Cywilizacja jako proces. Część 2: Kryzys idei

The article presents the history of the notion of civilization at the stage of emerging civilizational pluralism. This presentation offers a critical reconstruction of civilizational essentialism, at least partially racist in character, which at the turn of the 20th century became the basic method for civilizational studies. In order to fully reveal the grounds upon which civilizational studies adopted “scientific” racism in the middle of the 19th century the text discusses the history of this research paradigm beginning from when the term “civilization” became prominent not only in moral but also historical and sociological analysis. On the one hand, this throws a clear light on the uncomfortable heritage of the discipline in terms of its mission to “civilize,” one that civilizational studies have faced until the present day. On the other, the article shows that the direction they chose in the times of social darwinism’s cultural triumph was not inevitable. In its shadow there have existed alternative civilizational studies with Norbert Elias as their early proponent. In order to develop them further one must not forget the history of the paradigm and hence this article is devoted to discovering the causes of the crisis in the colonial era of the Enlightenment idea of civilization, so important for Elias.