Interpersonal Violence as an Intrinsic Part of The Civilizing Process

Abstract

Even though Elias himself does not focus on an explicit theory on violence inThe Civilizing Process, due to his research question on pacific social processes, violence is not generally theoretically excluded. Against this backdrop, and contrary to criticisms regarding a general loss as well as a biological rather than a sociological explanation of violence, and besides theories that explain meso and macro-level violence within Elias’s framework, this article considers interpersonal micro-level violence as an intrinsic part of the civilizing process. Especially by supplementing Elias’s assumptions of drive control and self-constraint with recent neuroscientific findings, it is possible to conceptualize interpersonal micro-level violence as situational exceedance of a subjective threshold of pain. Here, despite a normative civilized frame of behavior, aggression, as a (neuro)biologically-based reactive drive, is no longer controlled by socially learned self-constraint, leading to violence as a subjectively perceived rewarding behavior and socially performed action.

A figurational approach to understanding school climate and peer harassment: Possibilities from Norbert Elias’s work

“…security), as well as knowledge and some other things' (Elias 1984cited in Spierenburg, 2004. Braun (2016) also notes that Elias did not anticipate violence to disappear altogether under modern social conditions, only that drive controls for violence would be better moderated and transferred to other spheres of society, such as sports. Both ideas coincide with Foucault's assertions that power is expressed in every sphere of society and interaction, and that the internalisation of governance is an offsetting of violence, rather than its successor.…”

Elias, ultra-realism and double-binds: Violence in the streets and the state

“…Together, these processes probably produce a dual effect, increasing the propensity for both instrumental and impulsive violence. Recent research has shown how violent acts can contain elements of calculation and impulsivity (Braun, 2019). That is, in such a situation, people may resort to means such as armed robbery to obtain what they cannot gain by legal means; but at the same time an increased level of danger and insecurity in everyday life, such as contemporary austerity, is likely to be associated with more impulsive violence too, of the kind often labelled 'hair-trigger' alertness to danger (Wacquant, 2004).…”

Strukturelle Gewalt – ein analytisch überschätzter Begriff

“…u. a. Braun (2019b); Kersten (2020); Koloma Beck (2011Beck ( , 2015Beck ( , 2017; ; Lindemann (2014Lindemann ( , 2015Lindemann ( , 2017. 19 Vgl.…”