Social discipline

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As a social discipline called Gerhard Oestreich a long brought about in European culture under external compulsion general change in behavior of the people - in contrast to the internalization of norms of behavior, as described by Norbert Elias as a process of civilization and analyzed. The concepts of social discipline and the civilization process complement each other and, even if Elias' civilization process appeared earlier, they have been effective in the scientific debate since 1969. They mark the end of the prevailing conception of the human psyche as a constant in history that is supposedly not subject to change. While Elias speaks of the change in the “mental household” through internalization, Oestreich emphasizes above all the change in the externally perceptible “habitus”. The founders of both concepts assumed that the processes involved were unplanned.

When Gerhard Oestreich created the concept of social discipline in 1969 and introduced it into the scientific discourse, he named the police regulations of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period as the core of the source material for researching this phenomenon. Since the High Middle Ages, the city authorities, and since the beginning of the 16th century also the princely administrations, literally showered the general public all around Europe with thousands of mandates, do's and don'ts, decrees, ordinances, regulations and edicts that affect all areas of society as well regulated the life of the individual from birth to death down to the smallest detail: baptism, wedding, funeral, dress code, food, drink, garbage disposal, coins, measurements, weight, trade, handicrafts, mining, manufactories, working and wage conditions , Borrowing, maintenance of highways and bridges, quality of goods, luxury bans, boen hares, usury , pre-purchase and much more. The Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, research project: Repertory of Police Regulations, has recorded "over 200,000 ordinance laws" in its database for the period mentioned (as of January 2020) and there is no end in sight.

The princely administration, and later the state with its monopoly on the use of force, monitored compliance with the police regulations in order to maintain internal order and enforced them. The term "policey" referred to both the ordinances and the internal order itself. It was not until the end of the modern era, after social discipline had largely shifted from the state level to the family and the upbringing of children, that the meaning changed: Since around 1870 "Police" means the branch of state administration responsible for maintaining public order.

In addition, Oestreich introduced the term “fundamental discipline” as a historiographical concept in historical research in the early modern period in order to describe long-term learning and transformation processes. The term social disciplining or "fundamental disciplining" is used in an extended manner for comparable processes in the 19th and 20th centuries and leads to the thesis that social disciplining in the early modern period was a condition for "fundamental democratization" in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Measures to which the term social discipline applies have existed in Europe since the beginning of state formation in the High Middle Ages. The measures can also be intended in terms of church politics such as According to the historian Arno Herzig , for example, in the age of confessionalization into the 18th century, when the re-Catholicization of Protestant territories was sought . They can also include inner-city forms of discipline, such as the blasphemy , pillory and other stigma in the early modern period .

The concept of social discipline was criticized by Heinrich Richard Schmidt , among others , because it supported the purely statist view of denominationalization . He thinks that there is also denominationalisation “from below”. In his opinion, the role of the church parishes is a more important one in modernizing society than previously assumed. However, Schmidt overlooked Oestreich's hint that the state tasks of early modernity "could only be mastered through the connection of the developing state with the early capitalist forces." The mass police regulations, which regulated all areas of society and economy, brought about that The "education for hard work and hard work" in the long run, according to Gerhard Oestreich, "expanded to educate people in orderly work" in the course of the early modern period. The social and economic consequences of this process affected all areas of society.

So far, social discipline has been studied almost exclusively in the context of European (and especially German) history. An attempt to apply the concept to non-European history can be found with Stefan Winter, who describes the social discipline of nomadic tribes.

literature

  • Gerhard Oestreich , Structural Problems of European Absolutism, in: Ders., Spirit and Shape of the Early Modern State. Selected essays, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, pp. 179–197.
  • Albert Wirz (Ed.): Everything under control. Disciplinary processes in colonial Tanzania (1850–1960). Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-89645-402-1 . [1]
  • Anja Johann: Control with consensus. Social discipline in the imperial city of Frankfurt am Main in the 16th century (= studies on Frankfurt history. Vol. 46). Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-7829-0521-0 . Review (PDF; 40 kB)
  • Jens Kolata: Between social discipline and "racial hygiene". The persecution of “anti-social”, “work-shy”, “swing youth” and Sinti. In: Ingrid Bauz, Sigrid Brüggemann, Roland Maier (eds.): The Secret State Police in Württemberg and Hohenzollern. Butterfly Verlag, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 3-89657-138-9 , pp. 321–337.
  • Dominik Nagl: No Part of the Mother Country, but Distinct Dominions. Legal transfer, state formation and governance in England, Massachusetts and South Carolina 1630–1769. Berlin 2013, ISBN 3-64311-817-1 , pp. 31–37. [2]
  • Detlev JK Peukert : Limits of social discipline. The rise and crisis of the Germans. Child welfare from 1878 to 1932. Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1986, ISBN 3-7663-0949-8 . [3]
  • Paolo Prodi : Faith and Oath. Loyalty formulas, creeds and social disciplining between the Middle Ages and the modern age (= writings of the Historical College . Colloquia. Vol. 28). Oldenbourg, Munich 1993, ISBN 978-3-486-55994-1 ( digitized ).
  • Heinrich Richard Schmidt: Social Discipline? A plea for the end of statism in denominational research. In: Historische Zeitschrift 265 (1997), pp. 639-682. PDF file; 137 KiB

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Norbert Elias, On the Process of Civilization, Basel 1939, new edition, increased by an introduction Frankfurt / Main 1969.
  2. ↑ Werner Buchholz , From the corporate and financial history to historical demography, in: Gisela Boeck / Hans-Uwe Lammel (eds.), Monuments - Statutes - Contemporary witnesses. Facets of Rostock University History Writing (2) (Rostock Studies on University History, 29), Rostock 2015, pp. 31–47.
  3. ^ Website of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, research project: Repertory of Police Regulations.
  4. ↑ [s. Max Planck Institute, like previous individual proof.]
  5. ↑ Gerhard Oestreich , Structural Problems of European Absolutism, in: Ders., Spirit and Shape of the Early Modern State. Selected essays, Berlin 1969, pp. 179–197.
  6. ↑ Werner Buchholz , The Beginnings of Social Discipline in the Middle Ages. The imperial city of Nuremberg as an example, in: Journal for historical research 18 (1991), pp. 129–147
  7. ^ Heinrich Richard Schmidt: Social discipline? A plea for the end of statism in denominational research. ( Memento of June 12, 2002 in the Internet Archive ) (Wayback, version of June 12, 2002)
  8. ^ Gerhard Oestreich: Constitutional history from the end of the Middle Ages to the end of the old empire, in: Gebhardt. Handbook of German history , . Ed .: Herbert Grundmann. 9., rework. Edition. Stuttgart 1970, p. 363 .
  9. ↑ Stefan Winter: Ottoman social discipline using the example of the nomadic tribes of northern Syria in the 17th-18th centuries. Century. In Periplus: Yearbook for Non-European History 13 (2003), pp. 51–70.