An Underdeveloped Political Thought

Abstract

The theoretical basis for this essay is the basic idea of the sociology of knowledge, which I described in my previous work (Rasekh, K., 2000:10-22). It is hypothetical to assume that Iran is an underdeveloped country. On this basis, I try to prove that there is a link between social relations, (here: Iran), on the one hand, and the political thinking of a social group, the Iranian intellectuals, in a certain period, on the other. I have divided the development of political thinking of Iranian intelligentsia into three periods: the period of "reformers" (1811-1906), that of "modernists" (1906-41) and that of "intellectuals" (1941-79). This division corresponds to three periods of Iranian history in the last two centuries: the first period coincide the 19th Century. This period is called "the era of reformers." The era of the "modernists" covers the first half of the 20th Century. Finally, the era of "intellectuals", the period between World War II and 1979. The hypothesis is that the group, which originally was concerned with the national "progress" became an obstacle against the democratization process of the country. This thought will be called the "underdeveloped political thought", henceforth. The political thinking, whose main characteristic was the claim for monopoly of power. This is the dialectic of "underdevelopment".