6 - The theft of ‘civilization’: Elias and Absolutist Europe

Summary

Much of the history of the world has been written in terms of civilization and civilizations, of the larger units of post-Bronze Age society, often perceived as cultures clashing together in the manner discussed by Samuel Huntington. From an ethnocentric position, the struggle is seen as one in which the west always wins out. Some prescient scholars do recognize that victory, if it should be so regarded in an interactive world, may be temporary while a few may even look upon the respective achievements of earlier centuries as being more equal than is often assumed. The more extravagant ethnocentric claims involve not only presenting contemporary or recent advantage as virtually permanent, but interpreting that advantage in terms of the evolving aspects of European society alone, at least since the sixteenth century and often long before. An influential example of such an approach is the study of the sociologist Norbert Elias entitled The Civilizing Process, in which the author's intentions to elucidate this process are qualified by the limitations of his approach to human cultures.

Civilization is a word used in a variety of ways. It is widely employed in contrast to barbarism, both concepts that take their particular form in the Greek world and its view of its neighbours in the north, in the south, and in the east. The latter term began life as a highly ethnocentric notion for the despised other but it also had a more solid rationale since the inhabitants of cities (civis, a citizen) used the term ‘barbarian’ for those outside its walls, with more rural practices.