Norbert Elias Civilization Analysis

Norbert Elias suggested that 'civilization ' involves the transformation of the human habitus so that violence of all sorts is gradually subjected to greater and more sophisticated forms of management and control. In the course of European history, Elias maintained, people gradually experienced a 'civilizing process. ' According to him, uninhibited violence came to be domesticated in the course of the civilizing process. During this time people begun to internalise social constraint and become more self-disciplined in managing their feelings and curbing aggressive tendencies. As Elias puts it, each individual is 'constrained from an early age on to take account of the effects of his own or other people 's action ' (Elias 1982 cited

' Dunning, Murphy, and Williams (1988) in The roots of football hooliganism agree that in some ways consistent with Elias 's idea of 'civilising processes. ' The authors agree that even in complex, urban industrial societies one would expect to find gangs whose behaviour is characterised by a relatively high level of overt violence in communities where the state and its agencies have been unable to gain sufficient legitimating for, and have thus been unsuccessful in, their effort to exert effective control over street activities. Accordingly, aggressive styles of behaviour would be expected in neighbourhoods where the overall structure of the community and its manner and degree of integration into the wider society lead to the persistent generation of values and standards that are divergent from those that are socially dominant. In short, the authors contended that the structure of disadvantaged communities tends to produce and reproduce 'aggressive masculinity ' as a dominant characteristic. This is because they have been less effectively incorporated and are, in that sense, less responsive to effective state or local

These rules or norms, however, are likely to vary, not only between different historical periods and different cultures, but by different classes in the same society. That is especially likely where class inequalities are pronounced and where, consequently, members of the different classes live under widely differing circumstances (Dunning et al., 1988). De-industrialization of working class communities, argued Robert Van Krieken, (1999, p. 297), may represent something of a ‘de civilizing process’ and a breakdown ‘in the stability and consistency of on-going social relations.’ However, this paper suggests that it is not the case that disadvantaged communities have simply undergone a de - civilising process. Because residents from disadvantaged contexts are more likely to become subject to socialization processes that differ from that of mainstream society, they undergo alternative civilising processes, that are distinct to their