Long Live Journalism, Mohammad Ghouchani

Journalists are counted among artists.

Gabriel García Márquez

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How Do Journalists Bring the Humanities into the Public Sphere?

Long Live Journalism

Mohammad Ghouchani

Sociologists apparently have no doubt that journalists—or at least a large portion of them, especially press analysts and commentators—are among the intelligentsia, and that, fundamentally, throughout the history of modernity, daily, weekly, and monthly newspapers have been the most important medium for intellectuals. The world's most famous intellectuals, such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, Raymond Aron, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Gabriel García Márquez, and others, were at some point "journalists" and sometimes became famous through this very period. Nevertheless, the majority of intellectuals have disparaged journalism, considering it a trivial and insignificant matter. In intellectual literature, journalism is sometimes equated with a superficial treatment of fundamental issues, and journalists, despite the breadth of their general knowledge, have been likened to "oceans with a depth of one inch." Such interpretations are more prevalent among more serious thinkers and humanities professors. Some university professors pride themselves on never giving interviews to or writing articles for any newspaper or magazine. The limited connection these professors have with the press is publishing articles in the scientific-research journals of humanities faculties, which typically helps advance the professors' academic and educational rank within the faculties, and usually has a limited circulation and negligible sales, found mostly in specialized libraries.

But what is the relationship between journalism and thought? Do journals contribute to the growth of thought or do they vulgarize it? Is journalism an intellectual endeavor, and can it be considered, at least on some levels, a scientific one?

To clarify the discussion, several issues must be distinguished and explained:

A/ Not only do not all journalists claim to be engaged in intellectual work, but the majority of journalists do not like to call themselves intellectuals:

A group of them is engaged in "entertainment journalism" and considers their sole purpose to be attracting an audience. These journals have the highest circulation.

A group of journalists has chosen "commercial journalism." These, who are considered the oldest segment of the press community, believe in advertising more than awareness and have, in fact, taken up a kind of paper or media trade.

The third group of journalists is occupied with "political journalism." That is, they try to get close to political power through the media. Of course, every media outlet inherently desires to influence the sphere of power, but political journalists want to achieve the most superficial type of political change (such as elections) by the fastest possible route. The journalists we speak of in this discourse are of the fourth type. This group is situated beyond political journalists and before the staff of specialized humanities journals. The latter group refers to individuals who, through forms such as news reporting, reportage, analysis, and article writing, try to popularize humanities theories. That is, to transform them from the mold of theory into the mold of analysis, to translate them from academic language into popular language, and to transfer them from the mental space to the objective arena of society.

These "journalist-intellectuals," in a sense, also fall along the lines of two social strata: in this ranking, first are the "thinkers" (including theorists, researchers, and teachers), who are mostly present in modern universities or old schools, and second are the "intellectuals" (including writers, artists, and journalists), whose places of activity are cultural, artistic, and media centers.

Journalists, in this sense, belong to the category of public intellectuals, as they are renowned less for belonging to a specific profession than for the significance of their cultural instrument. “Essay-writing” as a form was not confined to the press in the past. During the French Revolution, treatises and essays were published as independent periodical pamphlets, and in the era of the “Iranian-Islamic Renaissance,” writers such as “Sa‘di” published their views in the form of collected essays.

B/ Not all intellectuals are adversaries of journalism. A large portion of them—such as poets, fiction writers, and literary and art critics—essentially breathe through journalism and have been journalists themselves. In the world, Gabriel García Márquez, and in Iran, Ahmad Shamlou, belonged to this group.

The main problem with journalism comes from thinkers in the humanities (philosophy, sociology, theology, political science, economics, and history). These thinkers regard the simplification of thought as a betrayal of it and sometimes present the mental and linguistic complexities of the humanities as an intrinsic necessity that is lost in simplification. The reality is that the transformation of the goods of the humanities (theories and research) into a public commodity in journalistic form does not have much history or depth. In the world, such magazines are few and limited and are mostly published as academic journals. This tradition exists more in Europe than in America, and magazines like Esprit in France are among the few successful public intellectual magazines, with intellectual discussions more often presented in general-interest magazines. As we said, in our discussion, literary and artistic magazines are separate from philosophical and historical ones. In fact, there are two types of intellectual magazines: magazines whose primary language is art and literature, which fall outside the scope of our discussion, and magazines whose primary method and language is philosophy (in the sense of a method of rational thought, not the discipline of epistemology, ontology, etc.) and history (in the sense of the empirical study of theories in the humanities, not the story of past peoples). This type of magazine is rare in the Western public sphere, but in this account we will show that Iran has had many magazines of this kind. However, before beginning the discussion, let us exclude another type of humanities magazine from the subject of our discourse, namely the theoretical magazines of the political sphere and political science. Magazines like Foreign Affairs, The American Interest, and Foreign Policy are considered “specialist-general” magazines, not intellectual magazines. These magazines, which also have leftist iterations such as Le Monde diplomatique and Monthly Review, fall outside the circle of philosophical-historical intellectual magazines, and in Iran, types such as Ettela‘at-e Siasi-Eqtesadi, the Middle East Quarterly, and the Foreign Policy Quarterly are of this kind.

First Generation: Journalism in the Service of Authoritarian Modernism

But in Iran, the historiography of humanities magazines can begin with the magazine Kaveh: The magazine Kaveh came into being during the First World War, after Seyyed Hasan Taqizadeh’s journey to Germany, under his editorship. The first issue of Kaveh was published in the month of Shahrivar of the Yazdgirdi year 1290, corresponding to 1339 AH and 1921 CE. That is, 96 years ago, in the year 1294 of the Solar Hijri calendar, the first issue of Kaveh was printed.

Kaveh was a “Germanophile” magazine, meaning it was pro-German, and it officially defended the German Kaiser Wilhelm II. The dominant theory in Kaveh was authoritarian modernization, and at the beginning, it mostly dealt with political and military news, especially during the First World War. The writers of Kaveh were individuals such as Seyyed Hasan Taqizadeh, Mohammad Qazvini, and Seyyed Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh, and with Germany’s defeat, in the periodical’s second phase, scientific and cultural content came to prevail over political and social content. History, economics, literature, and law were among the focal points of Kaveh, and Taqizadeh’s historic sentence was also first printed in this magazine: “Iran must become outwardly and inwardly, physically and spiritually, Europeanized, and that is all.”

Taqizadeh and his comrades in Germany were devotees of Westernization and modernization, specifically in the authoritarian German style of development, and were searching for Iran’s Bismarck: “The unconditional acceptance and promotion of European civilization, absolute surrender to Europe, and the adoption of the manners, customs, traditions, order, sciences, industries, life, and all the conditions of Europe without any exception (except for language), and the setting aside of any kind of self-conceit and meaningless objections arising from a false sense of patriotism, which may be called pseudo-patriotism [is possible].” Kaveh was a new newspaper that, at the beginning of its new period after Germany’s defeat, published this article written by Taqizadeh and introduced its “creed and purpose” as “above all else, the promotion of European civilization.” Kaveh was a promoter of authoritarian modernism, as was the journal Nameh-ye Farangestan. Nameh-ye Farangestan was published from May 1924 for one year through the efforts of individuals such as Morteza Moshfeq Kazemi, Ahmad Farhad, Gholamhossein Forouhar, and most interestingly, Taqi Arani, which officially declared it wanted to Europeanize Iran, and a sentence similar to Taqizadeh’s words was printed in it: Iran must become Europeanized in spirit, body, outwardly, and inwardly. The writers of Nameh-ye Farangestan praised Mussolini, searched for an “idealistic dictator” for Iran, and lauded Atatürk.

The same approach was pursued from the left wing by another magazine called Donya. Donya was a defender of modernism and European civilization, but blended it with Marxism, materialism, and socialism. The founder of Donya was one of the editorial board members of Nameh-ye Farangestan, Dr. Taqi Arani, who had studied experimental sciences in Germany.

The magazine Donya was first published in February 1934 in Tehran, under the editorship of Dr. Taqi Arani. The magazine secretly propagated dialectical materialism and, for this reason and also to avoid arousing the sensitivity of the censorship office, tried to assume a “scientific” (natural sciences) appearance. It occasionally published articles such as “The Atom and the Fourth Dimension” (Issue 1), “Maxima and Minima of Integrals” (Issue 2), “Sleeping and Dreaming” (Issue 3), “Aviation” (Issues 4 and 5), “Television” (Issue 6), and so on. Anvar Khamei, one of Dr. Taqi Arani’s assistants and students, recounts that Dr. Arani, in order to mislead the censorship office, would sometimes intersperse philosophical articles among scientific ones and then arrange them properly at the printing house! At that time, direct censorship ruled over the press, and the censor would directly sign off on or confiscate the magazine pages. Yet, in the 12 issues of Arani’s Donya (published in 10 volumes), fundamental articles on philosophical topics such as “Mysticism and Material Principles” (Issues 1, 3, and 4), “Dialectical Materialism” (Issues 6, 7, and 8), and “Man from a Material Perspective” (Issues 9 to 12) were printed. In the first issue of Donya, Dr. Arani pursued a line similar to Kaveh and Nameh-ye Farangestan, but in a Marxist direction. That is, he defended authoritarian modernity and European civilization: “The world, and Iran as a part of it, is constantly changing and evolving in terms of civilization. In this course of progress, Iran too follows Europe (and America). This is a historical compulsion. It must be so. And so it is. No matter how much a handful of opium-addicts, or worshippers of the ancient and the dead, cry out that we do not want this European civilization, that we are proponents of retrogressive movement, that the ancient civilization of India and Iran was superior to all civilizations, that for us the song of the nightingale, the scent of flowers, the waters of Roknabad, Sa’di’s Golestan, the Nasta’liq script, the water-carrier of Avicenna, traveling by caravan, etc., etc., are superior to civilization—still, concerts of the likes of Beethoven, Coty factory perfume, scientific greenhouses, books like Marx’s Capital, the Latin script, the typewriter, new sciences and theories such as the theory of relativity, the dialectical method, and finally the automobile, radio, airplane, etc., etc., have entered this land and will drive all their sanctities behind museum windows.”

Of course, Arani differed with the writers of “Kaveh” in that “European civilization itself is beset by crisis and contradictions,” and that material principles in Europe must bring harmony to the sciences, industries, and arts. Arani introduces “Donya” as a magazine that strives to acquaint its reader with the civilized world, and in numerous articles, he sought to teach his audience the principles of materialist thought in topics such as law, women, economics, history, art, and so on. The magazine “Donya” was banned after 12 issues. The editorial board of “Donya” was among the initial nuclei of the group of 53 who later founded the Tudeh Party. Besides Arani, figures such as Iraj Eskandari and Bozorg Alavi were among the editors and writers of the first period of “Donya.” After the banning of “Donya,” the arrest of the 53, and the death of Taghi Arani in the prison of the Pahlavi regime, “Donya” became a legend of Marxist journalism and was published for a time in the 1970s outside Iran, and then from August 1979 to May 1981 inside Iran as the political-theoretical organ of the Tudeh Party of Iran. Noureddin Kianouri wrote a political editorial for every issue in the final period of Donya, but the prominent figure of this period of “Donya” was Ehsan Tabari. It is interesting that if in 1933 “Donya” was explicitly a materialist magazine, in the years 1979 to 1981, the Donya that was published with the memory and name of Dr. Arani on its cover featured numerous articles on the Marxist conception of Islam or the Islamic conception of Marxism, published many articles in memory of Imam Ali, referred to the religion of Islam as the “Revolution of Muhammad,” and went to great lengths in criticizing liberalism, theoretically promoting the Islamic Republic, and extolling the intellectual positions of Imam Khomeini, Ayatollah Taleghani, and Dr. Shariati. The new “Donya” was banned with the events of 1981 and passed into history, having traversed an astonishing course from materialism to Islamic Marxism.

The Second Generation, Journalism in the Service of Ideology

“Kaveh” and “Donya” were two symbols and benchmarks of “intellectual – humanities” periodicals in the Pahlavi era. During the second Pahlavi period, this type of journalism did not have a prominent manifestation, especially inside the country. The freedom of the National Movement era led to the decline of theoretical discussions, and during the dictatorship of the second Pahlavi from 1961 to 1978, Marxists (in whose hands the pulse of Iranian intellectualism lay) were deprived of repeating theoretical experiences like Donya inside Iran, and nationalists and Islamists also saw no necessity for such discussions. In the Qom Seminary, however, two prominent seminary journals were published.

The first journal was the monthly “Maktab-e Islam” (or its full name: Lessons from the School of Islam). This popular magazine had prominent writers such as Musa al-Sadr, Abdolkarim Mousavi Ardebili, Naser Makarem Shirazi, Jafar Sobhani, Ali Davani, and others, and was published under the supervision and with the support of Ayatollah Seyyed Kazem Shariatmadari. “Maktab-e Islam” was, of course, published within the intellectual framework of the traditionalists and moderates of the Qom Seminary, and apparently, the consent of the source of emulation of the time, Ayatollah Boroujerdi, had been obtained for the license to publish the first regular seminary journal. An action that was, in its own way, a reflection, reaction, and imitation of the publication of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University magazine.

“Maktab-e Islam” had a purely religious concern and did not go beyond the realms of Islamic history, the principles of Shia beliefs, the situation of Muslims worldwide and the seminaries, and ethical and theological discussions.

The counterpoint to the monthly “Maktab-e Islam” in this respect, within the Qom seminary, was the annual “Maktab-e Tashayyu”, which was published by the students of Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini. Contrary to its name, this journal was more of a political-theoretical magazine, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of its founders, explicitly states in his memoirs that it was published in reaction to “Maktab-e Islam”. There are clear similarities in method and approach (not content and substance) between “Maktab-e Tashayyu” and “Donya”. “Maktab-e Tashayyu” was not a theological journal, but it viewed the world through the lens of Islamic-Shi‘i theology, and in this sense, it was an ideological magazine. “Maktab-e Tashayyu” was published from 1959 to 1965. In its fifth issue, published in June 1963, articles were printed by Mohammad-Taqi Falsafi, Ali Golzadeh Ghafouri, Nematollah Salehi Najafabadi, Ali Hojjati Kermani, Seyyed Mohammad Beheshti, Jafar Sobhani, Abolfazl Mousavi Zanjani, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad-Taqi Jafari, Mohammad-Javad Hojjati Kermani, and Seyyed Hadi Khosroshahi. The editorial of this issue of the magazine stated that the path to society’s salvation was the use of the power of religion, albeit with proper organization, the purification of the clergy, and specific training—a point that clarifies the reformist nature of the magazine. In the same issue, Seyyed Mohammad Beheshti wrote an article against religious distortions and superstitions, and Hashemi Rafsanjani wrote an article on the relationship between Arabs and Israel. In fact, “Maktab-e Tashayyu” can be considered a proponent of political Islam from within the seminaries; a magazine that was unique in its kind.

In the final years of the Pahlavi regime, with a group of repentant Marxists joining the monarchical system and their alliance with royalist nationalists, the Rastakhiz Party was formed. The Rastakhiz Party was a fascist party intended to serve as the united party of royalists, producing theory, cadres, and intellectuals for the regime and its White Revolution. The presence of former Marxists in the Politburo meetings of the Rastakhiz Party led royalists, for the first time, to amuse themselves with terms like “the dialectic of the White Revolution.” Such a think tank also needed a magazine. In addition to the Rastakhiz newspaper, a magazine called “Andisheh-ha-ye Rastakhiz” was gradually published in the new Imperial year, serving as the theoretical organ of the Rastakhiz Party. The magazine’s areas of interest within the humanities were economics, sociology, and history. Mehdi Ghasemi was the editor of “Andisheh-ha-ye Rastakhiz”, and in its second issue, published in Aban 2535 of the Imperial calendar (corresponding to 1976 in the Solar Hijri calendar), articles were printed by Abdolmajid Majidi, Shapour Rasekh, Enayatollah Reza, and Amir Taheri. The magazine was a proponent of the White Revolution and sought to cultivate a kind of royalist intellectualism. One of these intellectuals was Amir Taheri, who wrote in his article: “By presenting the idea of creating the Rastakhiz Party of the Iranian Nation, the Shahanshah created a new phenomenon—a political organization that is not only unprecedented in our country but has had and has no parallel anywhere else in the world.” The author then proceeds to mock multi-party democracies and, of course, claims that the Rastakhiz Party does not promote a totalitarian one-party system because the commander of the country is the Shahanshah! He explains that “the practical effect of the monarchical system in Iranian life manifests as command, not leadership… the final decision is made by the command because the decision-making process cannot be a reflection of the arrangement of various forces at every moment and specific situation.” The author fundamentally considers imperial democracy to have a new meaning: “The numerical victory of one opinion or another will not necessarily mean its transformation into a national decision. The country has interests that will not be left solely to a count of yes and no votes.”

The Third Generation, Journalism in the Service of Religious Knowledge

With the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the same fate befell humanities journals as during the National Movement. Political freedoms led journalists to express their theories directly, while the complex ideas of humanities theorists remained confined to the faculties. Even a journal like Donya leaned more toward practical politics than theoretical politics, and after the press ban in 1981, these types of journals also disappeared from the scene. From the mid-1980s, a type of intellectual journal such as Adineh and Donya-ye Sokhan emerged, leaning more toward art and literature and not dealing much with the humanities. However, a type of journal came into being that later became discourse-shaping in the intellectual and humanities arena. Before addressing these types of publications, we must of course mention a journal called Andisheh-ye Eslami, published by Dr. Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari. This journal can in fact be considered the first attempt by a new current called religious intellectualism to enter humanities discussions, a current that later published the most important journal of the 1980s in this field, named Keyhan-e Farhangi. The first issue of the Keyhan-e Farhangi monthly was published in April 1984 as a supplement to the Keyhan newspaper. One of the editors of this journal later wrote that initially, it was not intended for the journal to be named Keyhan-e Farhangi, so that if the Keyhan Institute ever fell out of the sphere of influence of religious intellectuals, this journal would not be lost; but the insistence of the institute's then-director prevented an independent name for the new journal. The managers of Keyhan at the time probably did not know that this name had also been used before the revolution for a publication edited by Dr. Mohammad Amin Riahi.

Keyhan-e Farhangi was initially a traditionalist journal. Contrary to Dr. Arani's view, it intended to present religious traditions and religious traditionalists, and in each issue, to feature one of the religious scholars or humanities professors in the fields of philosophy, theology, literature, history, kalam, jurisprudence, and traditional arts such as architecture and calligraphy on its cover. But what made Keyhan-e Farhangi prominent was the presence of the then-theoretician of the Islamic Republic, Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush. Soroush, as a member of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, was a regular writer for Keyhan-e Farhangi and had such influence there that after the publication of an article by Dr. Reza Davari against Karl Popper, he gave the journal an ultimatum that if they did not make amends, he would no longer collaborate with them. This was the first written controversy of Keyhan-e Farhangi, which occurred over the publication of a translation of Popper's book The Open Society, and with Dr. Soroush's victory, Reza Davari withdrew from it. The next more important event, however, was the publication of the series of articles "The Theoretical Contraction and Expansion of Sharia" in Keyhan-e Farhangi. These articles, which became the manifesto of religious intellectualism, expounded, under the "Theory of the Evolution of Religious Knowledge," the theory that religious knowledge, over time, has no choice but to submit to contemporary knowledge and must change and evolve. Soroush, of course, at that time, by distinguishing religion from religious knowledge, considered only religious knowledge (i.e., our knowledge of religion) to be in need of evolution. Soroush's theory provoked an onslaught from critics who were later called principlists. His most important critic was Sadegh Larijani, a graduate of the Qom Seminary who had previously translated Popper's article "The Bucket and the Searchlight" and published it as an appendix to Soroush's book What is Science? What is Philosophy? This conflict, which was later formulated as the duality of religious reformists and religious principlists, was the peak of Keyhan-e Farhangi's discourse-shaping. Although the list of this journal's writers also included figures such as Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, Hossein Ghaffari, Reza Davari, and others.

The distinguishing feature of Keyhan-e Farhangi was its attention to new theology and modern kalām. The magazine paid little attention to the social sciences, political science, and economics, preferring to engage with philosophy and religion. But with the political developments following the passing of Ayatollah Khomeini, exactly what the early managers of Keyhan-e Farhangi had predicted came to pass: the religious reformists were driven out of the Keyhan Institute, and Keyhan-e Farhangi went another way. For a while it busied itself with art and literature, and later fell entirely into the hands of Islamic fundamentalist thinkers. The early managers and writers of Keyhan-e Farhangi began publishing a new magazine called Kiyan in November 1991. Kiyan's point of distinction from its righteous predecessor was its outspokenness, not its subject matter. Kiyan, too, paid more attention to new theology than to any other branch of the humanities, and there was no trace of the social sciences in it. Kiyan's star was also Soroush, and over the decade of its publication, Abdolkarim Soroush's most important articles were printed in Kiyan. Akbar Ganji, Saeed Hajjarian (under the pseudonym Jahangir Salehpour), Arash Naraghi, Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, and others were among Kiyan's most important writers. Kiyan passed through two periods in its journalistic life: in the first period, under the editorship of Mahmoud Shams, it was more inclined toward general intellectualism, but with the victory of Seyyed Mohammad Khatami on 2 Khordad 1376 (May 23, 1997) and the departure of a group from Kiyan to work at newspapers, Ebrahim Soltani became the editor of the new period, and the magazine took on a more theoretical hue. In this period, Kiyan came to resemble academic journals, and by publishing special issues on violence, civil society, religious pluralism, and so on, it contributed to strengthening theological literature in Iran. With its interview with Karl Popper and its interview with Emmanuel Levinas in the first period, and the interviews it conducted with Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd and Jürgen Habermas in the second, Kiyan represented the pinnacle of religious intellectual journalism.

Kiyan's importance, of course, still lay in Soroush's theories and the critiques of his opponents. The theory of "More Fleshed-Out Than Ideology" (which opposed the ideologization of religion), the theory of "Religious Democratic Government" (which defended the compatibility of religion and democracy), and the theory of "Straight Paths" (which heralded religious pluralism) all flowed from Soroush's path, pen, and tongue in Kiyan.

Kiyan was banned in 2000, but five years later, a version of it appeared in the form of the magazine Madreseh in the spring of 2005. Madreseh's star was also Soroush, and it was even more "Soroush-oriented" than the other journals of this school of thought, but Madreseh also stepped from the realm of philosophy and new theology into other humanities fields such as political science and the social sciences. No more than six issues of Madreseh were published, but in this short time, important articles by Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Mohsen Kadivar, Arash Naraghi, and Abdolkarim Soroush were printed in it. Among Madreseh's most important journalistic achievements was the publication of Abdolkarim Soroush's conversation with John Hick. A conversation that narrated the last major project of religious intellectualism. The current that had begun with traditionalism in Keyhan-e Farhangi and reached religious modernism in Kiyan had, in Madreseh, become an advocate of religious pluralism, and John Hick was, from this perspective, considered a new intellectual model who effectively replaced Karl Popper, or at least complemented him, in the theological arena.

From 1984 to 2007, over a 23-year period, by studying the three magazines Keyhan-e Farhangi, Kiyan, and Madreseh, one can trace the emergence and evolution of a current called religious intellectualism, which introduced concepts such as religious reform, religious liberalism, religious democracy, and religious pluralism into the literature of the humanities in Iran. A current that moved from religious democratization to political secularism.

Religious reformists, in the years after Kiyan or concurrent with it, undertook several other experiments in intellectual journalism. The magazine Rah-e No (New Path) was one of the most important, published for twenty consecutive weeks. Rah-e No can be considered the most political magazine of the religious intellectuals, one that blended political theory and practice. This experiment was later repeated in the form of the monthly magazine Aftab (Sun). But Aftab, too, fell victim to politics. In recent years, some reformists published a theoretical magazine called A'in (Rite), which, despite holding a socio-political license, paid greater attention to theology, ethics, and religion. A'in was the publication of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, but it was not a party magazine. A group of religious reformists also published a magazine called Iran-e Farda (Iran of Tomorrow) in the 1990s. Iran-e Farda later became the political organ of the National-Religious current in Iran, but in its first two years of activity, it was more an intellectual and theoretical magazine than a practical one. The writers of Iran-e Farda included Ezzatollah Sahabi, Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari, Ahmad Zeidabadi, and Reza Alijani, among whom the late Sahabi was particularly attentive to economics and the issue of development. Iran-e Farda's concern was Iran's economic and social development, but it later turned into a thoroughly political magazine. This discourse was also evident in the early 1990s in the monthly Farhang-e Tose'e (Culture of Development). A magazine that, with the participation of economists and sociologists, sought to examine the theoretical foundations of development. After two years, Farhang-e Tose'e gradually shifted from a developmentalist discourse to leftism, transformed into a socialist magazine, and paid more attention to social issues than economic ones. Interestingly, the focus on development, both in Iran-e Farda and Farhang-e Tose'e, was undertaken by religious intellectuals, while secular intellectuals were more inclined to demand attention to the issue of equality, and on this basis, magazines like Naqd-e No (New Critique) and Fasl-e Sabz (Green Season), which had socialist leanings, were published some time later. Naqd-e No was, in its own way, a magazine with a distinct discourse. But after a while, its publication was prevented.

The Fourth Generation, Journalism for the Critique of Modernism

In the years when the lamp of the first period of Keyhan-e Farhangi was dimming, a group of former managers of the Keyhan Institute who still held positions in the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance published a quarterly called Nameh-ye Farhang, whose editor-in-chief was Dr. Hadi Khaniki. Nameh-ye Farhang was first published in the autumn of 1990 and was a more specialized and thematic version of Keyhan-e Farhangi, pioneering in its first 8 issues in introducing topics such as interfaith and intercultural dialogue, cultural exchange, modernism, and development. But with the resignation of Seyyed Mohammad Khatami from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance, this magazine also fell into the hands of another intellectual faction of Islamists. In its first period, Nameh-ye Farhang was not indifferent to Soroush and was generally known as a magazine belonging to Muslim reformists, paying more attention to social sciences than theology, but from the spring of 1993, Dr. Reza Davari Ardakani became the editor-in-chief of Nameh-ye Farhang, who was known at the time as one of the figures of the Muslim principlist model. Apparently, at the beginning, Seyyed Morteza Avini was also supposed to be one of the managers of Nameh-ye Farhang and even participated in the "Identity Crisis" roundtable in the first issue of the new period, but with Avini's passing, it was Reza Davari who experienced an important and brilliant period of editorship. Dr. Reza Davari is probably the most important philosophy professor who accepted the position of editor-in-chief of a general magazine in Iran and continued for a decade. Dr. Reza Davari, influenced by continental philosophy and the school of Heidegger and his Iranian symbol Fardid, was a critic of modernity, while Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush, with the teachings of analytical philosophy and Popper's methodology, had a positive approach to modernity. Soroush believed at the time that one could take a selective approach in encountering modernity and separate its good from its bad, but Davari considered modernity a totality that cannot be divided. These two thoughts later found their representatives in the political arena in the 1990s and 2000s, and their intellectual rivalry led to political rivalry. Despite this, Nameh-ye Farhang pursued professional journalism. In the roundtables of this quarterly, individuals such as Mohsen Kadivar, Vali-Reza Honar, Seyyed Javad Tabatabai, Seyyed Morteza Avini, and others sat together, and Reza Davari's editorials became brilliant examples of philosophical prose in our time. Each issue was dedicated to one topic, and the work was so brilliant that even during the period of Seyyed Mohammad Khatami's return to power, Reza Davari's work in publishing the magazine did not end; although later the principlists removed him from the editorship and Nameh-ye Farhang was shut down. Reza Davari's companion and admirer in the critical view of modernity was Seyyed Morteza Avini. In 1989, Avini was the manager of Soureh magazine, which, although it had a literary and artistic approach, gradually gravitated towards philosophical discussions. Soureh was formed on the basis of a literary and artistic anthology in the 1980s, published by the literary and artistic faction of religious intellectuals. The writers of this anthology in the 1980s (which was published in 15 volumes) were people like Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Qeysar Aminpour, Seyyed Hassan Hosseini, and others. But the same developments that took Keyhan-e Farhangi from the hands of religious intellectuals also shut down the Soureh anthology, and in 1989, the Soureh monthly replaced it. The most important part of the new Soureh was the editorials of Seyyed Morteza Avini. Avini, influenced by the views of Heidegger, Fardid, and Davari, criticized and negated modernity and enumerated its manifestations in cinema, literature, and philosophy. From this perspective, Avini was a serious critic of Soroush and Khatami. Soureh, however, was not a humanities magazine, and as we said, Avini intended to play the main role in the second period of Nameh-ye Farhang. But time did not permit. In the editorial board of Soureh, a writer named Shahriyar Zarshenas wrote, following the same intellectual line as Avini and Davari. Zarshenas was a serious critic of literary and philosophical modernity and had written several refutations of Soroush's views, but his main distinction from Avini was that Seyyed Morteza Avini did not take lines from political factions and was considered an independent thinker and intellectual. Avini, of course, criticized the combination of intellectualism and religiosity (from a position of religiosity), but in practice, he was a full-fledged intellectual. He knew cinema well and was proficient in Western literature, and in his critique of intellectuals, he drew a boundary with Keyhan newspaper (under the editorship of Mehdi Nasiri, a young principlist cleric critical of religious intellectualism). If we disregard these characteristics of Avini, the magazine Mashregh, under the editorship of Shahriyar Zarshenas, can be considered the heir to Avini's Soureh. The first issue of the Mashregh monthly was printed in January 1995, and its writers were individuals such as Ahmad Fardid, Reza Davari, Mohammad-Ali Rajabi (Davani), Yousof-Ali Mirshakak, and Shahriyar Zarshenas. Mashregh did not last more than 6 issues and was shut down in September 1995, but the intellectual line of critique of modernity by journalists

pursued by a principlist in these years took several forms:

In those same years, Mehdi Nasiri left the Kayhan newspaper and launched the weekly Sobh. In Nasiri’s Sobh, he was a critic of economic and political liberalism, but with Khatami’s victory in the 1997 presidential election, Mehdi Nasiri preferred to turn Sobh into a relatively theoretical monthly in which he critiqued modernism. Some time later, a disillusioned Mehdi Nasiri shut down that monthly as well and turned to book publishing. A book rejecting modernism and defending traditional religion was his most important work. In recent years, Mehdi Nasiri has returned to journalism once more and now publishes a quarterly called Samat, whose focus is not only the critique of modernity and modern philosophy but also the critique of Islamic philosophy and Islamic mysticism. Like Morteza Avini, Mehdi Nasiri considers journalism one of the maladies of the modern age, incapable of conveying the essence of thought, and for this reason he has, over time, reduced the frequency of his journalistic engagement—from daily to monthly to quarterly—yet he has not abandoned journalism.

Since December 2010, Shahriar Zarshenas has also attempted, under the supervision of the “Public Culture” council, to publish a magazine by the same name, in which he severely criticizes modernity. In this new magazine, unlike Mashregh, a political and factional treatment of modernists takes priority, and confronting the “soft war” has been given precedence. Public Culture features writers such as Reza Davari, Yousefali Mirshakak, Reza Rahgozar, Payam Fazlinejad, and Shahriar Zarshenas, and it directs frank and unsparing criticism at Mehrnameh.

After Seyyed Morteza Avini, the magazine Soureh was initially broken up into several specialized monthlies (poetry, fiction, film criticism, etc.), and Soureh itself became a specialized quarterly on theoretical issues in the philosophy of art (under the editorship of Seyyed Ali Mirfattah). Some time later, it was transformed into a general-interest magazine with a critical approach, under the editorship of Seyyed Abdoljavad Mousavi. The fourth iteration of Soureh maintained this same general approach under the editorship of Vahid Jalili, did not shy away from engaging with political issues, and recently, since December 2010, the fifth series of Soureh has commenced under the name Soureh Andisheh, whose central focus is the production of “Islamic humanities” and which, like Public Culture, takes a critical view of the Mehrnameh experience. The important point in all these magazines, of course, is their clientele’s interest in Dr. Reza Davari and the critique of modernity. Like the Muslim reformists, these Muslim principlists can be understood through a historiography of their magazines, from Soureh to Soureh Andisheh. A path that has led from religious traditionalism to religious principlism and, at times, Shiite fundamentalism. Some, like Mehdi Nasiri in Samat magazine, have extended the critique of modernity to a critique of philosophy, while others, like the editorial board of Soureh Andisheh, strive to register principlism as a new ideology.

The Fifth Generation: Journalism in the Service of Traditionalism

Islamic principalists, in reaction to the hegemony and influence of Islamic reformists in the 1980s and 1990s, gradually tried to introduce other intellectual climates in their magazines—climates that had been silenced for years. One of these neglected climates was traditionalism. Traditionalism, which emerged from the teachings of Seyyed Hossein Nasr in Iran, could appear effective in the principalists' battle with religious reformists, but ultimately it bore no relation to principalism or fundamentalism. The first allusions to art appeared in the journal Soureh during the Aini period. Nasr's theories on Islamic art, as well as Dariush Shayegan's book on Henry Corbin, were among the subjects of interest to Seyyed Morteza Avini. Later, alongside Fardid and Davari, Nasr's views were also introduced in Mashregh, Soureh, Nameh-ye Farhang, and Sobh. Nasr's theory was based on the rejection of modernity and its replacement with tradition. The principalists initially went along with this project, and even Mehdi Nasiri was praised by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. But as time went on, given the executive position and governance of the principalists, divergences with the traditionalists emerged. Traditionalists defended Islamic monarchy and valued Islamic mysticism over jurisprudence. The Guardianship of the Jurist (Velayat-e Faqih) could not be derived from within traditionalism, and ultimately a form of mystical guardianship was extracted from it. Hence, attention to traditionalism existed in principalist publications only to the extent that it served to critique modernism. The result was that traditionalists turned to publishing their own specialized journals. One of the first efforts in this field was the publication of the quarterly Naqd va Nazar (Critique and Opinion) in the Qom Seminary. This specialized journal of philosophy and theology was not, of course, traditionalist, but it played an important role in introducing traditionalism. Naqd va Nazar was first printed in the winter of 1994. The publisher of this journal was the Islamic Propagation Office of the Qom Seminary, and its editorial board had roots in three experiences:

First – the modernist jurists of the Qom Seminary; second, religious intellectuals; and third – the new generation of researchers in theology and philosophy. The effect of the first experience was limited to just the first few issues, and the religious intellectuals also could not seize control of the journal's atmosphere, but a new generation of thinkers in philosophy and theology emerged with Naqd va Nazar. Seyyed Javad Tabatabai, Hossein Bashiriyeh, and most importantly, Mostafa Malekian were from this group. Mostafa Malekian cannot be called a traditionalist, but his approach to non-religious philosophy and mysticism in light of the theory of "spirituality" independent of Sharia drew the attention of philosophical circles in Naqd va Nazar. Some time later, Naqd va Nazar published a special issue on the subject of religious traditionalists and introduced the views of René Guénon, Schuon, Corbin, and other masters of traditionalist philosophy.

Naqd va Nazar, after a few years, left the hands of its tasteful editor-in-chief Akbar Ghanbari, and he preferred to continue his work in the form of an independent publication. Now Naqd va Nazar has become a specialized quarterly, but its role in the public sphere has diminished. Since March 2006, traditionalists found their own philosophical organ. Before the Islamic Revolution, traditionalists, under the auspices of the Iranian Institute of Philosophy, published a journal called Javidan Kherad (Sophia Perennis) under the supervision of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a few issues of which have also been printed in recent years, but their general organ is the monthly Ettela'at-e Hekmat va Ma'refat (Information of Wisdom and Knowledge), whose first issue was printed six years ago around these same days. The story is that a group of students and admirers of Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who had come to power during the principalist era, wished for his return to Iran. However, given Nasr's leadership of Farah Pahlavi's office before the Islamic Revolution, this action seemed impossible unless Nasr's relationship with the Islamic Revolution was clarified. Apparently, the matter reached two moderate figures, one principalist and one reformist. Dr. Ali Akbar Velayati, in response to one of Dr. Nasr's critics or associates, asks why he does not clarify his position on the revolution. With the reasoning that if Nasr is interested in philosophy and mysticism, can he deny the status of Imam Khomeini in Islamic philosophy and mysticism? Nasr's response was a reference to a treatise in which Imam Khomeini was also mentioned. This treatise was translated by Dr. Inshallah Rahmati and printed as a special supplement to the Ettela'at newspaper under the management of Seyyed Mahmoud Doaei, and thereafter the foundation was laid for a research monthly named Ettela'at-e Hekmat va Ma'refat, which continues to this day. Although Nasr did not return to Iran, most of his works have now been translated into Persian, and this monthly has published 72 regular issues.

In Esfand 1382 (March 2004), another magazine called Naqed (Critic) was also published, bearing the name of Mostafa Malekian as its supervisor. This magazine, of course, published no more than four issues, but the dual tendencies of traditionalism can be traced by reviewing the journals Naqd va Nazar (Critique and Opinion) (and later Naqed) and Ettela'at Hekmat va Ma'refat (Information of Wisdom and Knowledge): the first tendency, centered on Mostafa Malekian, pursued a kind of rationalism close to religions without Sharia by separating traditionalism from fundamentalism and proposing the theory of "spirituality independent of Sharia," and has practically become the intellectual ally of religious reformists.

And the second tendency, centered on Seyyed Hossein Nasr, seeks traditionalism in Islamic Sufism and philosophy, and although it does not emphasize Sharia much and sometimes approaches theories of religious pluralism, it is generally known to be close to religious fundamentalists. In the Qom seminary, of course, other important magazines were published in the years after the Islamic Revolution, but all of them gradually transformed from general magazines into specialized ones. In the 1980s, alongside Keyhan-e Farhangi (Cultural Cosmos), the Keyhan Institute office in Qom published a bimonthly called Keyhan-e Andisheh (Cosmos of Thought) in the field of Islamic studies and humanities, which featured important articles such as "The Course of Evolution and Development of Ijtihad" by Ayatollah Mohammad Ebrahim Jannati and a critique of Ghazali's The Incoherence of the Philosophers by Seyyed Jalal al-Din Ashtiani. This magazine was very close to the tradition of Islamic philosophy and Islamic jurisprudence of the Qom seminary and school but ceased publication in the last decade. The magazine Hokumat-e Eslami (Islamic Government), which was published in the 1990s by the secretariat of the Assembly of Experts for Leadership in Qom, was also considered one of the most authoritative journals in the field of political jurisprudence and Islamic political thought. The editor of this magazine was Mehdi Mehrizi, in whose first period an important debate took place between two great jurists, Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli and Ayatollah Dr. Mehdi Haeri Yazdi, over Islamic government, and it is considered one of the most important discussions of Islamic thought in recent decades:

The Sixth Generation: Journalism for the Humanities

In the 1980s, not many of the secular intellectuals of Iranian society remained in the field of journalism. The number of state-owned publications exceeded that of private ones, and magazines like Adineh (Friday) and Donya-ye Sokhan (The World of Speech) also preferred to deal with art and literature rather than history and the humanities. But in those same years, the Agah Publishing Institute in Tehran undertook the publication of a collection of articles in a format known as Ketab-e Agah (Agah Book) and Naqd-e Agah (Agah Critique). Naqd-e Agah was a review of humanities books, but each review in it was considered an independent and valuable article, and Ketab-e Agah also contained pure articles in the humanities. It can be confidently said that Ketab-e Agah was the only magazine in the 1980s that understood the concept and importance of the humanities. This magazine was neither immersed in art and politics like Ketab-e Jom'eh (Friday Book) nor centered on philosophy and theology like Keyhan-e Farhangi. Economics, sociology, politics, history, and law held a valued place in Ketab-e Agah and Naqd-e Agah, and in its time, it published special issues on the city and urbanization, development planning, and land and peasant issues. Ahmad Ashraf, Dariush Ashouri, and Farhad Daftary were among the writers of Ketab-e Agah. Ketab-e Agah was a first-rate magazine that unfortunately did not continue.

But in 1370 (1991), Khashayar Deyhimi published a new magazine called Negah-e No (New Perspective), which offered a fresh understanding of the humanities by publishing opinions and translations of articles by prominent writers and intellectuals of the world. Negah-e No, in its first period of publication, especially the first 5 issues, published pure translations of humanities texts and topics. Special issues such as those on nationalism and revolution were unprecedented, and later, under the editorship of Ali Mirzaei, this approach continued up to issue 44, and special issues like one on socialism were published. Negah-e No had prominent writers such as Mostafa Rahimi, Dariush Ashouri, Mohammad Reza Nikfar, and others, and one of the best treatises on understanding Heidegger, written by Nikfar, was published in it. This monthly, which over time became a quarterly, changed its size and format from 1379 (2000) but is still considered one of the reliable sources for understanding secular intellectualism in Iran, although in the new period, the magazine's literary and artistic approach has come to dominate its humanities approach.

The 1990s were the renaissance era of the Iranian press. In the autumn of 1993, Morad Saghafi published the quarterly Goft-o-gu (Dialogue). Goft-o-gu also belonged to the discourse of secular intellectualism, but its distinction from Negah-e No lay in the fact that it valued original writing over translation, although Negah-e No later abandoned its translation-centric approach and turned to original writing. In those years, the Ministry of Islamic Guidance published a quarterly called Arghanun (Organon), which was the standard-bearer for translating fundamental texts in philosophy, theology, and the humanities. But Goft-o-gu was, in the strict sense of the word, an Iranian journal. The reality is that Goft-o-gu was influential in raising the subject of civil society before it became a political slogan in 1997. Simultaneously, of course, the journal Kiyan also addressed this subject, but Kiyan's concern remained the relationship between civil society and religious society. In its sociological approach to theoretical discussions, Goft-o-gu was a unique journal, and by dedicating numerous issues to topics such as the dialogue of civilizations, political Islam, the modern state, political parties, political liberalism, the institution of the state, the institution of the market, etc., it was considered one of the influential journals of the 1990s. The writers of Goft-o-gu, such as Morad Saghafi, Kaveh Bayat, Ramin Jahanbegloo, Zarir Merat, and others, are also considered researchers faithful to the methodology of the humanities. Goft-o-gu's secular view of humanities subjects aided it in demystifying the humanities, and although in recent years this journal has been published very irregularly and without the coherence and goal-setting of the 1990s, it is still considered one of the journals most faithful to the substance of the humanities.

The importance of Goft-o-gu lay in the fact that it believed more in civil society than in the institution of the state, and for this reason, it was closer to the tradition of Ketab-e Agah than to Donya. Secular intellectuals in the 1990s also published a monthly called Jame'eh-ye Salem (Healthy Society), which played an important role in promoting a secular view of civil society, social life, and urban economics. Jame'eh-ye Salem was one of the most practical social science journals. Mohammad Ghaed's articles in it were readable and offered a secular narrative of social life. Jame'eh-ye Salem provided readable articles and reports on detailed issues, and by inheriting the journalistic tradition of Ayandegan, it was also refined and adorned in language and expression. Later, part of this language and expression was repeated in the journal Lowh (Tablet), under the editorship of Mohammad Ghaed, which, although somewhat dedicated to the field of education, was considered among the successful humanities journals. Secular intellectuals outside Iran also have effective journalistic experiences. Humanities quarterlies and periodicals such as Iranshenasi (Iranology), regardless of their political stance, have published important research in the field of humanities that must be addressed in a separate discourse.

Journalism and the Understanding of Liberalism

But where does Mehrnameh stand in this journalistic historiography?

Mehrnameh is a monthly born from the journalistic experiences of contemporary Iranian intellectuals:

Professionally, we consider Mehrnameh a news-analytical monthly whose criterion for addressing humanities subjects is their objectivity. Every dossier published in Mehrnameh has a cause and a reason. In the view of Mehrnameh's editorial board, addressing eternal and everlasting subjects is not the work of journals. We select our subjects based on the month's news, and this very fact distinguishes Mehrnameh from an academic journal.

We are journalists, not a word less, not a word more. The editorial board of Mehrnameh is a group of young reporters, correspondents, and article writers from recent years of the Iranian press, most of whom have studied in humanities disciplines or have experience and interaction in these fields with professors, experts, and intellectuals. The editorial board of Mehrnameh does not consider itself theorists and researchers, but views each Mehrnameh dossier as a project, and perhaps a kind of educational and research thesis, following the common rules of journalism and research; that is, it involves proposing a topic or problem, theory analysis, refutation, critique, and defense of theories, source identification, and bibliography. Over the past two years, we have strived greatly to approach this scientific and professional methodology in each dossier by structuring the dossiers into chapters.

The editorial board of Mehrnameh is at once questioning, critical, and searching. We are faithful to the method of critical journalism and employ the method of critical analysis in the face of all political and intellectual factions. A major part of this critical attitude is manifested in the questions we pose to professors, and some are published in the form of introductions and lead articles for each dossier. Mehrnameh reserves the right to criticism—even if raw, student-like, or seminarian—for its young editorial board, even if some professors consider it obstinacy!

The humanities provide Mehrnameh's editorial board with the method for analyzing current issues, rather than being the subject of Mehrnameh itself. We are not a specialized journal of epistemology; rather, we strive to apply the method of rational, historical, and empirical analysis in Mehrnameh to address current issues (social, political, economic, and cultural). We bring the humanities into the public sphere, rather than retreating into a specialized domain ourselves.

Mehrnameh is a magazine belonging to the public sphere. Our audience consists of citizens, students, and intellectuals who are interested in discussions of the humanities and have attained a certain level of general education. We are not a specialized journal useful only to humanities professors.

In the realm of the humanities, Mehrnameh holds a foundational and methodological view toward two disciplines: philosophy and history. It holds a foundational view because it considers these two disciplines the mother sciences of the humanities, and a methodological view, meaning it uses the method of philosophy in logical reasoning and deduction, and the method of history in the objective and empirical study of humanities concepts. We consider the humanities to be among the empirical sciences, and from this perspective, we call for the demystification of the humanities.

Among the humanities, Mehrnameh prioritizes the more precise and empirical sciences. Political science, economics, law, and sociology are disciplines that have been neglected in the intellectual magazines of our era compared to philosophy (epistemology) and theology (religious studies). We consider these sciences an essential need of Iranian civil society for the transition to democracy.

Mehrnameh remembers good traditions from both religious and secular intellectuals. However, unlike them, it does not consider the secularization of religion and the demystification of religion to be the principal problem of Iranian society. The de-authoritization of all political, social, economic, cultural, and also religious relations is Mehrnameh's primary concern. Religious and secular intellectuals (who are drawing ever closer to one another) have, in past decades, focused excessively on the role of religion in Iranian life. At times, through theories like dialectical materialism, or theories such as democratic religious government and essentially any form of religious government, and at other times through theories like political secularism, they have sought to achieve freedom. However, Mehrnameh considers the first condition for attaining freedom to be liberation from statism in the economy, religion, culture, and life. By this logic, Mehrnameh holds no attachment to the tradition of "religious intellectualism," nor to the tradition of "secular intellectualism," nor to the tradition of "religious fundamentalism," nor to the tradition of "religious traditionalism," and it presents and critiques all of them. As "reporters of thought" and "historians of thinking," we believe that only the pursuit of "freedom" can transform any form of authoritarianism, from religious totalitarianism to secularist totalitarianism and socialist totalitarianism. Mehrnameh's attention to freedom-seeking thinkers in economics, politics, law, and philosophy can only be judged through this analysis.

Mehrnameh is interested in replacing the general intellectual with the specialized intellectual. The era of the great, polymath intellectual is over. Every intellectual can have one area of specialization in the humanities and refrain from commenting on other specialized domains.

Mehrnameh intends to familiarize executive actors such as politicians, managers, diplomats, and businesspeople with the theoretical foundations of their work, and to connect intellectuals and humanities scholars with the practical experiences of these individuals. Our conversations with politicians, managers, and diplomats (who can play an important role in the pursuit of freedom) are of this nature, not the kind found in party, commercial, or governmental magazines.

And finally, after two years, “Mehrnameh” sees the void left by liberal and pragmatist thought in Iranian intellectualism and, humbly, while respecting the role of religious intellectuals in our understanding of liberalism and the role of secular intellectuals in our understanding of modernism, and without endorsing all aspects of liberalism, intends to present, critique, and examine liberalism in its scientific sense within political thought, disregarding its incorrect meaning in the polemics and factionalisms of contemporary Iranian politics. At the same time, we believe that although modernity has made our world more pleasant, one can only achieve modernity by referring to tradition, and sometimes critique modernity, and especially avoid, as much as possible, what has come to us in the name of the modern absolute state. This theory may be close to the idea of conservatism, but what does it matter, for perhaps freedom can be attained in conservatism and traditionalism. Without entering the conventional literature of today’s Iranian politics. Mehrnameh’s attention to subjects such as Islamic philosophy and Shiite jurisprudence is of this nature. We are still in pursuit of “interpreting the world,” not “changing the world,” which is not the task of a humanities monthly, but to interpret this new world, we need to venture into unknown realms. It seems that libertarianism and capitalism, liberalism and conservatism, the open society and the rule of law are among these unknown territories.

A famous humanities professor once said, “Journalism is merely filling pages,” but we believe that journalism is the historiography of ideas. Without journalists, humanities theories would be exiled to the faculties. This is what the contemporary history of Iran tells us.

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Mehrnameh Monthly | Issue 20 | Farvardin 1391 | Page 35

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