The civilizing processNorbert Elias
The civilizing process
by Norbert Elias · first published 1982
10mentions
2recommended by
5HN commenters
2012–2017first – last mentioned
40% recommend60% neutral
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
…not going to discuss them here. For a beautiful demonstration of how we've gradually internalized things over history to the level where they seem "natural" to us, see Norbert Elias's seminal work, The Civilizing Process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civilizing_Process)
on “Income Inequality: Empirical View” ↗…that women don't have the (biological) mental faculties to be good doctors or lawyers. The deeper and more internalized cultural norms are, the longer the process. There is an amazing book called The Civilizing Process[1] by Norbert Elias that chronicles the gradual social development of disgust. It shows how things we perceive to be visceral are actually the product of social processes. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civilizing_Process
on “Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts” ↗For anyone interested, Norbert Elias (1897-1990) wrote a very enlightening book "The Civilizing Process" describing how these small social structures evolved into States as we know them in Occident [1]. Excerpted from a summary [2]: According to Elias, monopolization, and especially the monopolization…
on “Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful for us” ↗I think most historians would disagree with you. Actually, there's one quite famous study that touches on this topic, The Civilizing Process[1] by Norbert Elias. It is a fascinating work, but debated by most historians. One interesting subtopic there is the internalization of the feeling of disgust. Elias shows how disgust -- which we often…
on “Against Productivity” ↗…but no one is talking about brain implants. Is encouraging certain behaviors like growing wings? Political action has been phenomenally effective over the ages in shaping behavior. Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process[1] (1939) is a wonderful study of how behaviors (and even feelings) we now deem natural are just the result of a long chain of social change. But what matters most isn't underlying sentiments (the feeling…
on “The Strength of Us Versus Them” ↗…murder victims per hundred thousand people in the population per year, have been falling for centuries. Spierenburg attributes this long decline to what the German sociologist Norbert Elias called the “civilizing process” (shorthand for a whole class of behaviors requiring physical restraint and self-control, right down to using a fork instead of eating with your hands or stabbing at your food with a knife), and to the…
on “The Caging of America” ↗It's interesting that you bring up disgust, because that exact reaction is at the core of the seminal work by the sociologist Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process[1]. He traces the evolution of manners through etiquette books (a remarkably enduring genre going back many centuries), and shows how things that evoke a strong digust response in us today were actually…
on “The End of Rationalism: An Interview with John Ralston Saul (2001)” ↗…to yourself, trust yourself, follow your heart, do what feels good.” I'm just reading a book by Norbert Elias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Elias), who, when writing about his theory of the "civilizing process", stated exactly the contrary. More exactly, he's saying that we only listened to our hearts/true self/passions back when we were "un-civilized", like in the Middle Ages, but after the State monopolized…
on “Big data, Google and the end of free will” ↗…one that they had a good track record in fixing. Since everyone are human, they even managed to make the word feminism to be a synonym to the word equal, which seems quite hijacked by new feminism. The Civilizing Process sounds interesting and valuable read, but not sure how it links back to the concept that a powerful group shapes society and culture. Going back to racism, the initial proposition was that the group with…
on “Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts” ↗…of attaining those goals. When people start talking about "new" vs. "old" feminism, I get the sense that they really cherry pick some feminist strategies that they like and some that they don't. > The Civilizing Process sounds interesting and valuable read, but not sure how it links back to the concept that a powerful group shapes society and culture. Only indirectly. The thesis is that the top echelons of society want…
on “Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts” ↗