[The driving force in the thinking of Norbert Elias. An attempt at psychoanalytic interpretation]

The theory of civilization proposed by the eminent sociologist Norbert Elias, who died in 1990, has its roots in Freud's theory of culture. Elias always denied the importance of personal factors in connection with his work, but as has been demonstrated in connection with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and indeed Freud himself, this does not make it any the less legitimate to go in search of those infantile/unconscious motifs and affective sources powering Elias' prodigious scholarly creativity and informing his work, in however sublimated a form. Proceeding from the observation that successful scholarly or artistic production represents a synthesis of the forces of id, ego and super-ego, i.e. of affect, knowledge and conscience, the author demonstrates that concerns of central moment to Elias' thinking--commitment and non-involvement, establishment and outsider, the restraining of aggression in the civilizational process, interdependence of individuals--are partly the product of early experiences which Elias was able to turn to fruitful account in his work.