Sexuality and civilisation: Weber and Freud

Title
Sexuality and civilisation: Weber and Freud
Publication Date
1998
Author(s)
Hawkes, Gail
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9073-5777
Email: ghawkes@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:ghawkes
Editor
Editor(s): Terrence Carver and Véronique Mottier
Type of document
Book Chapter
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Routledge
Place of publication
London, United Kingdom
Edition
1
Series
Routledge/ECPR Studies in European Political Science
UNE publication id
une:3190
Abstract
The nineteenth century in Britain saw the culmination of a prolonged as well as steep rise in population, rapid urbanisation and technological developments in production. The inevitable disruption of traditional modes of work organisation and of the social relations that accompanied them, as well as the emergence of a fully fledged new ruling class, meant that this was truly the century of what Kumar has called 'the great transformation' (Kumar 1978). Yet it was not free of its insecurities and contradictions-particularly about the hegemonic status of the bourgeoisie, and of the effectiveness of their ideologies. As Peter Gay has reminded us: 'what the bourgeois had in common was the negative quality of being neither aristocrats nor labourer, and of being uneasy in their middle class skins' (Gay 1984:3). While being principal actors and prime movers in the upheavals of old certainties associated with modernity, they were also at the vortex of its psychological consequences. A key feature of the great transformation was, therefore, the move to establish and disseminate new moral imperatives as the basis for a new social coherence. It is in the context of these imperatives of 'the civilising process' (Elias 1982) that the contributions of Weber and Freud will be examined.
Link
Citation
Politics of Sexuality: Identity, Gender, Citizenship, p. 102-112
ISBN
9780415169530
9780415406734
Start page
102
End page
112

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