Philosophical perspective on the humanization through a prism of the civilizing process (based on socio-anthropological ideas of N. Elias and M. Foucault)

Abstract

The purpose of this publication is to considering the relationship between humanization and civilizing process, informing by Elias’s and Foucault’s studies. Theoretical basis of this research is founded on comparative analysis, phenomenological approach and generalization. Originality of this exploration is to the discovering of the similarities and also differences in Elias’s and Foucault’s viewpoints on civilizing process in the context of clarifying the basic meanings of humanization. Conclusions. As we believe one can point to some similarity in anthropological and sociocultural views of Elias and Foucault. First and foremost, both of them supported the thesis about of mutability of so-called human nature, that is, its conditionality by structural social changes. Secondly, Elias and Foucault are confident in that the history of cultures (“civilizations”) is to the history of institutional struggle against human impulses and drives with a goal of their “modeling” in accordance with conventional social imperatives. Not only Elias, but also Foucault’s post-structuralism call under question the civilizational interpretation of culture as such, that is any attempt to perspective on culture as a product exclusively of certain religious ideals and tradition. Elias proved convincingly that culture also depends on real social landscape, essential transformation of that does impact on essential transformation entire value system. And finally, within framework of these studies, the cultures are considered from point of view the degree of their civilizing in the sense of “humanizing”, that is defined by them, first of all, as a long process of rationalization of behavioral patterns in terms of the strengthen of affective control and self-constraint, and also as cultivating a specific aversion to the pain in its both physiological and moral meanings. In other words, the attitude of society and its culture to violence is the most significant marker of the level of its civilization, hence its humanization.

Keywords

• civilizing process
• humanism
• humanization
• culture
• genealogy
• power discourse
• discipline
• rationality