I have already discussed with you in my other writings that the idea of functionality is flowing throughout Iranian culture and as Iranians we don’t need to think too hard to figure out that our culture values purposefulness. Although our genius in architecture, science, literature, and art been modestly underestimated by our own people and on the other hand our culture and entity has been purposefully attacked viciously and mercilessly by our enemies in cooperation with unintelligent insiders, but since the core of our belief system was based on functionality and believing in a higher purpose as a result our culture has survived for thousands of years.
The reason of survival of our culture is behind the idea that ordinary people of Iran naturally understand and welcome the concept of function. As I have mentioned before and by the presence of many evidences, there are two factors flowing in every Iranian’s blood streams, humbleness and purpose; and as long as we don’t lose these two pillars of our survivals we should be hopeful to add more brick to our cultural castle with the birth of every single Iranian baby.
We all know by now that our motherland is facing the harshest attacks in her modern history. Much of that has been going on in a very subtle fashion. That’s why we should not be afraid of the enemy who poses as foe in the day light but rather the one who appears to be the friend stabs us in the back in the middle of the night. Our real enemy is the one who wants to tear down those pillars, by tearing down our system of belief with respect to the higher purposes.
Please note that I am not trying to sell the idea of religion underneath the word higher purpose. I will leave it to you to define your own purpose. I believe you are intelligent and have your own moral system. I am also not trying to sell the idea of radicalism since it is out of the circle of logic. It is rather a repulsive reaction than being a consistent, homogeneous, and harmonious logical system, therefore radicalism is not worth the discussion.
As I earlier mentioned, humbleness is another attribute of the Iranian identity. It is also have everything to do with the functionality. As it is evident throughout our literature, we have been strongly urged to be modest not for the sake of projecting a cool picture of ourselves rather to get to know things fully at their roots and put out our thirst by drinking at the source. For that, they’ve said “a tree standing on the highland gets less water, “a fruitful tree hangs lower”, “a rude child never gets to see his/her elderly age”, and many more countless accounts of advertising modesty in our literature, and in general, in our culture.
On the other hand, let’s see what west had to offer. Machiavelli, the father of modern politics has the most profound impact on world history simply because he established a school of thoughts that shamelessly propagated his infamous motto, “the ends justify the means”. He gave philosophical justification for the chaos that pseudo-humans desperately needed to create in Japan, Germany, Poland, Palestine, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and so on. He believed that you can do whatever you want to do as long as you could fulfill your purpose.
In his view there was no morality, a frame of ethical conduct or even a sustained virtue. He believed that if you accept the Geneva Convention it is not because you respect human rights — far from it. It was simply because you had to blend in with the rest of the world to push for your selfish agenda, and as long as it does not contradict your animalistic goals then you can follow those floating virtues.
In his view every thing around and inside of you can be utilized to reach your very own selfish goals. This is utterly in contrast to Iranian culture where there is a value and a higher purpose for everything. In Iranian culture the thought of having purpose is beyond religion and ethnicity. It is simply an Iranian thing, and this is why we have survived the most vicious attacks the history of mankind could have ever seen despite all of our religious and ethnic differences.
In addition, Freud, the father of modern Psychology has also caused a mighty blow to the body of modern age thinking. In his view, human is nothing more than a compound and homogenous cells cooperating to fulfill one thing, the survival of self. The act of mother who is breastfeeding her baby is nothing more than a sexual act and the mom’s reaction to that is identical to the stimulations that come from her sexual lover.
But neither Freud nor his followers could have ever answered the question that whether the rise in hormones’ level causes the emotions or there are emotions responsible for the increase of the hormones’ level? If the later is even partially right then where the emotions are coming from? The Freud idea also targets us in order to strip us out of our responsibilities and the higher function each one of us serve for a higher purpose. In contrast, we all have heard or seen in the recent history the selfless act of our younger brothers during Iraq-Iran war setting off the mines with their bodies in order to open a passage for the others to progress.
It is not all an Iranian thing, the discussion about purposefulness. There has been a long argument amongst artists and the art philosophers, scientists and the science philosophers to solve the mystery of what in the heart of a genuine art and science is that make them popular and eternal. Some believe that art has a function and since ordinary people can recognize function by nature the amount of attention that an idea gets from the public is a good indication of how original the art is. Therefore for these people the popular art is the real art. But in the opposite camp, some artists argued that their art is beyond people’s understanding and even thought their art is not popular but it is a real art. For example the abstract art in the modern age requires the viewers and listeners to be visually and musically literate in order to understand their concept.
Simultaneously the same fight was going on in the geeks’ camp on what the real science is. Einstein came up with a theory that nobody as I am speaking today has fully comprehended his perception of time and space. On the other hand we have, Fermi and Tesla whose functions were to grind and convey the most complicated scientific concept down to the understanding level of the ordinary people in order to make the ideas functional. This does not mean that Einstein was wrong or Fermi was right. However Fermi’s science is being used everyday where Einstein theories are awaiting further scientific scrutinizes for years to come.
Anyway, I believe It doesn’t matter if an original idea at the time of its conception is popular or not but it matters if it loses or gains popularity through the passage of time. Therefore the survivability is the key indicator of originality and accordingly the sign of functionality.
If an idea, a theory, a concept or a form does not make it through the test chamber of the time, it is not a real art or science so is dysfunctional. Therefore historically and naturally all things should have purpose in order to survive, and the more popular they get the more protected they become. This applies to the cultures and all of its components too. An original culture should be functional and when it gets functional it survives.
Hence, I believe, we should neither be fooled by complicated languages, complex theories, busy titles, or the laud noises some people like to make in order to sell their ideas and gain some popularity nor we should simply reject populist concepts because they are out of the tight circle of “elite intellectuals”. For the most case and in the long run the majority of ordinary people are proven to recognize the genuine ideas better than anybody else.
For that reason, let’s remember Jahan Pahlavan Takhti and Professor Hessaby. Thakhti wasn’t from modern breed of “intellects”, nor was he a trained public speaker. All he had to offer to the ordinary people was his wrestling gold medals and his good manners, “maraam”. But he will shine in our hearts forever since he is more popular now than when he was alive.
Dr. Hessaby, the father of Tehran University, is another modern Iranian hero, who was Takhti’s partner in fame. Although his elderly and fragile body structure was distinctive from Takhti’s but Takhti and he shared a few things in common. Their hearts were functioning for the higher purpose of vatan and they were always approachable by Iranian citizens and lived among them.
At last, throughout our history we see numerous genuine heroes who have joined the club of eternal fame. Surprisingly all of them have had same two things in common, humbleness and purpose. Two drops of that sea are Attar and Abu Ali Sina (Avicenna). Attar lost his life in Mongolian aggression while living among ordinary people. He could easily flee Neyshabur as other scholars did at the time but he rather stayed with his people and put his life on the line. Also Abu Ali Sina died amongst his friends and students and his answer to them when they insisted to get him an aggressive cure was, “I prefer a short life with width to a narrow one with length”.
