View from Iran

Here is a correspondence between me and Hooman of Whoman. I decided to respond to his points in this blog. Then I found that I could not exactly argue with his points because in many ways he is exactly right. The only thing I will not give up on is the idea of change. K says, "Iranians take a long time to decide to change, but once they do: they do." I'll let Hooman speak for himself. Maybe one day, I will respond in detail.

Your blog remains a fresh breath of air. I enjoyed your last post, that's perhaps why I am writing to give some inputs although I don't know if you are interested in having any.

"Iranians are smarter about the world of politics than I am."

Don't be so sure of that. Iranians (specially older generations) usually brag about their political "insights" and flaunt them. As you know it is a pastime among many to talk politics with a spin that Don Quixote would have used.

I think Iranians waste a lot of their creative energy and vision by fighting their own windmills, dreaming unrealistic dreams, and an evasive culture (that you touched on in a later post). They would be better off if they kept their head out of the sand instead of burying it in there.

The fact is that their political remarks are not well-thought out or well-researched with solid evidences to back them up. They could be equally wrong as they could be right on specific topics. It is not that hard to be correct 50% of the time when things are hazy and uncertain.

"Iranians have an open and resilient culture that is unbelievably open to change."

I can agree with resilience of the culture, but open? I am not so sure. The downside of this resilience is that every time the culture bounces back up, it ends up having more cues and formalities added to otherwise simple interaction of people. Evasiveness and its burden on the culture have built up this way in the course of time.