Solidarity or Chaos

While I was reading Dr. Sally Raskoff’s article about solidarity, I decided to write some notes about what has been in my mind for several months. Her article is here.
It's important to investigate a particular situation in which the divergent forces are stronger than convergent forces. In some third world countries, such as Iran, the society is partly modern and partly traditional, it may be possible that there is neither mechanical solidarity nor organic solidarity in the society. In this case there is no social cement to maintain the society cohesive. The major structures are collapsed and nothing is replaced with them. It is true that we can see some elements of modernity but it is not dominant.
This is different from what happened to western countries during their transition to modernity in 18th and 19th centuries. Their transition was gradual and steady with important changes in their epistemology which had begun from the renaissance age. In fact, the epistemological structure of European societies has changed harmonically corresponding with the other societal structures and consequently with the behaviors of the people. Any change in this road to modernity encompassed the whole society because the transition was rooted internally in that society.
In contrast, modernity was imported in some third world countries from the west. It means that we should not use the word “transition” in this case. When the western culture came to Iran, for example, a struggle began between the outsider culture, supported by intellectuals, and the aboriginal culture. But the whole society was not exposed to this outsider culture. Later, when the western media injected some western life-styles in the Iranian upper and middle class, the traditional and religious believes declined, the traditional epistemological structure collapsed but no modern epistemological structure was generated.
I name this “the epistemological crash”. Consider two huge planets crash into one another, what remains is stone fragments. These two huge planets – traditional and modern epistemological structures - no more exist, they are fractured and there will be a lot of “petite épistémês”, as I define. “petite épistémês” can’t shape the behaviors of individuals harmonically. Moreover, they have no correspondence with each other. Under such circumstances the Individuals don’t know how to think and how to act. For example we can see this in the votting behavior of Iranians, while 80% vote for reformist Khatami in 1997 and 8 years later, 80% vote for the rightist fundamentalist Ahmadinejhad in 2005.
Unlike the western countries, there is not a modern solidarity, be it called ‘organic’ or anything else - of course there is no mechanical solidarity either. The cohesion of the society is in danger.

Eternal Iran

Yesterday I was reading an interesting book titled: "Eternal Iran: continuity and chaos" (1), written by Patrick Clawson and Michael Rubin. Basically, the book had a historical approach, but there was something in it that I want to notice. The writers in the last chapter conclude that:

Iranians remain proud of their success, even in adversity. At times of civil strife and external invasion, be it Arab, Mongol, or Afghan, the Iranian state fractured but the Iranian people always remain cohesive (2).

It means that in spite of unstable governments ruling in Iran, there has always been a cohesion in the society. Whether it is true or not, I think one of the most important problems for the sociologists in Iran should be the problem of cohesion. There has been a lot of chaotic periods in the Iranian history with lack of political stability. But even in these periods we can see the signs of cohesion.
The uniform identity of these people as "Iranians" during the history has precluded some events such as collapsing of the country. As the writers has mentioned:

While some Muslims may point out that Islamic civilization was at its height when Europe was engulfed in the Dark Ages, Iranians would remind them that Islamic civilization was at its height when centered in Iran (3).

The aforesaid book has pointed out and passed from this extremely important issue, but I will discuss the matter of cohesion and chaos in Iran in my future posts. Nevertheless, if you want the book, just send me an email.
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1- Clawson, P and Rubin, M (2005): "Eternal Iran: continuity and chaos", Middle East in focus series, Palgrave Macmillan.
2- Ibid, 159.
3- Ibid, 159.