“A heightened control of the affects, developed in society and learned by the individual, and above all a heightened degree of autonomous affect control, was needed in order for the world-picture centred on the earth and the people living on it to be overcome by one which, like the heliocentric world-picture, agreed better with the observable facts but was at first far less satisfying emotionally; for it removed human beings from their position at the centre of the universe and placed them on one of many planets circling about the centre.”

— Norbert Elias , book The Civilizing Process

Source: The Civilizing Process (1939), p. 477

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Norbert Elias 4

German sociologist 1897–1990

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Norbert Elias 4

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