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Article5
Response
To Article4
By
Sam Ghandchi
Here is
ghandchi’s second response to CCC:
*************************************************************
Again I
have marked CCC' s comments as "C" and my previous
postings
as "S". Here we go:
S) But
here I am just referring to the sensationalist extremism in our
S)
history. I accept that I have not given enough arguments to
S)
substantiate this view in every juncture of our modern history
S) and
definitely a lot more work is needed. But I am trying and I
S) need
your help to add your research to prove or disprove this
S)
theory.
S) In
my opinion, the number of individuals, who chose the
S)
rationalist path in our modern history is very small: Amir Kabir,
S)
Kasravi, Arani, and Dehkhoda. The liberal tradition, even before
S) 1953
coup, was extremely weak. Even in that
period, it was
S) rather
Mossadegh as an individual, and not Jebheh Melli as a
S)
party. Jebheh Melli never grew to be a
real party any way and it
S) had
more emphasis on nationalism than liberalism.
S) The
only party of significance in our history was Tudeh Party, as a
S)
party, and that was neither rationalist nor liberal. It was not even
S)
communist. Kianoori and Ghasemi were
adventurists long before
S)
guerrilla movement. And I classify them more with the
S)
sensationalist tendency of our intellectuals in modern times,
S)
rather than the rationalist tradition.
C) O.K.
Certain people (call them a tendency) chose the "rationalist or
C)
liberal" path. Others, didn't. The circumstances (dictatorial)
C)
certainly didn't help the first, but supplied a lot of ammunition for
C) the
second. The arguments of the second (because of the
C)
circumstances - social, political, economic) won the masses more
C)
often - and affected the course of history more than the other.
C)
Change the circumstances, and you'd have had different effect. No
C) use
arguing about the "choice". You can't reverse the time.
I
agree.
S) I am
just trying to view the history not as "COULD NOT" and
S)
"WOULD NOT". I am trying to say that we are not pawns in a big
S) movement
of a historical machine. I am tired of Hegelian models
S) of
looking at history as inevitable spirals. I do not believe in any
S)
historicism. I actually like philosophies like Karl Popper who
S)
oppose historicism.
S)
Actually I think whether Muslim, secular, leftist, rightist, futurist,
S)
whatever, we all share many similar approaches in our way of
S)
analyzing our history which is not really helping us to make better
S)
choices. I do not think that I have the
answer. I am also not a
S) historian. But I hope to see more history books with
fresh
S)
perspectives. I am tired of reading
Petroshevski's inevitability
S)
theories fixed on Iranian history.
C)
Historicism may have many defects in it but at least it gives an
C)
explanation of "why" things do turn up as they do. Popper, on the
C)
other hand provides no alternative explanations. Ideas don't come
C) out
of the thin air
I
disagree. I think ideas also do come
"out of the thin air" (meaning
not
being related to any specific historical conditions, and just having
to do
with someone stumbling on the right block).
About
15 years ago a couple of guys, one a mathematician and the
other
one a linguist, came up with a new theory in psychology that
could
have been postulated at the time of Aristotle.
In other words,
to make
this discovery possible, none of the achievements of science
or
technological changes were needed, as a prerequisite, but nobody
had
noticed it before. In fact, it is so
simple that everyone on SCI can
go and test
it without needing any special equipment.
But nobody
had
thought of it in these 2000 years!
Do you
want to know what it is? If you do,
please note that before I
mention
this discovery, I would like to warn not to use it for
manipulating
people. It is very powerful and should
be used with
integrity. Of course I cannot stop anyone from using any
scientific
discovery
in a malicious way, but I can warn that it can hurt you
yourself
if you use it without integrity.
Also
noone can hide a scientific fact. Maybe
some people on this
newsgroup
already know about it anyway. But I know
whoever is
using
the achievement of this field for manipulating people is as
guilty
as a chemist using his knowledge to create mustard gas.
Also I
need to mention that there is a lot of rumor about criminal
actions
committed by one of the founders of this discovery. I do not
know
one way or the other, I just know about this field as a science.
Now
what is this discovery? Am I pulling
your leg? No not really, I
am very
serious. Richard Bandler (a
mathematician) and John
Grinder
(a linguist), in 1979, published a book called FROGS INTO
PRINCES
where they have presented a new theory in psychology, and
have
called it neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).
The
above book is still the easiest text to read among all the
literature
in the field. There is a lot of
hocus-pocus about NLP flying
everywhere,
but the basic theory is hard to refute.
The
theory is this that the people who are visual (the ones who think
in
terms of pictures), move their eyes upwards when they try to
remember
something (for example trying to remember the color of
the
socks of their mother the last time they saw her). These people
also
breath on the top of their lungs.
The
people who are auditory, move their eyes to the sides when
trying
to remember something and they breath in the middle of their
lungs. The ones who are kinesthetic (the feeling
type people), move
their
eyes down, when they try to remember something; and they
breath at
the bottom of their lungs (thus affecting the shoulder
movement
and having gut feelings in their stomach).
Even the skin
color
changes can be marked for each of the three group, etc. There
is also
a cerebral group, noted by Genie LaBorde, which I skip.
The
above knowledge can be used to create rapport between
different
people. For example if you know that the
person you are
talking
to is a visual person, you can use phrases like "do you SEE,
what I
am trying to get at", whereas if s/he is auditory, you can say
"do
you HEAR what I am trying to get at", or if the person is
kinesthetic,
you can say "do you FEEL what I am trying to get at ..."
Therefore,
this knowledge can be used constructively between, for
example,
married couples, to create rapport when two have different
REPRESENTATIONAL
systems. But it can also be used
maliciously as
a
manipulative device to fool someone and get them do something.
Back to
our own issue, just the EYE MOVEMENT part in this NLP
theory is
a great discovery and is very easy to substantiate. Test it
with a
friend (with their permission). With the
exception of a small
population
in BASQUE of SPAIN, the eye movement part of this
theory
has not been refuted for any group of people in the world.
Thus it
is really solid.
Now
couldn't this theory be discovered by Aristotle. When you read
Aristotle's
DE ANIMA, one would say someone of that caliber in that
society
could have as well discovered this NLP theory.
Even Freud,
Piaget,
and Jung missed this one, and it did not need any special
tool or
any special social circumstances to be discovered. Why?
Because
nobody looked for something like this.
There
is a similar report about Chinese discovery of gliders about
3000
years ago. Gerard O'Neill reports it in
his excellent book: "2081:
A
HOPEFUL VIEW OF HUMAN FUTURE". The
Chinese made one
mistake
or else they had it. Their mistake was
to look at low-fliers
such as
"doves" rather than high fliers, such as "eagles", as their
model for
flight. Or else they would have had
gliders 3000 years
ago. They looked for the right possibility, but
they looked in a wrong
place.
All I
am trying to point out is that we have a lot of choices if we start
to look
for them and in the right place. How do
we know? Maybe
we can
get lucky like Bandler and Grinder (just joking:) or .... Simply
put,
the basic theories are really just ideas "out of thin air". The
rational
process is the process of falsification (see Karl Popper's
OBJECTIVE
KNOWLEDGE for a thorough explanation of the theory
of
FALSIFICATION).
C) and
you are not always at liberty to choose amongst alternatives
I
agree. There are consequences for
choosing each choice, sometimes
it can undermine
your existence to make some choices, as both Amir
Kabir
and Mirza Reza Kermani found out, in their own ways.
C)
...Liberal tradition, capitalist development and
C)
democratic institutions have more or less gone hand by hand. You
C) cant
imagine one without the others.
I agree
with the gist of what you are saying, but I see the bond
looser
than you do. I have written my
impressions in another
posting
where I have noted Daniel Bell's THE COMING OF POST-
INDUSTRIAL
SOCIETIES. I have nothing to add to what
Daniel Bell
has
presented in his treatise. The
democratic values are
achievements
of humanity regardless of where (mostly West)
and in
what economies (mostly capitalist economies) or when
they
were achieved. The same is true about
achievements of
socialist
movement, such as unemployment benefits and the
achievements
of women’s movement, such as universal
suffrage,
which are now HUMAN values regardless of where,
when,
and in what economy they were achieved.
C)
Almost all of the pioneering Iranian liberals/democrats were
C)
directly affected by the West and at a time when people in Iran
C)
looked up to the West these were valued. Indeed, one of the
C)
motives of de-westernisation by IRI was exactly to de-value
C) liberal
thinking and democratism. It wasn't political dependency
C) to
the West which the mollahs were against, it was liberal
C)
thoughts and ideas (i.e.: "cultural dependency").
C) Kill
the respect for the free-thinking world and the pioneers of
C) liberalism,
and then in an atmosphere of ignorance, dictatorship,
C)
religious fanaticism, poverty and illiteracy you've got a winner in
C)
sensationalism, adventurism, violence and terror. Those
C)
advocating the latter of course had the "choice" not to do so. But
C) then
they had to give up not only power but even the right to
C)
speak up or even to live in a harsh and dictatorial climate.
C)
Whatever their reasons, they had to discredit liberalism by killing
C) the
respect for the liberal democracies (the West). And they did it
C) in
various guises from anti-imperialism (of the Tudeh and
C)
radicals/armed movements of 60s/70s) to the direct anti-
C)
westernism of the present rulers. Labels for convenience rather
C) than
the substance
S) BTW,
I know intellectuals are not one pack, but I cannot
S)
understand why you think my analysis of their general tendency
S)
towards sensationalism; and their role in the defeat of liberalism
S) in
Iran, is bordering on naivetŽ.
C)
Because, I think you put too much emphasis on individual
C)
freedoms and not enough on the socio-economic conditions and
C) the
constraints people operate within.
You are
right. I do put a lot of emphasis on
individual freedom. I
have tried
to give some of my reasons in my response to DDD
posted
next..
BTW I
am not the "worst". There are
some people who think you are
even
responsible for who you are born from (Louise Hayes). I am
not
joking. I think of her as "out of
her mind". So I can understand
that,
in this respect, you should think of me
the same way. But I do
not go
that far:):). or do I?
S) I
could use Alvin Gouldner's analysis and differentiate the
S)
intelligentsia, etc. and give a more detailed analysis of different
S)
groupings of intellectuals and their role. But all I wanted to note
S) was
that the majority of Iranian intellectuals overwhelmingly
S)
sided with the sensationalist tendency rather than the rationalism
S) and
liberalism, and I did not need a breakdown.
S) IMHO
the intellectuals of Iran in the last century have had many
S)
choices to make. A few like Amir Kabir worked for reason and
S)
liberalism (I know reason and liberalism are not equal); and they
S)
still lost their life; and many like Koochek Khan, Heydar Amoghli,
S) and
Mirza Reza Kermani did not have the time for liberalism. I
S) wish
more of our intellectuals had taken the former path than the
S)
latter. I think Iranian society would have benefited more.
C) You
wouldn't expect someone to choose liberalism if it is going to
C) lead
the death - if the alternative gives you the possibility of
C)
survival, and much quicker result, would you?!
No. I cannot expect people to choose
anything. It is not my place to
tell people
what to choose. But I can only note the
consequences of
the
choices they have made, or possible consequences of the choices
they
are making now. I can only say that
there were people like
Amir
Kabir or Fatemi who chose the path of liberalism with the
consciousness
that it could lead to their death and it did.
I think
Mossadegh
also was ready to die. Only he was lucky
that he was not
shot.
S) I
know about the world situation and historical facts, etc. But I still
S)
believe, the more educated you are, the more responsible you are
S) for
the decisions you make; and one cannot just blame everything
S) on
historical trends.
C)
Indeed, both sides of the argument would emphasis on being
C)
"responsible". It is just they end in different conclusion.
You are
right. This is when we need to make our
judgment based on
what we
envision to be the possible consequences of our action. And
I know
it is not an easy decision. You can
force a child to do or not to
do
something, but if you can show the child to see the outcome of
his/her
action, then s/he needs to decide what a right decision is for
him/her. I think the outcome of sensationalist
reaction to our
circumstances
means more backward thinking in our society.
Backward
thinking has a long history in Iran.
True that social and
cultural
freedom was not that limited at the time of the Shah. But in
the
area of politics, the climate for political thinking was suffocating
under
the Shah's regime. PLEASE NOTE THAT I DO
NOT THINK ALL
OUR MONARCHISTS
TODAY ARE LIKE THE GROUP THAT I AM
DESCRIBING
BELOW.
Still
some old-timer monarchists wish that there was some kind of
communism
to justify their animosity towards the intellectual
thought
and social and political thinking in general.
They still think
the
best scientists and engineers are the ones who do not talk about
politics,
culture, society, and do their technical work quietly with
their
heads down bowing to their monarchist masters.
They do
not like to see our scientists to be like Einstein, who was
involved
with all kinds of social, political, and cultural issues. They
still
cannot understand that the scientific mind cannot grow in a
dictatorial
environment. They are still silent about
how the SAVAK
tried
to kill every innocent thought in the minds of Iranian
intellectuals.
If you
wrote only a word against the legitimacy of saltanat, and its
crazy
backward traditions, that even a female child of a king cannot
become
king, you would be dead. Could a little
boy ever say an
innocent
question that why he cannot become a king (the society's
number
one political figure), just because he has not been born from
a
queen? In England, they also have a
monarchy, but they do not
hang
you for questioning the legitimacy of it.
Still
many people are scared to talk about these.
This is like the
reign
of Suleiman, that the fable has it; that after his death the ants
were
still scared to go up from his cane.
I think
for a long time, nations like us, need not to worry about
wasting
paper or wasting energy for democratic processes. We have
a lot
to catch up; and let's use all the papers that we can (I do not
know
about spending the bandwidth, that is up to the internet) :)..
S) I
once went to a firewalking seminar with Tony Robins in San
S)
Francisco vicinity. I was able to walk on fire after learning to
S)
control my mind and the choices I had made. He had one good
S)
advice in his 6-hour presentation. He said that early on he learned
S) to
read the books that successful people read, do the things they
S) did,
etc. He tried to teach how to always be aware of making
S)
choices. His book is called UNLIMITED POWER. BTW, many people
S)
think he is a charlatan. I do not know. But his lecture program was
S)
useful for me.
C) Don't
I see some "adventurism" here?! Do you think what you did
C)
correspond with "reason", "rationalism" and liberalism? No
one can
C) deny
the almost unlimited power of humans. But then
C)
adventurist use the same argument to advance voluntarism you
C) and
even a tiny minority of you can change the world by your
C)
action no matter what the rest of society thinks/does. It does ring
C) a
bell, doesn't it?!
Yes you
are right. Descartes could not arrive at
his own theory using
his own
analytic method either. Krishnamurti
hardly was directed
by
reason. I agree with you that
rationalism is inadequate. In fact
in
another posting, I stated that I side with people like DAVID BOHM
in his
critique of Cartesian thought (David Bohm is a nuclear physicist
and the
author of SCIENCE, ORDER, AND CREATIVITY).
But I
think the Western Societies have a strong enough rationalist
and
liberal foundation to guarantee not going astray when adding
the
other side. In backward countries that
is not true. It is like an
adult
who can play with fire and will not burn himself/herself. I
think
we need to work extra hard, until resorting to reason for every
decision
becomes a second nature for us.
C) With
my best regards and appreciation for your valuable
C)
contributions.
C) -
CCC
Thank
you. I am happy that you have found my
contributions
valuable. This helps me going (some guys have a red eye
after
reading
this much on their screen, and they wonder how they can
help to
stop me from writing:):).
It is
wonderful to be able to participate in a real dialogue.
Regards,
- Sam
Ghandchi