Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Abstract
Many scholars, especially sociologists, believe that the contrast between tradition and modernity is one of the most important challenges our society faces. In other words, in addition to issues such as distrust, addiction, generation gap, sex and lack of responsibility, the conflict between tradition and modernity has turned into a fundamental and costly problem which has affected our society over the past century.
There are three main viewpoints regarding the confrontation between tradition and modernity: (1) considering tradition as the basis and believing in rereading of it; (2) considering modernity as the basis and accepting its basic components; and (3) integrating tradition and modernity and creating a conditional modernity i.e. local modernity. In Iran, those in favor of the first viewpoint are known as ‘reactionists’, and those supporting the second one are known as ‘westoxified’. There are also some people who wish to be labeled neither reactionist nor westoxified, and want to prove that they think beyond that. Therefore, they talk of integration of tradition and modernity. Jalal Al-e Ahmad is a follower of this view, who believes that relying on the local culture and tradition, some aspects of Western modernity can be ‘adopted’ and some other components can be ‘established’ based on the domestic capacities. In other words, he believes that without the necessity of changing the Eastern epistemological foundations, we can appropriate the material and technological dimensions of the West.
In the present paper, the viewpoint of Jalal is analyzed by presenting an analytical model, in which ‘innate control’ and ‘constructed control’ are distinguished.
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