On Friendship, Equality and Introductions: Comparing English and German Regimes of Manners and Emotions

This paper explores friendship by analysing some of the characteristic differences in manners between the Germans and the English, from the end of the nineteenth century until the 1970s. During that time rules for introductions were a major if not the most prominent topic in English manners books, whereas these rules attracted hardly any attention in the German ones. In an opposite way, the same goes for friendship: the topic was almost absent in English manners books while it was a central theme in German ones, together with topics such as duzen – addressing each other with the informal you: Du. Establishing a 'friendship' as well as 'being properly introduced' are both ritual transitions from a rather distant and hierarchical relationship in the direction of greater 'equality' and intimacy. These different forms are explained by placing them in the context of their national class structures and by connecting them to differences in the processes of social emancipation and national integration.Historical and International Comparison of Germany and England: Friendship, Equality, Introductions, Privacy, Good Society, Social Mobility, Informalization, and Regimes of Manners and Emotions

Have Civilising Processes Changed Direction? Informalisation, Functional Democratisation, and Globalisation

With his concept "functional democratisation," Norbert Elias articulates how a specific type of "social equalisation" is connected to expanding interdependency networks and long-term civilising processes. This article initially focuses on connections between functional democratisation and informalisation, throwing new light on the wider framework of the theory of civilisation and informalisation, as well as on these processes themselves. These insights are followed by a discussion into how functional democratisation and informalisation are interconnected with social differentiation and integration as the two major process drivers of globalisation, thus illuminating directions of processes of civilisation, informalisation, and functional democratisation within the overall process of globalisation. Special attention goes to trends of differentiation and integration on the one hand, and integration conflicts or disintegration and defunctionalisation on the other. Considering from a global perspective which side of these opposing trends is dominant helps to clarify directions in processes of (in-)formalisation and of (de-)civilisation. In addition, it helps to explain the declining power and status of the West as a global establishment, and changes in the balance of power between national and international political and economic centres. Expanding global interdependencies have given rise to a variety of practical problems and theoretical questions - a major policy question among them: "How to steer clear of financial and/or political turbulence?" Issues such as economic crises, global migration, and populism, brought up major theoretical questions: "Have the driving processes of differentiation, integration, and increasing complexity of social functions stalled, changed direction, or ceased altogether?" In other words, "Have civilising processes changed direction?," an issue that was first raised in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. Today, as strong spurts of globalisation give rise to feelings of loss and decline, it is reappraised once again in this paper

On the sociogenesis of US dating regime and its present-day social legacy

"Part of the study of twentieth-century changes in German, American, English and Dutch manners books focuses on developments in courting and dating. It shows that in all these countries, around the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, young people started to 'date', that is, to go out together, both with and without a chaperone. From the 1920s onward, however, advice on dating, necking and petting, the 'line', the stag line, cutting in, and getting stuck appears in American manners books only. The US dating regime that emerged signified the escape of young people from under parental wings and the formation of a relatively autonomous courting regime of their own, leading to a head start in the emancipation of sexuality and to the rise of the first western youth culture, which was restricted to the USA. This emancipation of young people in the USA made young women less dependent upon their parents, but in regard to their relationship to young men, the dating regime kept women rather dependent upon men and their 'treats'. The then prevalent uneven balance of power between the sexes was institutionalized in an attitude that linked 'petting and paying'. Necking and petting as inherent possibilities made dating highly sexually oriented, but also sexually restrained, as the sexual exploration was to remain without sexual consummation. In that sense, the youth-culture dating code was oriented toward sex and marriage, maintaining the adult-code of abstinence of sex before and outside marriage. The responsibility for sufficiently restrained sexual emotion management was put in the hands of women. This double standard demanded that women developed increasing subtlety in the art of being both naughty and nice, of steering between yielding and rigidity, prudery and coquetry: a highly controlled indulgence of sexual impulses and emotions. This paper focuses on the present-daysocial legacy of the dating regime, which seems to consist of such characteristics as a highly commercialized sex, a fascination with breasts and blow jobs, and two pronounced double standards, one being the continued co-existence of a youth code allowing for sex and an adult code tending to demand abstinence of sex before and outside marriage, with the construction of 'technical virginity' as a bridge between the two. The other double standard consists of dating manners and office manners, the latter tending to demand abstinence of sexual references and allusions in the domain of work. This paper argues that the formalization of male dominance in the dating regimehelps explain why the female emancipation movements that followed the youth culture of the 1960s - a western international one - met with tougher resistance in the USA than in Europe: the reputedly advanced greater freedom of women in America seems to have turned into a deficit." (author's abstract

‘No sex under my roof’: Teenage sexuality in the USA and in the Netherlands since the 1880s

The oneliner ‘No sex under my roof’ is used to reinforce the rule of premarital abstinence of sexuality until teenage children marry or move from home. In the USA, most parents still stick to this norm, whereas in the Netherlands since the late 1960s, a new rule developed, allowing teenage children to have sex, provided they ‘feel strongly for each other’ and feel ‘ready’ for it. This paper describes and compares developments in the USA and in the Netherlands since the 1880s, focusing on the social regulation of teenage sexuality, and based mainly upon such sources as reference books and sexology studies. The paper proposes an explanation of the two trajectories from national differences in the functioning of good societies, particularly in the regulation of social competition and social mobility.The rise in the USA of a highly competitive dating system and a complicated sexual morality indicates a smaller decline of power differences between classes, genders and generations, which partly explains the persistence of the old rule. Further explanation is found in America’s lower level of social integration and more open competition between various centres of power and good societies.The build up to the rise of a new rule among Dutch parents was an informalization of ‘getting engaged’, the diffusion of verkering (going steady) and of parental policies to stay ‘in the scene’, indicating higher levels of social integration and larger declines of power differences between classes, genders and generations. Yet, the long preservation of a homogeneous good society created a widening gap between a facade of decency and backstage realities. When this gap was washed away in the 1960s Expressive and Sexual Revolutions, it also washed away the old rule, and increasing numbers of parents allowed their teenagers openly to have sex, even at home.The oneliner ‘No sex under my roof’ is used to reinforce the rule of premarital abstinence of sexuality until teenage children marry or move from home. In the USA, most parents still stick to this norm, whereas in the Netherlands since the late 1960s, a new rule developed, allowing teenage children to have sex, provided they ‘feel strongly for each other’ and feel ‘ready’ for it. This paper describes and compares developments in the USA and in the Netherlands since the 1880s, focusing on the social regulation of teenage sexuality, and based mainly upon such sources as reference books and sexology studies. The paper proposes an explanation of the two trajectories from national differences in the functioning of good societies, particularly in the regulation of social competition and social mobility.The rise in the USA of a highly competitive dating system and a complicated sexual morality indicates a smaller decline of power differences between classes, genders and generations, which partly explains the persistence of the old rule. Further explanation is found in America’s lower level of social integration and more open competition between various centres of power and good societies.The build up to the rise of a new rule among Dutch parents was an informalization of ‘getting engaged’, the diffusion of verkering (going steady) and of parental policies to stay ‘in the scene’, indicating higher levels of social integration and larger declines of power differences between classes, genders and generations. Yet, the long preservation of a homogeneous good society created a widening gap between a facade of decency and backstage realities. When this gap was washed away in the 1960s Expressive and Sexual Revolutions, it also washed away the old rule, and increasing numbers of parents allowed their teenagers openly to have sex, even at home

Discussing Civilisation and Informalisation: Criteriology

Norbert Elias’s theory of civilising processes has been received only marginally in the USA, one of the obstacles being the absence of figurational or process studies of American society. In the first decade of this century this situation was changed by the publication of Stephen Mennell’s The American Civilizing Process (2007) and Cas Wouters’ Sex and Manners (2004) and Informalization (2007). By 2012, Randall Collins had reviewed the first and the third books in two essays (2009, 2011). His claims and criticism of civilising and informalisation theory are discussed in this paper by placing them in the context of the reception history of Elias’s work since the 1960s, when a first round of discussion centred on criteria to be used for determining the direction of civilising processes. A second round was in the 1990s, and in this paper we contribute to a new round by presenting a summary of earlier critical discussions in an attempt to establish a more solid and subtler body of criteria for studying civilising processes. We use this in critically discussing Collins’s contributions, linking them to symbolic interactionism, American National Ideology, and blind spots in American sociology.Norbert Elias’s theory of civilising processes has been received only marginally in the USA, one of the obstacles being the absence of figurational or process studies of American society. In the first decade of this century this situation was changed by the publication of Stephen Mennell’s The American Civilizing Process (2007) and Cas Wouters’ Sex and Manners (2004) and Informalization (2007). By 2012, Randall Collins had reviewed the first and the third books in two essays (2009, 2011). His claims and criticism of civilising and informalisation theory are discussed in this paper by placing them in the context of the reception history of Elias’s work since the 1960s, when a first round of discussion centred on criteria to be used for determining the direction of civilising processes. A second round was in the 1990s, and in this paper we contribute to a new round by presenting a summary of earlier critical discussions in an attempt to establish a more solid and subtler body of criteria for studying civilising processes. We use this in critically discussing Collins’s contributions, linking them to symbolic interactionism, American National Ideology, and blind spots in American sociology

Como continuaram os processos civilizadores:: rumo a uma informalização dos comportamentos e a uma personalidade de terceira natureza

Baseado em uma análise de livros de boas maneiras, datados desde 1890, em quatro países ocidentais, este artigo descreve como “processos civilizadores” continuaram nos séculos XIX e XX. O artigo concentra-se, primeiro, em três funções centrais de uma “boa sociedade” e de seu código de costumes e maneiras e, em seguida, descreve como, em um processo de longa duração de formalização dos costumes e maneiras e de disciplinamento de pessoas, emoções “perigosas”, como aquelas relativas à violência física (incluindo a sexual), passaram a ser controladas de modos cada vez mais automáticos. Sendo assim, um tipo de personalidade de segunda natureza ou de consciência dominada tornou-se predominante. O século XX, por sua vez, assistiu ao aumento dos constrangimentos sociais em favor de condutas descontraídas, além de reflexivas, flexíveis e alertas. Tais pressões coincidiram com uma informalização dos comportamentos e uma emancipação de emoções: emoções que haviam sido negadas e reprimidas recuperaram acesso à consciência e maior aceitação nos códigos sociais. No entanto, foi somente a partir da “Revolução Expressiva” da década de 1960 que, cada vez mais, os padrões de autocontrole têm habilitado as pessoas a admitirem, para si mesmas e os outros, a possibilidade de se sentir emoções “perigosas” sem incitar vergonha, mais especificamente, o receio de perder o controle e a dignidade. À medida que se tornou “natural” perceber os impulsos e as demandas de ambas, da “primeira natureza” e da “segunda natureza”, bem como os perigos e as oportunidades, de curta e longa duração, em qualquer situação ou relação, tem se desenvolvido um tipo de personalidade de “terceira natureza”. Exemplos ilustrativos dessas tendências também nos ajudam a entendê-las como um processo de integração psíquica desencadeado por um processo de integração social continuada

The Planned and the Unplanned: A Roundtable Discussion on the Legacies of Michel Foucault and Norbert Elias

When one considers the proximity of their concerns, it is perhaps surprising that the works of Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault have not been more systematically compared and discussed. However, the differentiation of disciplinary knowledge (particularly the boundary that separates philosophy from social theory), com-pounded by parochialisms fostered by the cult of the intellectual, have delayed this process far past its due. This conversation, which began in 2008 at a conference on the works of Elias and Foucault at the University of Hamburg, is, in this regard, an effort to make up for lost time. Fashioned from hours of discussion recorded on an afternoon at the University of Amsterdam in June 2009, (enriched and clarified by the editor and participants in several rounds of polishing and revision), the discus-sion that follows seeks to draw out conflicts and convergences between the trajecto-ries of thought we know as Eliasian and Foucauldian