Intellectual movements in Iran
Intellectual movements in Iran involve the Iranian experience of modernity and its associated art, science, literature, poetry, and political structures that have been changing since the 19th century.
It has been a common belief of scholars that modernity began in the West and is by its philosophical nature, economic underpinning, and cultural exigencies a uniquely western phenomenon.
The Bible's praise for Cyrus the Great was partially in recognition of his role in freeing the Jews from their Babylonian captivity; of equal importance was the fact that the vast Persian empire of the time was a paragon of religious and cultural tolerance.
Following Hegel in 19th-century Germany, Nietzsche wrote his magnum opus, Thus Spoke Zarathustra that similarly touched upon this key figure of the Persian imagination.
In 1990s Persian influences on the millennial fever, and on other New Age themes, were so strong that Harold Bloom, the eminent American critic, suggested that the last decade of the twentieth century should in truth be called "a return to Zoroastrian origins."
With the popularity of Marxist ideology among the third generation of Iranian intellectuals, the new culture for translation and knowledge of modernity was drawn inevitably toward moral and political absolutes.
The methodological position of the new generation of Iranian intellectuals is characterized by two main philosophical attitudes: the extension of an anti-utopian thinking on an intersubjective basis on the one hand, and the urge for a non-imitative dialogical exchange with the modern values of the West on the other.
According to Dabashi, "the visual possibility of seeing the historical person (as opposed to the eternal Qur'anic man) on screen is arguably the single most important event allowing Iranians access to modernity."
[4] It is believed that Ebrahim Golestan, Fereydoun Rahnema and Farrokh Ghaffari founded Iran's "different" cinematic style and Iranian intellectual movement in the 20th century.
Architects such as Vartan Hovanessian, Ali Sadegh, Mohsen Foroughi, Paul Akbar, Gabriel Guevrekian, Heydar Ghiai, Abdolaziz Farmanfarmaian and Hooshang Seyhoun are examples of this movement.
These experiments are valid methods and contribution to liberate architecture and design, from abstraction, flatness, stiffness, forced rectangular and Heterotopia of the modernist spaces for a more fluid, flexible, soft and dynamic architecture, open to the complexities of its environment and context Simultaneous with the constitutional revolution in Iran, young musicians sought new forms of music to synchronize with the tide of social changes.
New figures emerged in Persian Symphonic Music, and several symphony orchestras started their work despite a lack of support from national governments or international bodies.
Persian literature enjoyed the emergence of influential figures as Sadeq Hedayat, Ahmad Kasravi, Abdolhossein Zarrinkoub, Shahrokh Meskoob, Ebrahim Golestan and Sadegh Choubak.
[16][17] In cinema and the visual arts, Shirin Neshat, Tahmineh Milani, Rakhshan Bani Etemad, and Samira Makhmalbaf created new cinematic styles which have attracted many from all over the world and in international festivals.
Mirza Jahangir-Khan Shirazi and Farrokhi Yazdi were among the most notable writers and critics of this era who sacrificed their lives for establishment of democracy and freedom in Iran.
[22][23][24] A military government under General Fazlollah Zahedi was formed which allowed Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran (Persian for an Iranian king),[24] to effectively rule the country as an absolute monarch according to the constitution.
[22][23][24][25] In August 2013 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) admitted that it was involved in both the planning and the execution of the coup, including the bribing of Iranian politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda.
[28] Perceived by many as a revolt against the secular modernity of the West, Iranian revolution was welcomed by some Western thinkers as a triumph of spiritual values over the profane world of capitalist materialism.
Inspired by simultaneously individualist and democratic ideals that are incompatible in every respect with the authoritarian values and symbols traditionally associated in the Iranian intellectual arena with Marxist and Heideggerian World views.
It is in this new social atmosphere that the emergence of a global community or a cyberpolis was able to reveal to the Iranian youth the true nature of instrumental rationality as modern universal standards.
He is considered to be one of the most influential philosophical leaders of pre-revolutionary Iran and the impact and popularity of his thought continues to be felt throughout Iranian society many years later.
[citation needed] Main figures in this category are Mehdi Bazargan, Abdolkarim Soroush, Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Mostafa Malekian, Mohsen Kadivar, Alireza Alavitabar and Hossein Bashiriyeh.
The unifying traits of these intellectuals include their recognition of reform in the Islamic thought, democracy, civil society and religious pluralism and their opposition to the absolute supremacy of the Faqih.
Hegel, Karl Popper, and Erich Fromm, Soroush called for a reexamination of all tenets of Islam, insisting on the need to maintain the religion's original spirit of social justice and its emphasis on caring for other people.
Richard Rorty, Noam Chomsky, Anthony Giddens, David Hild, Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt among a few others accepted the honorary membership of Iranian intellectual society.
Main figures in this category are Javad Tabatabaei, Dariush Shayegan, Amir Hossein Aryanpour, Ramin Jahanbegloo, Ehsan Naraghi, Khosro Naghed, Abbas Milani, and Aramesh Doustdar.
Dariush Shayegan criticizes a view of religion that does not take into account the major trends of the modern world where cultural homogeneity and religious absolutism are questioned.
The quest for a holistic identity based on a monolithic view of Islam is alien to the evolution of modern world and means the isolation and regression of the (Iranian) society.
Nasr has been an unrelenting opponent of Islamic fundamentalism in all its forms throughout his career because he sees it as a somewhat vigilante reactionary movement operating within the paradigm of the modern nation state, but even more so, because it lacks a well thought out metaphysical basis rooted in a traditional Muslim understanding of the world which respects both nature and human dignity.
There are several intellectual figures who continue to be very influential in Iranian society, while they do not belong to any of the above-mentioned philosophical circles: Scholars: Economists: Experts on law and political sciences: Philosophy has become a popular subject of study during last few decades in Iran.
