Elias and the anthropological tradition

Abstract

The impressive work of Norbert Elias displays little knowledge of `other cultures' nor of anthropology in general. But it does promote a comparative method along the lines of Marx and Weber, and this served to encourage such studies in the social sciences, methods which had been rejected by many anthropologists in the 20th century. Elias was interested not only in comparison but in long-term historical change and in what he called `sociogenesis'. The civilizing process is described as having its genesis in the European Renaissance with the increased part played by the state and the disappearance of feudal structures. It is argued that he arbitrarily selects certain aspects of manners, neglects the growth (or continuation) of violence and fails to take account of the `conscience collective' operating in simpler societies, let alone developments in other post-Bronze Age societies. Manners he treats largely in psychological terms of the advance of the highly generalized notion of self-restraint, in which he tries to use Freud for historical purposes. But without precise measurements these questions of `mentality' are too problematic to be examined by texts alone, without direct observation.