Modernity beyond Nativism and Universalism

TL;DRAbstract

When contemporary Iranian political concepts, imaginatively derived from European political discourses, become frozen in their assumed meaning – the West, universal reason, tradition – it is often forgotten idealistically that those European populations over which state rulers sought to extend their control largely resisted, long and violently, in a process in which scientific reason was instrumentalized. The modern institutional forms of democratic political participation, often perceived forgetfully as “natural” to “Western culture,” were the unintended consequence or by-product of programs by European state makers to build armies, enforce conscription, maintain a tax base, cement coalitions, and thwart multiple moments of threat and rebellion from below. For many intellectuals in today's Iran, notions such as modernity, the West, universalism, tradition, and nativism are accepted as given, and therefore views on these important issues and concepts generally lack an appropriately spe

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