Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
This article is a sequel of the article "The Power and Involuntary State of Exception in Iran" (Sattari 2022). By redefining "authority" (based on the three concepts of hegemony, social control and reproduction), the author explains the special existential conditions being formed in parallel with the movement of Iranian society towards an involuntary state of exception by formulating the theoretical approach of "Oriental Post-Authority Society". His basic question is, what is the fundamental result of the gradual occurrence of involuntary state of exception in Iran? The author has five interrelated arguments:
First: The persistence of the "general crisis of capital accumulation" and the "expansion of digital technology" in Iranian society paves the way for the occurrence of two fundamental transformations (first: the transformation of economic roots of classes, and second: the transformation of utopia and the politics of class life) and these two transformations enters the society in a unceasing process of re-creation of a new existential situation with the characteristic of "self-reliance and self-rule". The author calls this emerging existential situation as the formation of an "Oriental Post-Authority Society" in Iran.
Second: The main tripod of this developing oriental post-authority society is (first: the gradual construction of a political anti-theology in society by relying on the theological concept of the State of Innocence, second: despair of the possibility of political revolution or collective fear of its consequences, and third: the growing tendency towards everyday social revolution as an emergency alternative to political revolution.
Third: In the formation process of the oriental post-authority society in Iran, a "new class birth" occurs and leads to the "birth of an autonomous class" and "the beginning of class autonomy in the history of Iran". This significant event intensifies the process of "increasing class displacement" in the society and the new autonomous class expands the main tripod of the oriental post-authority society even more by bringing together some layers of other social classes. In this way, a special situation emerges in Iranian society, which the author calls "a single society with two conflicting social realms" (first: the social realm of authority, and second; the social realm of anti-authority.
Fourth: With the passage of time and due to the "generational transformation of traditional leaders", the social realm of anti-authority gains more expansion in society, particularly through the continuous impeachment and negation of official authorities and their desired symbolic order, the new autonomous class gradually exposes the social realm of authority to passivity, more social suspension, and even the potential danger of dissolution. In such a situation, a fundamental conflict between the "order, interests and survival" of the members of these two social realms (or the social realm of authority, and the social realm of anti-authority) is subsequently formed and the ground is paved for the outset of an inclusive dialectic in the society. The author calls this special event "the dialectic of official social authoritarianism with informal social anti-authoritarianism" and considers its gradual synthesis to be the "ambivalent crisis of praxis of power elites and social forces in the society".
Fifth: The emergence of ambivalent crisis of praxis causes "mutual inability of power elites and social forces to conquer each other" and this exposes both actors to "erosion and historical recess". With the passage of time, this ambivalent crisis of praxis launches the room for the emergence of a situation that the author calls "involuntary collective aporia" (or the state of astonishment and intractability of basic problems in Iranian society). The continuation of this involuntary collective aporia causes existential anxiety and the spread of "pervasive general paranoia" in the society. This pervasive general disorder accelerates the process of suspension and social dissolution of traditional authorities and the process of the formation of the post-authority society in Iran.)
Based on these five arguments, the article has five sections. In the first section; by providing a new definition of authority, the author explains the impact of the society's movement towards an involuntary state of exception in the "transformation of economic roots of classes" and the "transformation of utopia and the politics of class life" and, consequently, the beginning of the process of "formation of the oriental post-authority society" in Iran. In the second section; He determines the nature of this oriental post-authority society and its three main tripod. In the third section; the author explains the issue of "new class manifestation" or the birth of an "autonomous social class" in Iran and the impact of this "class autonomy" on development of the oriental post-authority society in Iran. In the fourth section; He describes the process of increasing social suspension and the gradual dissolution of the social realm of authority and, as a result, the "emergence of a single society with two conflicting social realms" in Iran. In the fifth section; the author mainly describes the process of occurrence of a dialectic (or dialectic of official social authoritarianism and informal social anti-authoritarianism) and its gradual synthesis, i.e. "ambivalent crisis of praxis of power elites and social forces" dealing with its conditional future.
Keywords
- Involuntary State of Exception
- Social Classes
- Autonomous Class
- Political Anti-Theology
- Ambivalent Crisis of Praxis
Main Subjects
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