Science as Interdisciplinary Analysis of Temporary and Unstable Features, and Norbert Elias’ Relational Perspective of Fear, Violence and State

Abstract

This article aims to reflect on some views on science by Social Theory and Cultural Analysis, which have had their resonance across the biological, physical and social sciences on the topic, without easily fitting into the dominant sociological tradition. For this purpose, the focus of the analysis is upon the contributions made in social theory and cultural analysis by the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz as opposed to the logical positivism, and by the German sociologist Norbert Elias as confirmed by the Belgian physical chemist Ilya Prigogine. By defining culture as a shared system of intersubjective symbols and meanings, a science of culture has been considered in terms of interdisciplinary analysis of temporary and unstable features; little–predictable at all levels of physical evolution, social organization, and psychological process. In contrast to classical science, whose views emphasized stability and order, Elias has found in nature the relations between biological, physical and cultural processes and to him that explains how nature, society, and individuals are interdependent with each other. By analyzing Elias’ view on science, I will identify the strengths and limitations of his Figurational Sociology, where the real investigation to capture long-term figurational dynamics and developments is achieved only with the right degree of detachment from (rather than involvement into) social life and political commitment. The civilizing process remains the perfect object to study the relationship among power, knowledge, emotion, and behavior over time. The concept of civilization as a matter of perception, of natural science as temporary, strongly influenced by the external environment, and shaped by cultural receptivity to its dominant ideas, may be of particular interest in terms of policy evaluation and management of the res publica. Elias’ relational perspective of fear, violence, and state is vital in the processual approach to the formation of class, caste, and of urban space. And rather than a laudatory or carpingly nihilist speech–which history shows it can foster cruel behaviour across a nation– critical thinking should be seriously considered and encouraged by experts of media, academia and political communication, to avoid potential barbarisms in the twenty-first Century, in developing, second or first world countries.