The Shared Discourse of Dr. Soroush and His Opponents: A Content Analysis of the Latest Letter

Discourse and discourse analysis are among the widely used terms in the social sciences, which, like other subjects within it, have various definitions and methods. Similarly, the method of content analysis is one of the new and highly useful research tools whose scope and precision are increasing with the growing development of statistical methods and software. However, in this writing, none of the conventional specialized meanings of discourse analysis and content analysis are precisely intended; rather, it is merely the phenomenological encounter of an eager and persistent reader with two rival intellectual currents and a search for the common categories between them. Therefore, what I mean by the title of discourse is this: 1. Individual A has an active life in society B; that is, to the extent of their ability, they voluntarily and consciously follow certain social actions and intellectual currents. 2. They recognize the two target intellectual currents A and B as two rival currents. 3. Given their following of both currents as well as their own knowledge, they have an inner insight into the attitudes and actions of both currents A and B, which is a product of the accumulation of conscious encounters with the various manifestations of both currents. 4. Behind the seemingly contradictory face of these two currents, they sense the existence of commonalities in the mechanisms of attitude and action. 5. Based on this, discourse analysis consists of tearing apart that outward garment and discovering the mechanisms behind them, which, like psychological defense mechanisms, may have completely different appearances and inner realities. For example, a representative of such an approach in the analysis of the human psyche is the interpretive current, whose most prominent manifestation we see in Freudian and neo-Freudian psychology. Of course, fundamentally, examining and comparing two discourses requires mastery over the historical manifestations of the currents in question (descriptive history) as well as a vast breadth of interdisciplinary knowledge and a priori theory in the analysis and examination of this discourse (analytical history). Since I see neither of these two abilities in myself, I make no claim to a comprehensive and precise analysis, and on this basis, I have called my intended discourse analysis merely the phenomenological encounter (i.e., the first point) of an eager and persistent audience member (which, of course, a psychoanalyst, with my interpretation, might consider such rationalization a kind of defense mechanism to escape responsibility). If we consider Dr. Soroush's discourse as A and discourse B as the very discourse that his efforts have been aimed at identifying, criticizing, and even destroying, according to the first point, my personal impression is the existence of several common mechanisms of attitude, inclination, and action in both currents. We are more or less familiar with the rival discourse he seeks to critique (regardless of its external referent) through his works, and we know the characteristics he attributes to this discourse in his writings. To examine his own discourse, I choose its latest manifestation, namely his latest writing in the recent letter.

Historical Simulations The intense interest among the religious adherents of various faiths in repeated historical simulations and reconstructions, as well as the psychological, social, and even biological mechanisms behind this motivation, has been a subject of attention in the social sciences for many years. For example, Hjalmar Sundén (1908-1993), drawing on the ideas of the American pragmatist philosopher George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) and some sociologists and social psychologists influenced by Mead regarding the concept of "role," proposed a theory of religious role-taking that had a significant impact on thinkers after him, especially psychologists of religion in the Nordic countries. These simulations, which exist at every level of religiosity (even the mystical; for example, the book The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis), have also found their place in his religious intellectualism. Consider a part of his letter: 1. "But despite their false claim, religious intellectualism has neither passed its time, nor is it perishable; it is not left alone, and it is not to be left alone. It is the language of the time and the need of the era. Its coming was not by anyone's command or permission, and its going is not dependent on anyone's satire or jest. The exit of the oath-breakers (Nakithin), the apostates (Mariqin), and the unjust (Qasitin) has no effect on its life and perfection ... . The exit of the Kharijites and the dotards has added to its purity." This is a very familiar discursive literature: "the oath-breakers (Nakithin), the apostates (Mariqin), and the unjust (Qasitin)" and "the Kharijites." Interestingly, the letter also begins with one of these same simulations (whose degree of historical reality is, of course, unclear): the story of Bayazid.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies Self-fulfilling prophecies occupy a vast body of research literature in social psychology, which one can consult in the sources of that field for familiarity. His letter is full of such prophecies: 1. “Religious intellectualism is passing through blessed days. On the one hand, it is becoming more complete, and on the other, purer. On the one hand, it fulfills its promises, and from jurisprudence—which was its first concern—it steps into theology and excavates the nourishing sources of jurisprudence, namely the ancient theology, Qur’anic studies, and prophetology, and in the light of earlier mysticism and philosophy, and modern philosophical and scientific teachings, it grants them greater and fresher nourishment and richness; and it presents a new theology.” 2. “The truth is that a thirty-year-old fetus that was in the womb of Iran’s contemporary history, now, having received the divine breath, is preparing to be born, and it is the pain of its labor that stirs up temporary (and at times hostile and malevolent) tensions and palpitations, which will of course soon subside, and the truth-seekers will deem the birth of this newfangled infant blessed and auspicious, and will see the mark of victory and triumph upon its brow.” 3. “It is already evident that the star of this traveler’s fortune is exceedingly bright. For, not yet arrived, it already has many intoxicated devotees and dagger-wielding foes: ‘Believers are drunk with confession, and deniers are drunk with denial’! ... ‘The increasing robustness and capability of this school is now undeniable, for ‘the sun has come, the proof of the sun’!’” 4. “This newly emerged infant is neither a new sect, nor a novel sacred law and religion! It has neither a prophet, nor a book; neither a disciple, nor a master! It is neither a party, nor a government; neither a source of emulation, nor a leader; it has neither believer, nor infidel! It is far humbler than these. It is an intellectual school and a form of intellectualism that opens new doors in religious studies and religiosity (in theory and practice) for the faithful and shows a new path in religious and Muslim understanding and conduct in the modern secular world.” If religious intellectualism is merely a soft current that has permeated everywhere, and not a quasi-institution (which, of course, no historical experience confirms the existence of such purities and ideal types), then “dagger-wielders” and “agents” also become meaningless words, and there is no longer cause for gratitude to say: “Praise be to God who has made our enemies our agents.” Interestingly, in passages of the letter, these historical prophecies are also mixed with “evidences of lyrical theology,” and it is as if the pact of brotherhood between God and the beauty of “His” countenance with the current of religious intellectualism nullifies His traditions in the emergence and decline of social institutions, and “the lamp that God lights / If a fool blows upon it, his beard will burn.” On the other hand, I truly do not know what proportion these historical prophecies bear to his Popperian basis of the poverty of historicism, which used to attack Marxist historical prophecies? Probably, in the words of this common phrase among the youth: “Ours is different.” Of course, this “ours is different” can also be seen in the above phrase, where on the one hand we consider this current an institution or quasi-institution (the “school” of intellectualism), and on the other hand, we strip it of the requirements of an institution.

Perhaps another basis for these predictions lies in a particular image of this movement's historical past: "Religious intellectuals were the first to grasp the secret and depth of this crisis, and with hearts devoted to service and faith, and with a Shariati-like courage and integrity, fearlessly and without dissimulation, and without bribe or reward, they confronted it and, with astonishing sagacity and acumen, worked wonders. They brought forth a new theology, opened the path of dialogue with modernity, laid the foundations for the struggle against religious despotism, put jurisprudential obligation in its place, gave sovereignty to rights and ethics, and, by simultaneously emphasizing spirituality and tradition, gently placed religious knowledge and identity side by side. By delving into the meaning and nature of prophethood and revelation, they unveiled the secret of the finality of prophethood, reconciled truth-seekers with prophecy, lifted the veil from the historicity of religion, dissected its essential and accidental aspects, and blocked the path of violence in the name of religion…." Well, if religious intellectualism has truly had such tremendous successes, then what is all this struggle to prove it and to dispel the crisis from the criticisms leveled at its foundations? A good product finds its own market, even without advertising. "It is the great fortune of this school that its enemies tear at their own sides, that demons enter the service of Solomon, that hearts are blackened, that hidden hypocrisies fall out of spiteful breasts, that clear waters are saved from troublesome straws, and the sooner, the better: Hark, say that my fortune has triumphed What was to happen tomorrow, happened today"

Close Reading 1. "On the other hand, he observes the decline and slumber of disagreeable companions, how they joined this school out of one greed and desire, and now, out of another greed and desire, depart unsuccessfully, taking the impurities with them, and leave this precious and immense capital for its rightful people." 2. "Even obscure, talentless individuals, in pursuit of false and cheap fame, clash with religious intellectuals under corrupt pretexts, so as to falsely present themselves as rivals to those champions."

Self-as-first conceit; self-as-all conceit; self-as-destination conceit Although I do not wish, like some, to put on such grand airs that there is a “historical narcissism” among us Iranians which has today itself become one of the factors of decline and backwardness; yet I see this inclination abundantly among us, for instance, to consider ourselves the first to have said such a thing, or had such an understanding, or performed such an act. Dr. Soroush, too, apparently considers religious intellectualism to be his own product and reduces its lifespan to thirty years (probably from the date of the “Theory of Contraction and Expansion”): 1. “The truth is that this thirty-year-old fetus that was in the womb of Iran’s contemporary history is now, having received the divine breath, preparing to be born.” 2. “Religious intellectuals were the first to grasp the secret and depth of this crisis and, with hearts devoted to service and faith, and with a Shariati-like courage and honor, fearlessly and without dissimulation, and without bribe or reward, confronted it and, with astonishing sagacity and acumen, worked wonders.” It is as if social phenomena are like a bridge-building project that has a beginning and an end; one strikes the first pickaxe and another cuts the ribbon. This self-as-first conceit also leads to self-as-all conceit: 3. “No thought in our land has created as much passion and delight, and rejection and acceptance, as the thought of religious intellectualism and religious new-thinking. Both secular intellectualism is indebted to and a supporter of it, and so is the clergy of Qom; both secular intellectualism is its enemy, and so is the clergy of Qom!” Esteemed Professor, on the basis of which empirical research do you make such a remarkable statement about an external reality? Now, suppose a hypothetical person were to appear and claim that in the society in which I live, and in the universities where I have taught for years, I unfortunately see that the annual number of his published books has reached the number of gummy candies a middle-class Iranian child eats in a month; let alone ordinary people, less than one percent of the vast academic community of the seminary and university have heard the name of Dr. Soroush, much less know his thoughts. What rejoinder does Dr. Soroush have for that? Of course, he might say this influence is of another kind and ours is different. That first-and-all conceit inevitably leads to self-as-destination conceit as well: 4. “And although a fierce struggle still goes on from both sides and an asymmetrical battle is underway, the rival has ‘willingly or unwillingly’ submitted to the strength of this school. Had it not submitted, it would not be doing all this idle exercise, and teaching lessons of ignorance, and writing books of misguidance, and amassing all this army and weaponry, and building fraudulent research institutes and training centers, and organizing virtual and real magazines and newspapers, all with one main and sole aim: to crush religious intellectualism and religious new-thinking!”

Polarization Polarization, that is, framing things as “either this or that,” is another proclivity abundantly observed in our society. Creating insiders and outsiders is one of the most conspicuous manifestations of such polarizations. Consider a few examples here: 1. “A fierce struggle is underway between two sides and an asymmetrical battle is afoot; the rival has submitted to the power of this school ‘willingly or unwillingly.’ Had he not submitted, he would not have engaged in so much idle exercise, taught lessons of ignorance, or written books of misguidance.” From the very beginning of the letter, it appears that in confronting the phenomenon of religious intellectualism, two poles exist: outsiders who either fundamentally lack proper understanding and comprehension, or those whose outsider status has been revealed by the exposure of their greed and lust; and second, insiders whose circle is so wide that it even includes scholarly critics who might themselves avoid this label: “In this context, the account of scholarly critics is, of course, separate. They hold the status of sympathetic companions whose sifting efforts have continually added, and continue to add, to the perfection and purity of this school.” And if a thinker does not defend this current, there is still no logical possibility for them to belong to a third category; rather, “they practice dissimulation and remain silent out of fear for their lives.” Interestingly, on the other hand, everyone is somehow counted as part of this current; as if this current has no falsifiable boundaries: “They are unwittingly the agents of this very school of thought.” 2. Some other polarizations in the text include: the worthy and the unworthy; intoxicated enthusiasts and dagger-wielding foes; the scornful and the enemies versus the insiders; Pharaoh-like against the one who spoke with God; Josephs and wolf-natured ones; the undiscerning; the pretenders; its friends and its enemies, and so on. And alas, this polarization takes on another common feature of these two discourses, namely labeling. On these two bases, anyone who does not see themselves within these two poles, even if they receive payment for their efforts, is branded with such a label: “Creating false scholarly and intellectual figures and giving expensive prizes to charmers, and bringing babblers to the box of sound and image, and the agency of clamor and color; and banishing the free and the noble, and promoting empty, anti-rational, and sorrow-inducing rites; and consolidating the foundations of despotism by the hands of the preachers of the sultans and trafficking with religion; and granting dominance to submission over criticism; and strictly forbidding the proposal and utterance of religious reform and … , is the practice and thought of a regime that has emerged from the seminaries and imposed itself upon religion, and sees the religious intellectuals who, theoretically and practically, lovingly and rationally, stand against them and are engaged in enlightenment.”

Absolutist Thinking The use of universal quantifiers such as all, none, generally, everyone, entire, and the like is another common habit among us (note that this very general statement of mine is also an instance of this habit). I used to think that perhaps such a habit in many people stems from never having ventured beyond their village, neighborhood, or city, and they imagine the entire world, or the center of the world, to be situated in their own local position, which is why they use such universal quantifiers; but the frequent use of such general propositions by some worldly and educated individuals causes one astonishment. Here are some phrases from his letter: “no thought in our land,” “today everyone has realized”; “upon no theoretical foundation”; “had no familiarity whatsoever with modern reason and science,” and so on. Of course, I consider the main reason for the use of such a literature to be the prevailing spirit of evading experience and shunning its rigors, and resorting to generalizations based on our own personal taste (yet another general statement). One who is a person of experience and knows the techniques of descriptive and inferential statistics and the difficulty of generalizing from a sample to a population would never make such extravagant judgments.

Oversimplifying Complex Social Variables Viewing social phenomena through a single variable (and that too in a cause-and-effect manner, based solely on personal taste or irregular and limited personal experience) is one of the great afflictions plaguing some thinkers and policymakers in our society. For instance, it is as if religiosity is a variable that stems entirely from perceptual variables, nourished either by the wellspring of the clergy (which is why we see the seminary institution's extensive efforts in publishing books, establishing research centers, and responding to doubts), or by religious intellectualism (which counts the reform of society as lying in the invention of a new theology); and other social, economic, and psychological variables have no effect on it. Or that our way of thinking is fundamentally an entirely conscious matter, and other variables have no influence upon it. "No thought in our land has created as much passion and enthusiasm, rejection and acceptance, as the thought of religious intellectualism and new-thinking. Secular intellectualism is both indebted to and supportive of it, and so is the clergy of Qom; secular intellectualism is an enemy of it, and so is the clergy of Qom!" Is this so? Are the mentioned spectrums, at least in their thought, truly indebted to this thirty-year-old current? Is it really true that "there are many [exactly how many? Where? How?] believers (and especially young people) who have derived their faith from this school in this turbulent sea of doubt and atheism, and acknowledge it openly and secretly"? On this basis, an aversion to experience can also be considered another commonality between these two rival discourses.

Verbal Aggression and Combative Language I have rarely seen anyone among Dr. Soroush’s supporters or opponents (that is, those I have encountered) who denies the combative nature of Dr. Soroush’s language, whose venomous sting is evident even in his lyrical and literary pleasantries; an aggression such that even if someone sympathetically takes up the pen of criticism, they constantly fear what to say and what to write lest this verbal violence ensnare them. I consider it unlikely that he, as a scholar of ethics, would deem the possible injustices done to him a suitable justification for this combative language. Verbal violence is one of the great afflictions plaguing our society (I am not, of course, making a universal affirmative proposition), and it seemingly knows no distinction between young and old, elite and commoner, academic and seminarian. We see the symptoms of aggression and verbal aggression mentioned in psychology in abundance in ourselves and those around us. If only research groups would form to describe and explain it, and from them, intervention groups to seek remedies and treatment for this calamity that burns both faith and world. A language that, alongside its social harms, constantly wastes individuals’ psychological energy on futile rumination over interpersonal tensions. It is interesting that this language is sometimes employed with compassion and good intentions by individuals renowned for their courtesy and humility, yet through inattention to the social and cultural weight of words, their harsh exigencies gradually incur enormous costs. The phenomenon of the Arabic terms “dayātha, dayyūthiyya, and dayyūth” is among the most recent noteworthy terms, carrying what tensions within itself and birthing what illegitimate offspring. The commonalities between these two rival discourses are not limited to the aforementioned matters. In imprecise scholarly phrasing, one might perhaps, through analyzing prevailing discourses, uncover the dominant spirit of us Iranians and the current archetypes, and target the direction of cultural formation in moderating them. A final point: although the outward form of this letter may resemble party manifestos meant to inspire hope in comrades, taunt the taunters, and perhaps quell a kind of inner fear and anxiety, or may arise from the heart of a sufferer whose “day of life has reached its evening and bears the wound of a hundred cruelties on his liver, severed from friend and homeland and seated in exile,” I cannot, based on the numerous definitions and components necessary for the formation of a sect in the social sciences, accept the label of sect-building that has been raised by some. I know him as a profound thinker familiar with “modern reason and science,” who has a compassionate heart within the religious tradition, knows well the confrontation between the new and the old, recognizes the “secret and depth of this crisis,” and strives to “bring a new theology and open the way for dialogue with modernity.” I do not know whether the path taken is right or wrong, but perhaps this concern and action is a form of worship. I pray to God for his health, so that he may, as in the past, create movement and motivation in the slow-moving caravan of thought in the country. In my opinion, considering the components of sect formation in the social sciences, Dr. Soroush’s intellectual current is very far from such a context, and perhaps remains only at the scale of a quasi-institution. But I can pose the question in a reverse manner: given that every social phenomenon has a birth, maturity, and death, can his intellectual current be considered to be on the downward slope of expiration? Only as a conjecture that might have the potential to become a hypothesis, I can answer in the affirmative. According to my conjecture, the current of religious intellectualism, in which a kind of polymathic discourse (that is, superficial entry into all subjects and opining) is seen, though once necessary and very beneficial, will in the future give way to the micro-specializations of the humanities and religious studies; that is, specialists in the philosophy of religion, psychology of religion, sociology of religion, and branches of this sort, each of whom will, as it happens, humbly study and research only a specific subject and will not claim a universal project. Of course, given his boundless definition of religious intellectualism in this letter, he might consider all these specializations as chambers within the bazaar of religious intellectualism; a label that many of these specialists would undoubtedly not favor for themselves. The aim of writing the above text is not to pass value judgments on the two rival discourses or to engage in simplistic, naive pronouncements in the mold of “on the service and treachery” of so-and-so. It is an act by an external observer who has a passion for seeking and pursuing truth, and a wish for thinking free from grand claims and the peripheries that yield nothing but the waste of an intellectual current’s energy, its defamation, and the heating up of the anti-thought marketplace.

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The Shared Discourse of Dr. Soroush and His Opponents: A Content Analysis of the Latest Letter

Dr. Mohsen Zandi

Researcher in the Psychology of Religion

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The Shared Discourse of Dr. Soroush and His Opponents: A Content Analysis of the Latest Letter

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