day (1988) about 100,000 copies of the Suhrkamp
edition of The Civilizing Process have been sold. Wolf Lepenies
already pointed out in 1977 in his Eulogy for Norbert EIias (Lepenies
1978:63) that his work is now being discovered by sociologists and
historians alike, and that the outsider Norbert Elias has become a
central figure in the social sciences.

The Work
Following the initial enthusiasm over its rediscovery, Eliass work
has, for some time now, been the subject of scientific and critical
scrutiny. For in the first instance, both in the aftermath of the
student movement, and in the context of the intensivepreoccupation
with the work of Michel Foucault, EIiass book on The Civilizing
Process was read selectively and to some extent incorrectly
interpreted: as the history of the civilization of human beings, of their
increasingcontrol over body movements, of the process by which this
control was intensified to become self-control,adapting increasingly
to those institutions of state and economy which enforce obedience.
It was further read as the great study of the history of table manners
and of the refinement of court life in absolutist France with some
observations on the self-discipline of the moulding of modem man
with his/her inhibited ascetic, egotistical and closed character and
personality.
In fact, Eliass work is not an indictment of civilization. Affectcontrol and self-discipline are seen as essential psychological
components of any human society. Although
the degree of anxiety, like the whole pleasure economy, is different in every society,
in every class and historical phase (...) no society can survive without a channelling
of individual drives and affects. without a very specific control of individual
behaviour. No such control is possible unless people exert constraints on one
another,and all constraintis converted in the person on whom it is imposed into fear
of one kind or another.We should not deceive ourselves:the constant production and
reproduction of human fears by people is inevitable and indispensable wherever
people live together.wherever the desires and actions of a number of people interact,
whether at work, in leisure or in love-maktng (Elias 1982. CP 11: 326 & 328).

Self-discipline and self-distance are even more essential when

acquiring knowledge in the field of social science a s Elias
understands it. In order to discover constant features and structures
of psycho-sociologicalhistorical processes the social scientist has to

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141

be a mere and precise observer, as Elias makes clear in his two books,
Gesellscha.. der Zndiuiduen and Znuoluement and Detachment. It is
distance from emotional entanglement which first permits the social
scientist to view a particular subject from an appropriate angle.
The most important concept with which Elias expresses this
entanglement in a web of relationships in any given period is that of
fisuation. In the lengthy introduction written for the second edition
of The Ciuirizing Process in 1969,Elias makes an attempt at selfexamination with a view to explaining the sociology by which he is
surrounded. He takes issue in some detail with Talcott Parsons, with
concepts of system and of social transformation, thus seeking to
clanfy the significance ofmuration as what in todays parlance we
would call a new paradigm. As a structure subject to change,
figurations cannot be perceived at all unless long-term processes are
considered in which individual and psychological structures or
personality structures are transformed together with a change in
interdependency structures. Transformation at the level of society
can only be understood in the context of transformation at the level
of the individual and vice versa. In every socio-and psychogenetic
study it is important to consider from the start the whole_figuration
of a social field and those investigations should concentrate on its
structure within the entirety of its interdependencies. Elias makes a
point of emphasizing that for him it is almost impossible to view
psychology and sociology as two independent research fields.
Whenever he speaks of sociology, it is also possible - since he is
dealing with human beings - to speak of psycho-sociology (Elias
1985:274;CP 11: 282).
In the book Die Gesellscha., der Zndiuiduen of which one longish
essay was written already by 1939.Elias makes it clear that what he
sought to do was to develop a theory of social science which
dismantled the antagonism between the individual (psychology)and
society (sociology),explained it and put an end to it. This leads him
to investigate the autonomy of historicdfigurations. What can be
regarded as Eliass particular finding is the linking of the autonomy
ofstructure (Elias 1987GI: 34)with the character of process (processcharacter) based on this autonomy, which manifests itself only
through the observation of this structure over a substantial period
of time (e.g. the course of a conversation, the growing up of a child,
the development of court society). Today, in the context of
mathematical, physical, biological and socio-historical structure
research, we speak of recursive processes,which comes very close
to Eliass concept of figuration. Elias calls the linkage of autonomy
with the character of process in social structures sociogenesis. With
this concept of sociogenesis Elias seeks to avoid what he considers
to be the errors of structural functionalists, namely the reduction

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of processes to static conditions and the observation of social

system and its structure and functions from a short-term
viewpoint (Elias 1983CP I: 23 1).To clarify his position he discusses
Parsons on this point, albeit in a brief and somewhat schematic
manner. He interprets Parsons as maintaining that emotional
neutraIity (asopposed to emotion) can be seen from two aspects: (a)
from the aspect of the institutionalisation of emotional neutrality
and (b)on the level of personality as the imposition of renunciation
of immediate gratifkation in the interests of disciplined organization
and the longer-run goals of the personality (Elias 1983 CP I: 227,
quoting Parsons). According to Elias, the internal coherence of both
aspects can only be recognised when the object, society, is not seen
in some way as a static image (whichhe supposes to be the case with
Parsonss theory ), but rather as a process. In this way, the hiatus
between individual and society. which must subsequently be
bridged with constructions, is avoided. Such thinking in static
objects and in static divisions of subject and object is itself part of the
modem figuration with its mechanistic science. In Eliass view, the
hour for a Copernican shiftin the social sciences is nigh.The concept
of an individual which exists for him/herself as a homo chusus,
whose relations with society are those of a monad belongs to the
modem figuration which has created an emotionally controlled
person capable of concealinghis/her impulses in an interiorwhich
has been withdrawn from the view of others. In this way, everyone,
including the sociologist, thinks of him/herself as a homo clausus,
alittle world in himselfwho ultimately exists quite independently of
the great world outside, [and this] determines the image of man in
general. Every other human being is likewise seen as a homo clausus;
his core, his being, his true self appears likewise as something
divided within him by an invisible wall from everything outside,
including every other human being (Elias 1983 CPI:249).
Any enquiry into social and individual processes and their
interdependence must, according to Elias, be based on two
principles of investigation, namely:
the transformation of both the personality structure and the entire social structure.
This task demands, within a smaller radius, psychogenetic investigations aimed at
grasping the whole field of individual psychological energies,the structure and form
of the more elementary no less than of the more self-steering functions. Within a
larger radius, the exploration of civilizing processes demands a long-range
perspective, soclogenetk investigations of the overall structure, not only of a single
state society but of the social field formed by a speciflc group of interdependent
societies, and of the sequential order of its evolution (Elias 1982 CPII: 287-8).

From this point of view Elias treats historical material, manuals on

manners of succeeding centuries from the middle ages on, working

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on the assumption that, especially for the courtier, these are nothing
other than direct organs of social life (Elias 1983CS: 105).Together
with other material relating to the history of culture, they permit an
insight into the transformation in attitude to natural human needs,
the introduction of regulated use of cutlery, beginning with the
replacement of the dagger used to carve the roast with a round blunt
knife, or changing behaviour in the bed chamber. I t is the Eormation
of islands of court society in the middle of, yet cut off from the rest
of society, which provide the impulse for such transformations. The
civilization of manners and customs begins with this narrow circle
of courtiers, and spreads slowly to the whole of society, from top to
bottom. The process of concentration, which amounts to the
monopolisation of power, results in the demarcation of the frontier
between the upper and lower levels of society, and in the
intensification of social ties within court society.
While in much of his first volume Elias expands on the concept of
civilization, on the different aspects and areas on the civilizing
process and on the antagonism of civilization and culture in
Germany, in his second volume he treats the sociogenesisand
psychogenesis of civilization. He reconstructs the stages from
knightly society to court society at royal courts. After the systems of
alliance and ties of fealty characteristic of knighthood, the
elimination struggles between the fairly evenly distributed and
equally powerful territorial lords result in the formation of
preponderant centres of power, of kingdoms, which by means of the
accumulation of land and a monopoly of the administration ofjustice
and of taxation, leads to the sociogenesis of t$e formation of states
(see e.g. Elias 1982 CPII: 15-30).
With the rise of the cities, based on
the development of production and the circulation of money, the
social system becomes more complex: The more, in other words, the
work processes and the totality of functions in a society become
differentiated, the longer and more complex the chains of individual
actions which must interlock for each action to fuifil its social
purpose, the more clearly one specific characteristic of the central
organ emerges: its role as supreme co-ordinator and regulatorfor the
f u n c t i o w differentiatedjiguration at large (Elias 1982 CP 11: 163).
This supreme central organ is the king, to whom falls the function of
a supreme regulating organ. It appropriates it by virtue of the size
of its possessions accumulated in the course of the struggles, and its
monopoly control of army and taxes (Elias 1982 CP 11: 166).
Inasmuch as the king extends his monopoly of power vis-a-visthe
nobility, the urban bourgeoisie is strengthened. At this point,
however, this bourgeoisie, the objective ally of the king, must be
restrained vis-a-vis the knightly feudal lords. It is under the king
who, by means of the royal mechanism (Elias 1982 CP II:171)

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manages to play one force off against the other, that the transition
to the absolute state is completed. in which the cities are
incorporated. While some individual members of the bourgeoisie are
able to advance to administrative positions in the new absolutist
state and will make up the meagre stratum of administrativenobility.
fromthe broad mass of the landed aristocracy there arises a stratum
of nobles which can counterbalance the upper bourgeoisie in wealth
and Influence, the courtly nobility. Just as earlier, when the
bourgeoisie was weaker than the aristocracy, posts in the royal
administration had been made a bourgeois monopoly with the kings
help, now that the nobility is weakening, the court positions, likewise
with royal assistance, become a preserve of the nobility (Elias 1982
CP 11: 193).In this way, the earlier figuration of the noble knights,
who, dispersed over the country, settled their conflicts by force, with
the duel as the ultimate ratio, and who in their demonstrativeness
and in the unambiguousness of their feelings towards each other
established both friendly relations and enmity, finally gave way to
another figuration, that of the monopolisation of power. This
characterises the king and his state, a state out of which grows, by
means of the formation of public monopolies (taxation,etc.). the early
Through this process, the
modem state (Elias 1982 CP 11: 200-1).
human web is more and more characterised by increasing social
interdependence. For this reason, it is now important that the
feelings of the individual be restrained, firstly because the direct
articulation of antagonisms can lead dangerously close to violent
conflict, and secondly and more importantly because only with such
emotional restraint and self-discipline can ambivalence and the
multi-layered character of relationships be maintained. Self-control,
however, is required also of the king.
The vast human network that Louis Xnr rules has its own momentum and its own
centre of gravity which he must respect. It costs immense effort and self-control to
preserve the balance of people and groups and, by playing on the tensions, to steer
the whole. The c e n M functionarys ability to govern the whole human network
largely in his personal interest is only seriousiy restricted when the balance on which
he is poised tilts sharply in favour of the bourgeoisie, and a new social balance with
new axes of tension is established. Only then do personal monopolies begin to
become public monopolies in an institutional sense. In a long series of elimination
contests, in a gradual centralization of the means of physical violence and taxation,
in conjunction with a constantly increasing division of functions and the rise of
professional bourgeois classes, French society is organized step by step in the form
of a state (Ellas 1982 CP Ik201).

Paris becomes the centre of acourtly aristocracy embracingWestern

Europe which has dependencies in all the other courts, and
offshoots in all the other circles which claimed to belong to Society,

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notably the upper stratum of the bourgeoisie and to some extent even
broader layers of the middle class;
Here were created the models of more pacifkd social intercourse which more or less
all classes needed, following the transformation of European society at the end of the
Middle Ages: here the coarser habits, the wilder, more uninhibited customs of
medieval society with its warrior upper class, the corollaries of an uncertain,
constantly threatened life, were soflened, polished and civilized.The pressure of
court life, the vying for the favour of the prince or the great:then more generally. the
necessity to distinguish oneself from others and to fight for opportunities with
relatively peaceful means, through intrigue and diplomacy, enforced a constraint on
the effects, a self-disciplineand self-control, a peculiarly courtly rationality which at
first made the courtier appear to the opposing bourgeoisie of the eighteenth century,
above all in Germany but also in England, as the epitome of the man of reason (Elias
1982 CP 11: 7).

The age of the figurationof court society is that of observationas selfobservation, as Elias shows with reference to the French moralists.
Within the framework of this reconstruction of figurations up to the
court society of the age of absolutism, it is possible to understand the
examples given in the first volume both of the remoulding of the
economy of drives and the civilizingbehaviour of the upper class, and
of the formation of a pre-national society.
In the courtly-aristocratic society those commands and
prohibitions were fashioned or at least prepared that are perceptible
even today, national differences notwithstanding, as something
common to the West. Partly from them the Western peoples, despite
all their differences, have taken the common stamp of a specific
civilization (Elias 1982 CP 11: 7-8). Here, networks of
interdependencies take shape, which, spreading through the play of
delimitation and imitation, and extended in the bourgeois society of
trade and manufacturing by the addition of specific self-restraints,
result in behaviour which is both detached and rationally functional.
It becomes clear that the work of Norbert Elias cannot be read as a
mere cultural history (e.g. history of manners) but as a theoreticalempirical study of society and personality structures.
Later. as the conveyor belts running through his existence grow longer and more
complex, the individuallearns to control himself more steadily: he is now more tightly
bound by his functional dependence on the activities of an ever-larger number of
people, he ip much more restricted in his conduct, in his chances of directly satisfying
his drives and passions. Life becomes in a sense less dangerous, but also less
emotional or pleasurable, at least as f a r as the direct release of pleasure is concerned.
And for what is lacking in everyday life a substitute is created in dreams, in books
and pictures. So, on their way to becoming courtiers, the nobility read novels of
chivalry: the bourgeois contemplate violence and erotic passion in Nms ( E h s 1982
CP 11: 241-21,

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Where large groups of people are interdependent and where physical

force is eliminated,the restraints which people impose on each other
are, in the long term, transformed into self-constraints. Where,
however, the suppression of fearless and direct satisfaction of pentup drives has become habitual, the result is that people feel restless
and dissatisfied:
precisely because the person affected can only graufy a part of his inclinations and
impulses in modified form. for example in fantasy, in looking-on and overhearing, in
day-dreams or dreams. And sometimes the habituation to affect-inhibition goes so
far - constant feelings of boredom or solitude are examples of this -that the individual
is no longer capable of any form of fearless expression of the modified affects, or of
direct gratiflcation of the repressed drives. Particular branches of drives are as it were
anaesthetized in such cases by the specific structure of the social framework in which
the child grows up. Under the pressure of the dangers that their expression incurs
in the childs social space, they become suriounded with automatic fears to such an
extent that they can remain deaf and unresponsive throughout a whole lifetime (Elias
1982 CP 11: 243;italics added).

At this point, Elias flnds himselfextremely close to an historian of the

Annales School, Lucien Febvre, who in 1941 made the following
observation on the subject La sensibilit&et Ihistoue:
Antagonism quickly arose between emotion and the figure presented. For it was
quickly established that, on the one hand, emotions tend to impede the functioning
of intellectual activity. On the other hand, it soon became clear that the best means
of suppressing an emotion was to recognise exactly its motive or causes and to
achieve distance in the observation ofself[...1 To make a poem or a novel out of pain
was doubtless, for m a n y artists. a method of anaesthetisationofeeellng (Febvre 1988:
95; italics added; cf. Burguiere 1987: 46)

Self-restraint and self-distance are necessary requirements for an

autonomy of the individual through which he/she becomes capable
of participating in social encounters. Elias compares the concept of
an absolute, and not merely relative autonomy of the individual with
the geocentric world view of the pre-Copernican age. Just as, in this
world view, the earth is motionless and all else revolves around it, so
we tend inasmuch as we are part of the figuration of bourgeois
society, to think in terms of static objects and subjects and of static
relations. Indeed, the possibility of our participation in society
depends on this seclusion, restraint and levelling of our emotions.
That is why, in order to be able to view this peculiarity of our
constitution, we must gain distance from ourselves through the
observation of the socio-psychogenetic process. Eppur st muove,
Galileo is supposed to have said: we must imagine a dynamic
structure of which we are part, but which penetrates us.

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It was not simply new discoveries ..that were needed to make possible the transition
from a geocentric to a heliocentric world-picture. What was needed above all was an
increased capacity in men for self-detachment in thought [Elias 1983 CP 1:255).

This formulation recalls Jean Piagets theory of the development of

thought, which differentiates between the egocentric thought of a
small child, which does not think in abstractions, and the
decentra2ised thought of an older child and of adults who recognise
not onlythe objectivity ofentities, but can also thinkofthe1 as object.
This is in turn the precondition of a capacity for decentralised
thought (Piaget 1977).Elias speaks of a sociogeneticlaw, according
to which a child must pass through some stages of the civilizing
process before becoming able to achieve distance from itself (Elias
1983 CP 1:xiii)
In addition, Eliassnotion accordingto which such tools of thought
as were developed tended to be related more to external objects than
to self, and classical epistemology dealt much more with the problem
area of the object than with that of the subject recalls a great
successor of Copernieus, viz. Kant, who placed the cognitive
apparatus of the subject at the centre of his investigation. It is
possible to see in the theory of the psychogenetic process, as
developed by Elias, the last of the great humiliations, after
Copemicus, Darwin, Marx, and k e u d . The Zis not only not master
in his own house (Freud),but is not Z at all, rather a process which
sees itself as a static, identical I; the part of a dynamic process
structure whose attributes of process correlate to those of the whole
network of interdependencies. Indeed, in his theoretical-empirical
studies, Elias makes the Z a non-existent entity, that is, an I which
is still capable of resisting too strong a Super-Ego. One of his main
themes is the changes of the We-I-Balance (Elias 1987 GI:207).
Criticism of the approach of Norbert Ellas
In general, the reception of Eliass work in West Germany has been
mild, constructive and understanding. Indeed, some articles give the
impression that sociology has found its Newton (Greiner 1988).
There are, however, some works which do address questions to
Eliassapproach and I would like to introduce two of those which also
mark a decade of intense discussion.
The concept and structure of The Civilizing Process is attacked by
Wehowsky in his article Making ourselves more flexible than we are
-reflections on Norbert Elias (1978).While Freud still assaulted the
creation of an irrational (religious) fear, the aim of which was to
preserve the renunciation of drives beyond what was culturally
necessary, Elias, by contrast, explains this renunciation by a theory

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of unavoidable fear which did not require any religious basis, since
it is an anthropological necessary result of the dependencies of the
conditions of human communal living. Inasmuch as Elias thus
rejects rational discourse on the necessity and justlfcation of the
suppression of drives as ultimately irrelevant, the conflict between
what human drives demand on the one hand, and society on the
other, is viewed with unassailable fatalism and debate is thus closed.
The question of the historical possibilities of a sociability freed to a
greater extent from fear and corresponding more benignly to the
needs of the individual, rather than being emphatically pursued, is
pessimistically abandoned (Wehowsky 1978:68).
Wehowsky goes on to accuse Elias of explaining introspection by
means of the behaviourist concept of conditioning and of neglecting
the psychogenesis of the early bourgeoisiewith its ascetic regimen of
very hard work and its drive-suppressing rationalisation of life. Yet,
there are sufficient points and observations in the work of Elias
which, systematically expanded, permit not just an explanation of
psychological deep structures in terms of historical sociopsychology, but further, the historicisation even of Freuds
psychoanalytical theories, whose work, after all, refers to the
bourgeoisie of the late 19th century (Elias 1983 CP I:302).
At this point, I would like to deal with a much publicized challenge
to Eliass thesis of the civilizing process. It is contained in Duerrs
book Nackheit und Scham which appeared in 1988. Duerr is an
ethnologist and philosopher who occupies a critical position close to
that of Paul Feyerabend and whose observations about the mental
deformity of the academic profession do not seem to be totally
unfounded. Using wide-ranging material including numerous
illustrations, Duerr seeks to show that the premise on which Eliass
thesis is based - that of a less civilised and habitually controlled
behaviour of the pre-modem man of the Middle Ages - is wrong.
Duerr does not merely adduce examples from the late Middle Ages
and early modem period. He also provides evidence for his thesis of
anthropological constancy and universals in human behauiour,
especially regarding shame and embarrassment, from ancient times
and, above all. from tribal societies. With reservations, Duerr could
be called the German equivalent to Alan Macfarlanewho argued that
England had been in crucial respects (including those of human
behaviour) a modem society, at least since the 14th century, and
therefore most accounts of the transition to modernity were
misconceived (Macfarlane 1978. 1986).
What can be said about this criticism by Duerr? It is in any event
true that the texts which Elias finds from a certain period onward,
and which refer to the prohibition of and disdain for the ubiquitous
discharge of the products of human metabolism (shitand piss)and

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of similar functions do speak a clear language. Perhaps a more

careful reading of these texts will offer a way out of this
misunderstanding. which Elias acknowledged to Duerr (Elias
1988).Thus, there might always have been a regulation of places of
defecation in villages and towns, which, though silent and
undocumented, was thoroughly effective. However, with the
increasing density of the population and of the network of
interdependencies, it must have been necessary to make fresh
regulations governing such places (similarly also for washhouses
and bathhouses), as the old ones simply became incompatible, not
just with this density, but also with a mentality hostile to the body.
In response to Duerrs criticism, Elias could, using his material,
easily sort out this confusion of a relative, process-related
transformation in attitudes to the spatial structure of places of
defecation and cleaning with an absolute transformation from
unashamed nakedness to shame, up to and including Victorian
regulation of dress.
Moreover, Duerr also emphasises the invisible dress constituted
by early lessons in glance control in those tribal societies whose
members ran around more or less unclothed. Up to a point, the early
modem pictorial material produced by Elias which shows naked
men and women touching and putting their arms around each other
can be explained by this difficulty in approaching the subject: when
both density and the claims on emotional discipline of interdependency networks had reached a certain point, the traditional
glance culture can no longer have been sufficient to master the
challenge to human drives which lay in the unclothed body.
Nakedness, like publicdefecation now became a central point of
interest. At about the same time, at the latest after the discovery of
America, we find the first counter-images of a paradisical, free life of
savages(Kohl 1981).
Such controversies can only be cleared up if these questions are
dealt with in detail and without preconceptions. Perhaps this path
may lead to a theory which can fuse both the specific attributes of
modem society in Western Europe a s opposed to all other earlier
societies with anthropologicalconstants, thus granting a place both
to Duerrs thesis and to Eliass theory.

Some speculations about Ellass vision of man and society

At this point, I propose to touch on a number of points with respect
to Eliass vision of man and of society. Eliass work stands in the
tradition of an Immanuel Kant. who hoped that the unfolding
bourgeois society would bring the cultivation, civilization and
normalisation of man no matter how great his animal proclivities

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might be (Kant 1982,Vol. XI). or in the tradition of a Nietzsche, who

hoped that the mechanisationof life would result in a higher form
of human being. We can also recall Marx, who in his Grundrisse
expressed the hope that the fully trained and educated human could
keep up with machinery (Kutmer 1986: 99). Elias himself
frequently uses the metaphor of the machine in order to characterise
the dynamic interlocking of interdependencies (cf. The CourlSociety;
GeseUschuj?derZndiuiduen 1987:74 for qualifications on this point).
For Elias it is beyond dispute that inasmuch as we consider
ourselves not to have completed the process of civilization, we must
recognise that there is no possibility of impeding or changing the
direction of this process (cf. GI 1987:73). Rather, we must attempt
to achieve a balance between inuoluementand detachment.There is
no such thing as a good first and a bad second nature which takes
either a rudderless and chaotic, or a guided course in which acquired
habitual self-distance turns out to be of help. I t needs to be added,
however, that Elias does see the danger of a complete destruction of
civilization by world catastrophies like a nuclear war (Elias 1987ED).
He makes use of Edgar Allan Poes image of the two fishermen in his
classic story A descent into the maelstrom (about 1840). One
fisherman goes under because he clings panic-stricken to the old,
the boat, (geocentric world-picture) while the other brother, by
means of distanced observation, finds a way of outwitting the
maelstrom, by discovering regularities in the movements and a
structure in the process (heliocentricworld-picture) (Elias 1987, ED:
79).
If the great image of the maelstrom is taken seriously, then Eliass
treatment of it acquires symptomatic character. He does not ask
about the origins andjustifkations of todays maelstrom societywith
its now autonomous social machinery, its powerful cartels
controlling consciousness and mentality and its military and
industrial complexes: for him the maelstrom in the Tyske fjord is only
the occasion for meditation on the positive application of the
apparatus of self-restraint and of the disciplining of emotion to
control material and human nature which enables man to survive.
Poes maelstrom, however, could also be read as a great historicophilosophical metaphor for late modem society, which is typified by
the expansion of both its functions and its power to control. I t is
possible that, in the early modem city and nation states with their
manufacturing capitalism, something was begun which only today
has been fully completed. It seems as if today there is no longer any
need for the individual who operates her/his network of
interdependencies in a conscious and disciplined manner. The
historically acquired autonomy of the Ego tends to hinder
increasingly required functronclr reactions. Societies no longer

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construct interdependencies between human beings, but rather

needs which can be satisfied in precast structures. It seems further,
as if people exist in these networks merely alongside each other - as
in the fast moving current of the maelstrom.
If it is possible to demonstrate the tendency towards the expansion
in the early modem period of role and controlling power and of the
preparation of materials and human beings, then both court society
in the absolutist age and the civilization process as described by
Elias appear as factors with a relay function: they are determined by
this tendency and reinforce it in a manner specific to the condition
of society at a certain stage of development. It would be possible to
conclude that inasmuch as Elias works out the predetermined and
reinforcing factors of a certain phase in the comprehensive history
of late modem society, he does not achieve any recognisable distance
to this comprehensive history of development. He suppressed the
maelstorm, where he speaks of it, or perhaps it would be more
accurate to say that he makes it appear harmless. This may be
underlined by two quotations from Gesellschaft der Zndiuiduen:"only
with a certain distance - it is true - only if ephemeral wishes and
personal bias are set aside, can the order of historical transformation
be revealed to him who seeks it, with its own inevitabilitywith which,
at a certain point of tension, the interaction of human beings breaks
out beyond its bounds, and whether in the direction of further and
more comprehensive integration, or even of relative disintegration
leads to a victory of centrifugal forces". And:
If this more comprehensive view reveals in the first instance principally the force with
which the current of history presses on in a particular direction, so the actor at the
centre of this current realises much sooner how manifold ... are the paths and ways
by which structuresand tensions ... can go beyond themselves to become structures
of a different kind. History then seems like one of those mighty streamswhich, though
they invariably roll on in the same direction, have not yet got a permanent, given river
bed before them, but rather a wide terrain... (Elias 1987, GI: 73 & 74)

Today, however, this stream seems to be circling on itself, without

history and excluding the history in which, through critical help in
shaping and intervention, human beings participate: society is the
maelstrom in whom for thinkers such as Baudrillard (1983)and
Virilio (e.g. 1983) acceleration and stagnation coincide; a
peacefulness in which, for a time, it is possible to live in posthistorical
cosiness. To this maelstrom it is necessary to adopt a direct critical
approach which is both theoretical and practical. It can no longer be
described using the concept of figuration, unless society's largescale machinery and power complexes are defined in systematic
theory as unity participating in the figuration. This is incompatible
with the concept of movement, of the process, as these large units do

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not act and react like human individuals in this manner. It is rather
the case that they operate in a field of possibilities of complexity
reduction, into which linguistic social moments of current societies,
idioms and institutions can enter with a reductional function of
social reality, e.g. bureaucratic terminology, money, truth - it is, so
to speak, the black hole in the depth of the maelstrom.

Roots of the Psycho-Sociological Historical Approach

Understanding a theory can mean two things: on the one hand,
understanding how it functions in the treatment of the objects and
issues which it describes and explains, and on the other hand,
understanding in what context it is set. Moreover, a theory always
has an addressee. To a much more significant degree than natural
sciences, which are oriented towards techniques of life preservation
through work on natural materials, the humanities and social
sciences are context-related. It may be supposed that Elias was
familiar with the great social scientists of the 19th century, such as
Comte and Marx, and likewisewith such major 20th century authors
as Sigmund Freud, Max Weber, Georg Simmel and George Lukacs.
He was personally known to Alfred Weber and Karl Jaspers. He
agreed with Karl Mannheims view that the special phenomena of
socio-historical life should be investigated, not in isolation, but
rather in their interdependence (Mannheim 1940;Frisby 1983).
With this view, during his second Heidelberg phase, he soon meets
with Karl Mannheim who, trained on Lukacs, does not seek to
investigate the special phenomena of socio-historicallife in isolation,
but rather in their interaction, only recognising the totality of their
coherence when rather than topical causes, typical processes of a
general nature are recognised (Blomert 1988: 137).Mannheims
ideas must have had a particular resonance with a man who had
already been disturbed in the anatomy hall by the discrepancy
between the philosophical-idealistic and the anatomicalphysiological image of man and who had long been searching for an
all-embracing context.
The main works of Elias are relatively free of references. This does
not, however, sign@ that his theoretical-empirical concept arose in
a intellectual vacuum. Indeed, a closer look at the historical
intellectual context indicates that work like that of Elias has deeper
roots than has previously been assumed. In a stimulating
discusses the discovery of Eliass books
contribution Rehberg (1979)
and the realisation of the existence of a suppressed tradition of
theory which came to light through their re-publication. He names
the contextual conditions of the genesis as well as of the rediscovery
of Eliass work. Elias is still seen as belonging to the same line of

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tradition as Huizinga,Weber and Freud (Goudsblom 1984)as well as

of Horkheimer and Adomo (Bogner 1987).
I would like to draw attention to a further context of his work which
is not immediately obvious and which has not yet been noted. I refer
to the ethnopsychological and cultural-historical work done at the
University of Leipzig at the turn of the century. This work was carried
out at the Psychological Institute under the influence of Wilhelm
Wundt, who also attracted reputable sociologists and historians, for
example Durkheim and Malinowski (Burke 1980:23)and Huizinga
(Huizinga 1947: 30). The Institut fur Kultur- u n d
Universalgeschichte was a further centre, founded in 1909 by Karl
Lamprecht. The French historian Henri Pirenne was a frequent
visitor (Weintraub 1966:161-207).Lamprecht and Wundt refer
constantly to each others work.
Lamprechts legacy is of works which down to the present day are
controversial,though they contain a potential for stimulation which
should not be underestimated. In his contribution to Enhuicklung
des historischen Sinnes in DeutschZand, he expressly emphasises
that history should be seen and investigated as human
psychogenesis (Lamprecht 1912:68/71).It must also be the object
of the modem science of history to uncover the psychic mechanism
of the transition from one cultural age to another (Lamprecht 1920:
78).Although the history (of culture) already existed, what was
missing was in particular the concept of the genetic in a different
form from the isolating and individualising one of Leibniz
(Lamprecht 1974: 282). For Lamprecht, historical events and
changes are not of interest in themselves. What maintains our
interest is the reaction on the character of the general personality,
on the psyche itself (Lamprecht 1906:37).
Karl Lamprecht writes in his book E i n t g in das historische
Denken, which appeared in 1912,that without an exact knowledge
of the particular cultural conditions and the spiritual life of a certain
age, the past cannot be understood. In the second part of his book
he describes by means of a very graphic example The Psychic
Distance (the title of his first chapter) as it has developed over the
centuries. He tells the story, set at the beginning ofthe 1 l t h century,
of Emperor Conrad 11, who gives expression to all of his passions and
temperament with both body andvoice.Lamprecht tells this story in
order to make clear the complete differencein emotion and spiritual
inclination from the 11th century as compared with today
(Lamprecht 1912:57).Three things are contained in this example:
(a)the psychic distance which, over the centuries, people gain in
relation to their own feelings and internal drives and (b)at the same
time the distance which, by restraint of these inner drives, they have
gained in relation to other people. Lamprecht also had in mind (c)the

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psychic distance which the present day investigator possesses in

relation to past centuries. Psychic distance, the history of control of
emotions is also the theme of Norbert Elias. He does not, however,
merely demonstrate these historical phenomena, but rather, going
beyond these insights, tries to demonstrate the mechanisms under
which what he calls the civilizing process can come into being.
There are, however, further points of contact between the
approach of the Leipzig school and that of Eliass work. The attentive
reader will have noticed the frequency of certain concepts, in
particular in the key passages of The Civilizing Process and in The
Court Society. I refer to such concepts as figure (Gestalt),structure
and whole (Ganzheitf.Elias writes that the court societies of the 17th
and 18th centuries are organs of bourgeois society. Nevertheless,
many of the forms [Elias uses here the term Gestalt in his German
writing. B.N.] that the court society of those centuries imparted to
people and their environment (...) live on in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries (Elias 1983CS: 113; italics added). Organs here
shape a new form of society, while the Gestalt of an older one
continues to live. In The Ciuilizing Process Elias speaks of the
relations of the fwrctionhg layers in individual human beings.
It is they, these relationships within man between the drives and &ects controlled
and the built-in controlling agencies, whose structure changes in the course of
civilizing process. in accordance with the changing structure of the relationships
between individual human beings, in society at large. In the course of this process,
to put it briefly and all too simply, consciousnessbecomes less permeable by drives,
and drives become less permeable by consciousness.(Elias 1982 CP 11: 286)

The terms used by Elias in his German writings are not easily
translated, as is evident from the German passage:
Sie aber, diese Beziehungen im einzelen Menschen selbst, und damit sowohl die
Gestalt seiner Triebsteuerung, wie die Gestalt seiner lch- und Uber-ichsteuerung. sie
wandelt sich als Ganzes im Laufe des Zivilisationsprozesses entsprechend einer
s p d s c h e n Transformation der Beziehungen zwischen den Menschen, der
gesellschaftlichen Beziehungen (Elias 1976 PZ II:390: italics added).

Gestalt and Structure of self-regulation should not be imagined to be

somethingin any sense existing or functioning in isolation from one
another. The civilizingprocess can only be understood in the context
of an investigation aimed a t grasping the whole field of individual
psychological energies (...I and demands a long-range perspective
(...) of the overall structure (Elias 1982 CP II:287).
Here, too, Elias concurs with Lamprecht (indirectly. since there is
no reference in Eliass work which indicates that he knew of
Lamprechtswork). who works on the assumption that the spiritual
life of a particular age always forms a whole [Ganzes,B.N.] in itself,

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a unity from which not even the effect of the least important human
act could be removed without robbing it of its character (Lamprecht
1912:85).
The social fabric and its historical transformation of figure (Elias
uses the term GestaltwandeO are not chaotic but possess, even in
phases of greatest unrest and disorder, a clear pattern and structure
(Elias ibid.: 288). Although Elias does not refer in his work to any
Gestalt psychologist, the quotation contains one of the key
statements of the Gestalt-theory (Wertheimer 197 1 :166-17 1) In his
book Gesellschaftderlndiuiduen (Elias 1987:37),Elias refers to that
perfect example of entity(Ganzheit),which is another key statement
of the Gestalt psychologists, according to which the melody is more
than the sum of the notes. His point is to demonstrate that society
should always be investigated and assessed in its structure.
Practically identical ideas are found in the writings of Lamprecht
(Lamprecht 1974: 263).This metaphor for entity leads, however, to
a further conclusion which, for Elias, is of prime significance: the
result of human actions for the development of the historical process
can seldom be anticipated by humans. Accordingly, the social
process does not take a predetermined course nor can it be
completely planned in its outcome. The same point is stressed by
Lamprecht when he writes that which is more than the sum of
individual factors is not the desired product of those who bring it
about: it is rather the case that, going beyond that, it comes about,
as it were, through the special impact of a psychic causality. Those
who cause it can take account of it in their actions, albeit
unconsciously: they do not create it intentionally, however much
they may be influenced by it (Lamprecht 1974:263). (Here, again, it
is easy to understand why at the height of the student movement in
1969 - with the slogan take the cause of history in your own hands
- Elias could not yet be a successful author.)
However, just as it is hardly possible to plan the socio-historical
process - according to Elias, civilization is a blindprocess - in its
effects on human beings and on society, so it is hardly possible for
it to descend into chaos. Just as a feverish body retains its order and
structure, so also the social fabric retains it in phases of great social
unrest. We can see that here, using the terminology of the Gestalt
psychology and conturation, a medically trained social scientist
works his way towards a psycho- and socio-genetic investigation of
the social trmfomration ofmwes (Gestalt) as civilizing process.
The psychologists Max Wertheimer (1810-19431, who worked at
the University of Frankfurt at the same time as Elias, Kurt KofTka
(1885-1941),Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967)and Kurt Lewin (18901947),to name but a few, published important works on the subject
of Gestalt psychology in the period, and it can be assumed that Elias

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was familiar with the works of Wertheimer, if not with the other
named scholars as well.
There is one work which merits special mention at this point,
inasmuch as parts of it can be read as a precursor of Eliass psychoand sociogenetical investigation. In 1915, Felix Krueger, the
successor of Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig, borrowing
partly from Wundt (thought criticizing him) and Lamprecht. but also
from Max Weber and Georg Simmel, published his book iiber
Ent wickl ungs -psychologie. lhre sachliche und geschichtliche
Nohoendigkeit. J u s t as Elias calls for a historical sociology, so
Krueger calls for a historical psychology: psychology and sociology,
as well as history, must be regarded as common aspects which
cannot be separated from each other in social science. Krueger
accuses the psychologists of his day of neglecting nothing as much
as they neglected the social and historical conditionality of all mental
happenings. He complains that those engaged in psychological
research had become unfamiliar with the concept of both
development and society (Krueger 1915: 15). He takes issue with
experimental psychology inasmuch as in describing and explaining
psychic happenings, less account is taken of none of the sociogenetic conditioning complexes than of the economic, although in
reality, the adult civilized human, this main target of psychological
research, is influenced in his psycho-physical behaviour by
economic factors at every step (Krueger 1915:15).Like Elias he is
extremely careful not to cut the individual off from society and thus
from history (Krueger 1915:217; Niestroj 1988:256).
Krueger differentiates between the insights of historical
development, which are related to particular places and periods of
time, and development theory, which is always a science of laws
(Gesetzeswissenschafl. The particular problem which, more than
is] that of gaining a more than
any other, requires elucidation ...I
historical scientiAc insight into mental developments, that is to say,
one based on the necessity of laws (Krueger 1915:35). We can see
this division of what is unique from such superhistorical absolutes
as targets of knowledge as the two walls between which Elias
establishes a theory which makes use of the concept ofpsycho- and
sociogenesis which Krueger as well as Larnprecht demanded, going
on to develop them theoretically and empirically in a descriptivefunctional context, whereas Krueger, in the works which he
published 15 years later, ended with the concept of the popular
community,which he hoped would be realised in national socialism.
Eliass approach enables him to avoid such a failure from the
outset. His Gesellscha.. der Indiuiduen shows that he starts by
posing exactly the same questions as Krueger had done. The
direction which his research takes is that which leads to the

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autonomy of the psychology of the individual and of the psychology

and/or sociology of society, because they seek to treat the single
individual as something completely isolated, that which seeks to
elucidate his psychic functions independent of any others (Elias
1987, GI:20). The theoretical hiatus between society and the
individual must evidently be understood in the context of the
contradictions between social demands and individualneeds, which
is one of the permanent symptoms of our life. Even the programmes
which are offered to us today with a view of ending the existing
difficulties appear, when viewed exactly, yet again to seek to acquire
the one at the cost of the other (Elias ibid: 24). This was written at
a time when, in Germany, an end was put to these difficultieswith
the slogan: Youare nothing, your nation is everything.
If we ask about the capacity and function speciflc to human
societies which determine the relation of one part to the other parts
with a view to attaining a single entity, then we will find this answer
in Elias: it is self-regulationin the medium of language. Like Herder
and Humboldt, Krueger had already drawn attention to this
important function of language (Krueger 1915: 98ff.).In learning a
language the child adopts the possibilities of self-regulation laid
down by cultural patterns which, compared with the reflexive and/
or instinctive reactions of animals, manifest a greatly expanded
range of mutation and adaptation in different kinds of relationships.
This is the precondition of the fundamental historicity of human
society (Elias 1987 GI: 58).
I have thus listed some important steps which permit a
reconstruction of the genesis of Eliass theory of the civilizingprocess
in the context of his time: the perception of the separateness of
absolute philosophical thoughts and bodies, of individuals and
society, the acknowledgement of dynamic entity of living (including
social) bodies, Mannheims category of totality and the concepts of
configuration, structure and of entity.
The names Lamprecht, Wundt, Wertheimer and Krueger do not
appear in Eliass Notizen zum Lebenslaufnor in Hermann Kortes
biography: Norbert El&. Das Werden eines Menschenwissenschaftlers ( 1988),or in any other work. Yet they provide a connecting
link for such attempts at reconstruction. The real contribution of
Elias, the idea that impels him to further thought, is that of the
historicity of self-regulation in that entity which Elias sees as the
changeable figuration of man, itself historical, and with which he
goes far beyond the works published on socio- and psychogenesis up
to that time. Apart from this achievement,Elias has inspired a whole
student and social scientist generation in West Germany. He has
turned into a household name, attracting the attention of scholars
and the public.

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Acknowledgements
I a m grateN to Brigitte Wehland-Rauschenbach, Angelika Ebrecht,
Reinhard Blomert, Siegfried Jaeger, Heinrich Kutzner and Michael Schroter
for reading and helping to revise the original version of this paper. An earlier
version of Rootsof the Psycho-SociologicalHistoricalApproach in Germany
was presented at the conference on Psychology and History at the
University of Eichstatt in April 1988. This article was translated by Philip
Devlin.
Abbreviations
CP I - The Civilizing Process, Volume 1
CP I1 - The Civilizing Process, Volume 2
cs - m c o u r t s o c i e t y
HF -HumanFiguration
GI
- Die Gesellscha. der Indwiduen
PZ II - iiber den prozess der ziuilisatlon, Vol. 2
ED - Engagement und Distanzierung
Full publication details are given below.
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