讀Elias的Involvement
and Detachment之筆記
該書收錄於The Collected Works of Norbert Elias第八集，由Stephen Quilley編輯，是2007年由University College Bublin Press的英文全集。Involvement and
Detachment於1987年，以德文本Engagement und
Distanzierung書名面世。
Stephen Quilley於2006年寫的Note on the Text (xl-xvi)
人類知識的發展問題，除了involvement
and detachment一書外，可參看：An Essay on time( volume 9), the
symbol theory (volume 13), essay on the sociology of knowledge and the sciences
(vol. 14).
用文明化進程，來理解科學的發展：Elias views the development of science through the lens of his
theory of civilizing processes. “The idea of an increasing social constraint
toward emotional constraint, in the course of the long-term development of
human society, is central to his discussion of the development of the sciences.”
(xiii)
Elias的involvment and detachment的寫作，以英文寫成，但受到德語的影響，難以解釋，而他本人也不太願意花功夫在細節的編輯工作，總是迫不及待地進行下一步的書寫。(he was always eager to be writing the next piece of work, and was
reluctant to spend time on the increasingly difficult tasks of collating
amendments and detailed editing)(xiv)
Elias在重新校訂著作時，授意Michael Schröter將系統的概念，改成figuration及Intergrationsgefüge. (First, in the
original version of ‘Problems of involvement and detachment’ published in the
British Journal of Sociology in 1956, Elias Frequently used the word ‘system’,
then prevalent in sociological usage at a time when the discipline was
dominated by ‘structural-functional’ systems theory. Many of the arguments that
Elias advances, however, are at odds with how many sociologists used the
concept, and in the 1960s he sought to purge his writing of any taint of ‘social
systems theory’. That is why, after a bried flirtation with ‘configuration’, he
came to make extensive use of the word ‘figuration’. So, when Michael Schröter
translated the 1956 essay into German, Elias authorized him to avoid the word System,. In its place, he used both Figuration and Integrationsgefüge (which means something like ‘framework of
intergration’). In view of the difficulties of rendering such nuances back into
English, it was decided to retain ‘system’ wherever Elias used the word in the
1956 paper. Readers should, however, bear in mind his strong reservations about
the term. (xv)
Elias的Involvement and
Detachment之導言
第一部份
P3.人類如何擺脫動物所面臨的危險呢？
P4.科學與災難（社會災難如戰爭），學者仍難處理。
P5.必須從動態角度思考戰爭的危險。(the
explanation of the danger of war cannot be found in the form of a stationary
cause. It lies in an ongoing, self-perpetuating social process without absolute
beginning, though – like cholera –possibly with an end. (§2)
P6.鐵匠不是中世紀戰爭的起因，同理，科學家與工程師也不是近代戰爭的禍首。(§2)在孩童的教育過程中，他們讀到國家發展中的殺戮，而國家以此形塑孩童們對國家的認同，而殺戮與戰爭，深根於群體的個別成員，成為自我認同的社會習氣。(§3)[回想起小時候讀過的歷史，不外是各種殺戮、爭奪，如何能期待避免未來的戰爭呢？覺得Elias講的有道理。]
P6-7批評合宜戰爭(a just war)的概念，指出以暴制暴，形成了永無寧日的長程戰爭，總是一批壓迫者，取代舊的壓迫者，而戰爭，從國際間，轉向國內的壓制[war 和police應該視為一體的]。這一段講的很好，我全摘了：「In our age, moreover, the concept ot a just war, a kind of moral
rehabilitation of the use of violence as a means of settling interstate
conflicts, has been extended to the settling of conflicts within states. Partly
thanks to the work of Marx and his followers, revolution has become a praise
word.(P6) The reciprocal violence of groups of people in the course of a revolutionary
process or any other kind of long-drawn-out civil war is as great a human
disaster as a war between states. That revolutionary processes often start from
a condition of one-sided violent oppression has often been mentioned. It is
less often mentioned that they also quite frequently end with one-sided violent
oppression. [這就是好友Boa提到的，許諾解放的戰爭，總是帶來新的奴役] If one ceases to consider revolutions in an historical manner –that
is, as short-term events – and if instead one sees such violent explosions as
phases of a long-term process, it becomes clearer that they too form part of a
cycle and often a spiraling cycle of violence, which may go on smouldering for
a long time after the overt revolutionary violence has died down.」(p7. §1)
待續…
