A Question for Malekian, circa 2013: What Troubles You These Days?

Mohsen Rahmani: In a meeting we had with Professor Mostafa Malekian, he answered this question: - What troubles you these days? If I want to speak generally, I am troubled by 5 factors: 1. The absence of rationality and argumentation among people, and their failure to follow justified and reasoned speech. Among its consequences one can point to narcissism, prejudice, dogmatism, bigotry, intolerance, and superstition. 2. Dishonesty in the sense of a lack of integrity of personality and the non-identity of one's inner and outer selves among individuals: Unfortunately, after the revolution, we people have developed multiple lives: Single, double, and n-fold lives at home, in the office, and even in politics, and unfortunately we even consider this to be of value. 3. Not attaching importance to work: In every way, we shirk doing good work and harm society with bad work and little work; thus, work lacks real value and desirability, and for commercial and economic aspects, we submit to many tasks that are not compatible with our own taste. 4. Paying heed to the value and judgment of others: We work, eat, and even live according to the appetites of others; we have no personal concerns and are more concerned with our image. We do not live for ourselves. In a sense, we are acting and do not live simply and naturally. 5. Politicization in the negative sense of the word: It is true that we have many political problems at this time, but alongside that, we also have a blighted and paralyzed culture. A culture that is reprehensible. A culture devoid of dialogue and tolerance. The greatest problem of our contemporary societies is cultural weakness. I look upon politics insofar as it represents a lack of indifference to the pain and suffering of the people, and I object to the status quo, but politics is a fruit that falls from the tree of culture, and the greatest source of the problems of our contemporary societies is cultural weakness, and contrary to the belief of some, not the change of a political regime—and even if this were achieved, it is highly susceptible to soon reverting to the same methods of the previous political regime.. Continuing, I asked him: How much hope do you have for our youth today, what differences do you see between today's generation and your own, and overall, to what extent are you hopeful about this generation? The professor replied: I am very hopeful about this generation; this generation is very thoughtful, very inclined toward investigation and research, and does not easily accept a statement.. It is not deceived and, unlike my generation, does not accept a word based on emotions, but I must say that young people always want to reach a conclusion very quickly, whereas the path is perhaps much longer than what we see before us..

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What Troubles You These Days?

A Report of Mohsen Rahmani's Meeting with Mostafa Malekian on January 14, 2014

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