Abstract
This chapter proposes to individualise the approach of civilisation through a set of different conceptual and theoretical tools, mostly derived from sociology and psychoanalysis, especially the notion of “civilised habitus”. What does civilisation consists of, and how is it related to conceptions of security? How does civilisation contribute to security? Narrowing down the idea of civilisation to individuals, it is argued, is a missing link for an improved understanding of the unconscious dimension of international security. This approach materialises into the conceptualisation of a Civilised Subject of Security, framed within the unconscious processes that compose the ontological relation between civilisation and security. Security, it is claimed, is the ultimate value giving an ontological sense to the process of civilisation, for its deep and metaphysical bonding character in human societies. In short, a civilised subject of the West has been forcefully a secure subject.
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Notes
- 1.
At that time, in France, politesse or civilité had the same meaning that “civilisation” would later have. It expressed the self-conscience of Europe’s superior stratum, as compared to other strata deemed more simple or primitive. At the same time, “civilisation” characterised the particular behaviour through which that superior stratum distinguished itself from the simple and primitive people (Elias, 1989: 90).
- 2.
Jennifer Mitzen (2006) has related ontological security to IR, and applied it to the state to explain the recurrence of conflict between certain states. Accordingly, states, like people, do not only seek physical security, but also ontological security. The premises of Mitzen’s argument are that agents are rational, but that uncertainty threatens their identity, which leads individuals to the need of ontological security. The routines are supported and enacted by the state’s foreign policy, which provides the individual with the feeling of security, through a sense of certainty that avoids his perception of surrounding chaos. In this context, routinized relations—either cooperative, or conflictive—are maintained between states in order to maintain a sense of agency and identity.
- 3.
En passant, outside the field of psychoanalysis , even Elias has his own view of the importance of symbols. In The Symbol Theory (Elias, 1991), he sees symbol formation as being bound up with human survival in the social developments composing the blind evolutionary process of the human condition. Without symbolic representation, says Elias (1991: 3), the language of a society is not known by its members. More importantly, “The ability to control patterns of knowledge and speech in a society is usually a concomitant of the distribution of power chances in a society” (Elias, 1991: 6).
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da Mota, S. (2018). Individualising Civilisation: The Civilised Subject of Security. In: NATO, Civilisation and Individuals. New Security Challenges. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74409-4_3
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