In determining “on what basis, modernity?” through the context of Tabaar’s text, I am not convinced that the answer lies “with the cleansing influence of the sacred” (as represented by the faqih) or “the consent of the ruled.” There has to be some force mediating between the two; in the Iranian case this is the complex bureaucratic state apparatus that, as discussed in class, would be exceedingly difficult to undermine even in the event of a leadership coup or crisis.
Did Khomeini use power as a tool for implementing religion or religion as a tool for attaining and maintaining power? Tabaar clearly illustrates that it is the latter, most forcefully through his explanation of how Khameini rose to leader despite his lack of religious qualifications. On page 200, Tabaar tells us that “Velayat-e Faqih followed politics as opposed to the other way around.” If modernity is a curve, to me this is a natural step in said curve’s progression. It is not the blind following of religion (which “Westoxified modernity” so scorned) nor is it trust in a realm of pure reason not anchored in any religious or moral virtue. Instead it represents the use of human rationalization to pragmatically combine religion with a modern political system to satisfy various factions and consolidate power. “The cleansing influence of the sacred” was manipulated to manufacture the “consent of the ruled,” thus creating a functioning system ostensibly rooted in religious values yet also considered a republic. This, of course, is very Machiavellian.
The power of the Iranian regime perhaps lies in the fact that there is not just one “reasoning individual” who has seen the light outside the cave and disperses the knowledge it provided. Rather, there are multiple leaders (e.g. Rafsanjani and Khameini and the members of various Councils) who derive their legitimacy from different sources and thus, when united in a given message, can be very difficult to refute. For example, the Assembly of Experts, Rasfajani, and certain Ayatollahs all used Islam in justifying the choice of a Supreme Leader that could be seen as breaking with recent Islamic tradition in the country. Through a concentrated campaign to publicly perpetuate Khameini’s legitimacy, they were able to effectively “re-craft” the state in Khomeini’s absence.

Ali Shariati’s works effectively corroborate Seligman’s thesis that modernity’s wager was lost, or, perhaps better put, Seligman’s book provides justification for the ideologies and strategies that Sharihati used in helping to craft a new Iranian political consciousness. Seligman thought that modernity had failed society; while Shariati was not convinced that modernity in its generally accepted form had failed the world, he was certain that it did not provide the proper solutions for Iran.

Shariati, when viewed through a Seligman lens, was looking to reclaim modernity through surrendering individual or “rational” control over all decisions and creating a more centered populace capable of applying both logical thought and religious principle to events in their day-to-day lives. Just as Seligman viewed humanity as inherently based in some set of commonly accepted notions of “divinity,” Shariati saw Iran as naturally grounded in Islamic principles and having been tempted away from those principles by the West’s “violent road to modernity.” Shariati did not seek to wholly eradicate this modernity, recognizing that his people had reached a certain point of enlightenment at which it would be impossible for them to govern their lives solely on trust in Allah. However, he did envision a society in which the political intellectual freedoms protected and espoused by a republic would be counterbalanced by the fundamental code of Islam. Shariati’s writings can be seen as galvanizing a practical application of Seligman’s theory.

Regarding Vahdat, I see both Seligman and the Iranian thinkers we have studied as providing evidence for the possibility of a harmonious co-existence between universality and subjectivity.  Philosophy is not reality however, and modern Iran (including events during the revolution that effectively created it) provides evidence that undermines the potentiality of said harmonious co-existence in its originally imagined form.

Today Westerners often perceive Iran as a socially backwards society, one in which women are “forced” to wear the veil, prevented from enjoying many basic freedoms (for example, studying certain subjects in university, having the right to work, or move outside of the country without their husband’s freedom). This aligns with the traditional Western view of Islam as a backwards and static religion which has refused to embrace change through the 1300 years of its existence and is diametrically opposed to equal rights for men and women.

The Najimbadi book, however, turns these perceptions on their head. An argument can be made that 19th century Iran was more sexually liberated and gender-fluid than any Western country at the time. Indeed, the same sexual freedom that Western countries celebrate today (and shame Iran for not having) was present in Islamic Iran over a century before it entered European and American discourse. Whereas there were clearly delineated differences between women and men in European countries, with any type of homosexual relations, or situations that could be interpreted as involving homosexual relations, being strictly taboo, Iran saw a peaceful coexistence of definitively homosocial spaces and a tacit acceptance of homosexual relations. The idea of men experiencing periods of time both as an object of sexual desire and a pursuer of sexual “objects” was not only revolutionary for the time in Europe, it was abhorrent. Even in the mid-1900’s, when the sissy became a popular and accepted role in Hollywood film, thus to some extent normalizing men as “sexual objects,” this figure was taken by audiences as a joke. (In Iran, in contrast, the pursuit of young more “feminine” males by older males was tacitly accepted as natural).

Modern Iranian perceptions of gender then stem not from some archaic Islamic tradition, but instead from the impetus for a heteronormative society and strict gender definitions that was put upon them by the Europeans themselves! This is an excellent example of what Mirsepassi would call the “violence of modernity;” the desire of Europeans to enforce their norms as the only accepted modernity for the rest of the world. In the 1800’s, gender fluidity was seen as abhorrent to Europe; thus Iran was perceived as backwards for embracing it. Today, gender fluidity is the norm in many parts of Europe; thus Iran is perceived as backwards for its strict delineation of men and women.

While watching “The Cow” I began seriously pondering to what extent we can assign any intangible qualities to modernity. If the cow is indeed a metaphor for Iran’s oil, and the storyline intended to mirror the crisis Iran experienced under Shah Pahlavi in the 1970’s, then the films seems to carry a message of continuity rather than one of disjointed eras or irreconcilable contrasts. Modernity is, after all, not a scientific construct; rather it is whatever society construes it to be at any given flashpoint. As historians and sociologists were first grappling with the concept of modernity, they would have doubtless viewed oil as a definitively modern resource; the “black gold” made valuable by the legacy of the Industrial Revolution and used to power most of the world’s most “advanced” technologies. The cow, meanwhile, would have been seen as a rather archaic economic resource, intrinsically linked to the sustenance farming that Rostow saw as defining the “traditional society” which was lowest on his five-staged pyramid of development. However, it can be said that the cow was viewed and treated by its owner in the exact same fashion as Pahlavi and his cronies viewed and treated their resource of oil . Both became a singular obsession; both led their owners into inhabiting a distorted reality that led to their ultimate downfall.
Thus to me “The Cow” illustrates an argument by which the concept of modernity works best and most cohesively when applied solely to the material realm. It is easy to say the cow is a “pre-modern” resource and oil is a “modern” resource; that said, it is much more difficult to find differences in the human flaws that governed the management of both the cow and oil. The allegory of the cow points to characteristics such as greed, pride, and tunnel vision that have transcended eras and cultures to define the human condition.

It’s a common refrain that revolutions start with ideas; that it is philosophers, scholars, and other intellectuals that influence true change.  I see this theory as largely correct; after all, Montesquieu’s works were sitting in the center of the table when America’s founders drafted the constitution, while Voltaire and Rosseau’s ideas were crucial in fomenting the French Revolution.  However, I also believe that to elevate it as a universal truth is naive.  While revolutions begin with ideas, they are generally enacted through brute force, in turn creating a climate in which it is the strongest and most resilient, not the ideologically “right” or “pure” are likely to emerge victorious.

Rubashov is the hero of Darkness at Noon and it is easy to see him as victorious. After all, he dies in noble silence in the same room where others had perished kicking, screaming, and begging.  However, just because he maintained a poise and inner peace at his fatal hour does not mean he did not enter that hour a broken man.  Rubashov was not only killed by the movement that he viewed himself as working tirelessly to support but was cowed by interrogation tactics that he had vowed to overcome.  His ideological conviction in his innocence was thoroughly destroyed; he died having confessed to a series of crimes that, when originally arrested and still of sound mind, he knew he had not committed.

I think it is impossible to posit any of the characters as “right” or “wrong.”  One rarely finds the comfort of “black and white” when attempting to objectively study a war or revolution; instead, there is “strong and weak,” those who have the power to enforce their personal convictions or motives and those who don’t.  Through this lens, Gletkin is the book’s winner.  Whether in pursuit of what he saw as ideologically right or simply of personal advancement, he destroyed both Rubashov’s will to survive and will to believe, turning him into a subservient and near-robotic product of the movement that he ironically helped to create.  In my opinion, the defining quote from the book is Gletkin’s: “we have only one duty: not to perish.”   This is far from a romanticized perspective; far from a statement that can ideologically inspire.  However, it is a summation of world politics and conflict, which follow hierarchical not horizontal principles.

The most common reading of Grocer’s “Lerner and the Chief,” at least as it pertains to modernity, is that the grocer is the story’s true hero.  The grocer, as is ultimately acknowledged by the residents of his village, had a quasi-prophetic nature; less than four years after he died Balgat resembled more the world of his dreams than the one that scorned him for his “pretentious” ways.

To claim that the grocer is the story’s most powerful symbol of modernity, however, is to disregard some of the basic mechanisms by which society changes.  The grocer’s relationship with the village was better defined by a hostile dichotomy than a cooperative evolution.  Just because the grocer foresaw and appreciated “modernization” does not mean that he influenced it.  Indeed he ostracized himself from society and looked condescendingly down at his fellow villages rather than fostering an environment of mutual respect in which he could “raise them up.”

Thus the grocer was a prophet and not an agent of change.  In stark contrast, the chief, despite holding convictions that the grocer would consider antiquated, actively oversaw the “modernization” of his village, supporting and helping his people in the transition that swept over them following political change in Ankara.  In my opinion, especially in today’s complex and multicultural societies, this is what represents true modernity.  Society can only peacefully and effectively evolve through the construction of bridges between new and old worldviews, not through the Soviet-style scorn and then meteoric destruction of a previous way of life.  “The Grocer and the Chief,” while problematic in some ways, can still be said to have import on “modern” societies.  As we storm further into this 21st century of rapid change, we would be wise to heed the graceful and compromising attitude of Lerner’s wise chief.