Interdisciplinary Studies in Media and Culture

Culture as a Medium between Social Will and Social Action:A Comparative Study of Islamic and Secular Cultures

Document Type : .

Authors

Sayyed Saeid Zahed 1
Mohsen Jajarmizadeh 2
Mohammad Reza Taghavi 3

1 Associate Professor in Sociology, Shiraz University

2 Assistant Professor in Public Administration, Payame Noor University

3 Professor in Clinical Psychology, Shiraz University

Abstract
Societies consist of three sub-systems: political, cultural and economic. If the society was a human being, politics would be the human free will, culture his power of thought, and economy his body and organs.  This analogy can be explained as follows: The human will pursues its intentions through thinking, and thinking employs material means to put its initiatives in action. Thinking therefore plays the important role of acting as a medium between the will and the action. Culture plays a similar role in the society: Politics operates through culture, and culture uses material and economic means to operate. In other words, culture operates as a medium operating between social will and social action. In today’s world, two major cultural systems confront each other: the religious and the secular cultural systems. Exploring the dimensions of this confrontation would involve a study of the concept of culture in general and a comparative study of the Islamic and the secular cultures. Acquiring an understanding of the concept of culture and its nature is an essential step before any thinking, judgment and planning can be done. This paper first studies culture in general and its nature and then adopts a comparative approach to studying areas of rivalry between the two cultural systems. To this end, the study employs new epistemological and ontological approaches and suggests a model based on teachings of the Qur’an which state that humans have three means for understanding: the sense, the thought and the heart, and that in order for anything belonging to the reality to be understood all the three means need to get involved. On this basis, the paper suggests that culture, as a fact belonging to the reality, is consisted of three layers, or aspects: sense, thought (or reason), and heart. Accordingly, a three dimensional matrix (consisting of a political, a cultural and an economic cultural dimension) was designed in order for the authors to determine the factors shaping culture. We then searched for instances of each of the 36 cells in both the Islamic and the secular cultural systems. Findings of the study can be a used by scholars in the field as a basis for cultural planning.

Keywords

Culture
Politics
Economy
Secularism
Islamic culture
پیروزمند، علی‎رضا (1389). مبانی و الگوی مهندسی فرهنگی، قم: فرهنگستان علوم اسلامی.
خامنه‎ای، سید محمد (1380). سیر حکمت در ایران و جهان، تهران: بنیاد حکمت صدرا.
دانشنامۀ الکترونیک رشد (www.daneshnameh.roshd.ir).
زاهد، سید سعید (1370). مبانی روش تفکر اجتماعی در اسلام، تهران: بهینه.
زاهد، سید سعید (1384). «در باب توسعۀ فرهنگی در ایران»، راهبرد یاس، ش 3.
زاهد، سید سعید (1387). «امر به معروف و نهی از منکر با تأکید بر حقوق شهروندی»، مجموعه مقالات همایش ملی نقش امر به معروف و نهی از منکر در حقوق شهروندی و مردم‎سالاری دینی، شیراز: ستاد امر به معروف و نهی از منکر استان فارس.
زاهد، سید سعید (1390). «مقایسۀ پرستش فردی و اجتماعی»، دو فصلنامۀ پژوهشنامۀ مطالعات تطبیقی فرهنگ اسلام و ایران، س 1، ش 1.
زاهد، سید سعید و سید حسن زاهد (1391). «مبانی معرفت‎شناختی تمدن جدید اسلامی از منظر علامه سید منیرالدین حسینی الهاشمی و نقش ایشان در تحول علوم انسانی»، مجموعه مقالات همایش تحول در علوم انسانی اسلامی، بزرگداشت دهیمن سالگرد ارتحال استاد فقید سید منیرالدین حسین الهاشمی، قم: کتاب فردا.
زاهد، سید سعید (1391). «مدیریت فرهنگ عمومی توسط مقام معظم رهبری»، اولین همایش موردکاوی و تبیین مبانی مواضع مدیریتی مقام معظم رهبری در مسائل راهبردی کشور (1368-1390)، شیراز: دانشگاه پیام نور فارس، غزال شیراز.
طباطبایی، سید محمدحسین (1359). اصول فلسفه و روش رئالیسم، قم: دفتر انتشارات اسلامی.
مطهری، مرتضی (1361). شناخت در قرآن، تهران: سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی.
مگی، براین (1386). سرگذشت فلسفه، ترجمۀ حسن کامشاد، تهران: نی.
 
Archer, M. et al. (1998). Critical Realism (Essential Readings), London and New York: Routledge.
Bhaskar, R. (1975). A Realist Theory of Science, Leeds: Books (2nd Edition with New Postscript, Hassocks Sussex: Harvester Press, 1978; Reprinted as Verso Classic, 1997).
Gerth, H. H. and C. Wright Mills (1972). From Weber, Max, Essays in Sociology, London: Routledge.
Huntington, Samuel (1993). “The Clash of Civilizations?”, Foreign Affaires, Vol. 72, No. 3.
Huntington, Samuel (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon and Schuster.
Interdisciplinary Studies in Media and Culture
Volume 3, Issue 2 - Serial Number 6
February 2014
Pages 55-66

Home

Guide for Authors

Submit Manuscript

Reviewers

Contact Us