The Culture Trap: A Reflection on Futile Efforts to Promote a Culture of Reading in Iran

Today the slogan “promoting a culture of reading” is heard everywhere. What does this slogan really mean? It is clear that this promotion is indifferent to the content of what is read. The sole aim is to increase the amount of reading and raise the per-capita rate that Iranian culture-lovers mention with embarrassment: “Why, with our cultural background and high levels of education, do we not read books, and what are the solutions for getting out of this situation?” The above question has become the main subject of many articles, interviews, lectures, and conferences. This short note seeks to show that not only is this question misleading in itself, but the very manner in which it is posed and the approach underlying it require critique and analysis. “Promoting a culture of reading,” in the simplest terms, seeks to increase the amount of reading in society. From this perspective, books contain contents that must be transmitted to the audience as much as possible, and the audience is supposed to become more cultured by receiving these contents; similar to the experience of raising the level of education, whose scandal has been sounding for several years now. Just as a person’s level of education has nothing to do with their knowledge, increasing reading also has no connection to the elevation of public culture. We know that the culture of university-ification in Iran, with the unwritten slogan of “a university for every village,” by building universities large and small, whether Azad, Payam-e Noor, non-profit, and scientific-applied, as well as significantly increasing the capacity of state universities, has yielded no result other than an increase in degrees (that is, it neither increased literacy, nor enriched culture, nor even improved industry), but has only and solely struck at the root of the institution of the university in Iran; similarly, promoting a culture of reading, if realized (which, of course, seems unlikely), will have the opposite effect. In the view of these custodians or well-wishers of the country’s culture, reading simply means transferring a bunch of information from a certain book to a certain mind, and in this sense, it seems that the only element not taken into consideration, that is, the main victim, is “truth” itself. The crux of the discussion lies precisely here: the popular conception of truth, and the consequence of this conception, namely the promotion of untruth. The main reason for this misunderstanding regarding truth is surrendering to the popular and uncritical concept of truth as a positive datum. In this sense, truth is a set of positive data or true propositions that one can attain by studying and learning them. This very conception of truth also prevails today in educational institutions (from primary and secondary education to higher education), which reduces “thinking” to “learning.” This approach ignores the negating and critical aspect of truth and confuses thinking with memory. But the next question that comes to mind is: can thinking also be taught? The main paradox lies in this very attempt to teach. Contrary to fashionable slogans about teaching critical thinking (and, more ludicrously, teaching creativity!), the answer to the above question is clear: “No, thinking cannot be taught; thinking, by virtue of its problematic relationship with truth, refuses to submit to teaching. Truth cannot be learned or taught; if truth is learned, it is immediately emptied of its negating aspect and consequently turns into untruth.” Moreover, a human being’s main problem is not a lack of knowledge. As long as there is no problem, tons of knowledge will have no path to truth. Hence, the interpretation sometimes voiced today in the speech of professors contains a degree of truth: “The problem of our society is not a lack of answers, but a lack of questions.” Many answers gather dust in bookstores and no one even approaches them; why? Because there is no problem in relation to truth at all. Having a problem of truth makes the individual thirsty for and receptive to thinking, and it is only here that reading, through the mediation of others’ self-explorations, can give direction to the individual’s encounter with their own problem. So, firstly, reading in itself solves no problem, and it is ultimately the individual who must confront their problem and resolve it; secondly, as long as there is no problem, either reading will not occur, or even if reading does take place, it will be superficial and fruitless. Consequently, desperate efforts to “promote a culture of reading,” like mothers who force-feed their children, are not only fruitless but fundamentally destructive.

As long as there is no problem, reading and not reading are not inherently different from one another. So the next question that the same popular approach will probably ask us is, "How, then, do we create a problem?" First of all, a problem cannot be created or commanded from above in a top-down manner. A problem cannot be transferred. A problem possesses a negative aspect that cannot be reduced to positive data. A problem is the result of an individual's critical confrontation with their own situation. Of course, one can provide a context that, based on freedom of expression and the clash of opinions, offers a possibility for dialogue around various issues, but are you, the custodians of "promoting a culture of reading," really pursuing this goal? Problematizing society? Are you sure? Doesn't this frighten you? Pay a little attention: do you really desire the spread of critical thinking in society? Do you accept its consequences? We have heard that today's society suffers from problemlessness, or, if you prefer, is caught up in false problems. Fleeting and deceptive problems cast a shadow over people's minds, all of which are misleading if we take "truth" as the criterion. People try to avoid confronting themselves, their problems, and, in general, the truth, and consequently fabricate false problems to amuse themselves with for a while. This fabrication of false problems is itself another aspect of the function of public culture, and in this sense, culture and civilization, for their own preservation, need to deceive human beings. Therefore, increasing the amount of reading, enhancing knowledge, and even elevating culture are all of the same cloth. The very problem of "promoting a culture of reading" is one of these misleading problems. The above questions lead us toward deeper and more crucial questions that there is no room to address in the present note: "Which culture?" and "Which truth?". Yet it can be claimed that the ideal of elevating culture, if used in the true sense of "elevation," is nothing but the dialectical negation of the existing culture. And it is precisely here that the custodians of culture (from the officials of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and various large and small cultural institutions to even writers, publishers, critics, and in general, the "domesticated domesticators of domesticated culture") all adopt a conservative stance against the negating and critical truth, and, knowingly or unknowingly, speak of phrases like "elevating public culture" or hope for people "becoming cultured" in the most threadbare and reactionary sense. Truth, however, will emerge from the heart of a critical confrontation with all this and, consequently, is entirely a battle, a battle with oneself and others. Truth cannot be taught, cannot be transferred, cannot be commanded, cannot be calculated, cannot be prescribed, cannot be displayed in positive data; rather, truth can only be lived and fought for: a methodical battle to the death against the established culture, relying on the internal critique of the situation itself.

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The Culture Trap: A Reflection on Futile Efforts to Promote a Culture of Reading in Iran!

Author: Mohammad Mehdi Ardebili

Source: Farhang-e Emrooz Monthly, December 2016

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