Irdc.ir: The one way vertical structure of the power had prevented the interaction in the cultural reformations of the social system, so the political culture had taken the place of the policies of culture. In other words, the lack of rationality in the culture-related communications had created a crisis the social recreation, and systematic rationality instead, had taken its place.
In this era, political knowledge ideologically served as a means to justify the political power. Pahlavism, was the main political, social and economic ideology of this era. Politicization of political sciences, meant that the science did not come from its main sources – the generalizable reasonings of the field of culture – and only was used to justify the general structure of the political power and the social relations based on it. Manouchehr Honarmand claims that Pahlavism is better than any other doctrines in the world. He believes that coming from the ancient culture of Iran, Pahlavism has been protected by the Monarchs and Muhammadreza Shah has revived it in the process of the White Revolution. He claims that this doctrine is comprehensive and universal in every aspects and there is no failure in it. He mentions some of the actions of regime in the field of culture (the army of knowledge, religion, hygiene) as the effort to fight ignorance and unawareness, and to set the nations free from the darkness. This is a good example for politicization of the political science.
The army of knowledge was established in 1962, to serve the purposes of Pahlavis by training people under the authority of the political power, instead of educating them to perform valid communicational actions. The army of knowledge had a great role in educating kids and adults specially in the villages, but its target was not only the education itself, and it pursued various social and political goals. Teaching the history of the Monarchs in Iran, explaining the charter of the White Revolution and the developements of Muhammadreza Shah era were important features of the education. The ability of communicating, and the lack of its, directly affects seeking knowledge in a freely. It was not possible to stop the government from re-directing the knowledge.
Considering the education, the statistics show that while in 1966، 28.1% of +10 year olds of the population were literates, in 1968 the rate was increased to 14.4%, and 25% of 7-13 year olds were not able to go to school.In the villages, only 15% of people were able to read and write. Only 3.1% of the budget was dedicated to education, showing that the government did not pay enough attention to it.
In higher education, there were some actions taken, with the goal of imposing the political strategic rationality to these organizations. Muhammadreza had established many higher education centres (University of Tabriz, Mashhad, Isfahan, Shiraz and Jondi Shapour and some other univercities) but in 1967 by the law of the establishment of Ministry of Science and Higher Education, all of this institution were under the control of the ministry. There were three kinds of education centres in Iran. Most of them were established and run by the government. There were others which had the financial support of the government, but their staff were not direcy paid by them. The third group, were private institutions. So the major part of higher education was run and controlled by the government, performing their desires and orders.
It is important to mention that although the second Pahlavi accelerated the speed of establishing higher education institutions, but as this was because he thought his power depended on his relations with educated people, not for sake of the knowledge and developement, in 1971, Iran had the inflation of higher education, lowering the quality of it. The graduted students were hired by the government, having nothing to do, and even if there was something to be done, they could not handle it.
The structure of elites and technocrats were controlled by Shah’s domineering policies. Based on this policy, the chosen ones, which were the supporters of the government, had two main functions: "Serving the purposes of the government with their talent, Preventing the independant adversary elites from rising up)
The advisors of Shah tried to identify the elites, their talents, and their loyalty to Shah, and organized them to serve Shah and oppose the adversaries when needed.
In such politicized environment, the elites and technocrats represented three groups facing the process of Modernization: Those who travelled abroad for education, had become such westernized that could not figure out a way to use dynamic elements of the western civilization to serve in the process of Modernization in Iran, and instead, transfered every bit of the foreign culture and beliefs to their home country. The second group were always apologists of the regime and had earned great ranks in the system. They followed the policies of government in Modernization. The second group were the outcast independant elites, despicable for not playing a part in the system controlled by the government. So, every elite in the context of the society were in the same path with Muhammadreza. In opposition, the outcast elites took the lead of the political movememts in 60’s and 70’s.
Neither Modernization could happen as an independant affair, nor the elites and technocrats could break out from the social and political system. The Modernization was covered with political purposes and could not be based on wisdom, critical thinking, freedom and public participation, and thus could not spread communications in a normal situation.
Aliasghar Kazemi believes that a look through the history shows us that elites have always been harassed, exiled and jailed by the governors. Those in power have always tried to kill their self steem, and put them under so much pressure, to make them give up on their beliefs.
