‘Ultra-realism’ has become an influential current in criminology, especially in the study of violence and explanations of trends in violent crime. Ultra-realist writers frequently make use of Norbert Elias’s theory of civilizing processes, while also often expressing reservations about his ideas. In this article, we argue that ultra-realists tend to make only partial and inaccurate use of Elias’s very extensive writings. Although he himself did not write very much about crime – and indeed was less concerned with violence per se than with the roots of aggressive impulses and their control – we place him in the context of the post-war sociology of deviance. We argue in particular that it is far from true that he was blind to political economy, since the state-formation processes are central to his theory. We relate our argument to double-bind processes, violent subcultures, moral panics, populism and recent political developments in Britain.

“超现实主义”已成为犯罪学领域的一个流行趋势，特别是在暴力研究和暴力犯罪趋势解释方面。超现实主义作家经常利用诺伯特·埃里亚斯（Norbert Elias）的文明过程理论，同时也经常对他的思想表示保留。在本文中，我们认为，超现实主义者往往只对Elias的大量著作进行了部分和不正确的使用。尽管他本人并未对犯罪问题写太多文章，并且实际上他对暴力本身的关注程度远小于侵略性冲动及其控制的根源，但我们将他置于战后社会变态的背景下。我们特别指出，由于国家形成过程对于他的理论至关重要，因此他对政治经济学视而不见是不对的。