Intergenerational Conflicts in Iran: Myth or Reallity?

Mohammad Hossein Panahi

Intergenerational Conflicts in Iran: Myth or Reallity?

2014, Cultural Encounters Conflicts and Resolutions

Abstract

One of the important social issues attracting the attention of social thinkers in post WWII era has been the issue of intergenerational conflict. Presented by scholars such as Karl Manheim and Margaret Mead, it was thought that in post WWII era intergenerational conflicts or gap rose to a degree that it made the communication and understanding between pre and post WWII generations very difficult. It was theorized that this unbridgeable gap between the two generations was due to grave and rapid social changes that occurred in that era, so that these two generations experienced and lived in two totally different worlds. Although this thesis was criticized in the west with later studies, the issue of generation gap continues to be one of the cross culturally studied subjects. It is claimed that in the developing countries, such as Iran, which experience rapid social change in their transformation from traditional to modern societies, a high level of generation gap has emerged. Focusing on the studies carried out in Iran by the author and others, this paper proposes that in order to acquire deeper understanding of the phenomenon, and the way to encounter it, generation gap should be analyzed into value-oriented and norm-oriented types. The findings in this research revealed that both value-oriented and norm-oriented generation gaps in Iran were considerably wide.

Expanded Abstract: There was no abstract for this paper, instead, I decided to add the introduction of this paper, here, as an expanded abstract. Before the study framework of this paper is presented, some theoretical and methodological limits need ‎to be discussed.‎ First, it seems naive to imagine that the discourse of post – modernism or its so-called changes ‎could be relevant to countries, such as Iran, which are not being viewed as post-materialist, post-‎industrial societies. However, if one reads Inglehart’s ideas on the production of culture ‎‎(Inglehart, 1998) it becomes evident that the primary point for understanding current societies lies ‎in discarding the sociology of modernism’s theoretical postulates about the non-western societies. ‎One of these postulates is the modernist dichotomization of the world into geographical divisions, ‎in which one part of the world (the West) pioneers ‘progress’ based on technology and the other ‎‎(the East) needs to follow (Harrison, 1998:62). Having done away with this idea, we need to ‎replace it with a new postulate. For example, one that is no longer bound to geographical factors ‎or limited to the production of technology (e.g., Inglehart, 1998). In fact, it can be argued that ‎such a new postulate could cover a wider range of concepts including cultural change and social ‎dynamism. Thus, every individual society regardless of its level of technological progress could ‎enter into the process of cultural dynamism.‎ Second, the meaning of „generation“ and its application to the case of Iran also needs to be dealt ‎with. The traditional definition of „generation“ is based on a set of familial groups consisting of ‎grandparents, parents, and their offspring (e.g. Mannheim, 1972:276-320). Here, I take generation ‎as an age-specific term or as a course of time during which individuals of a set of age-groups can ‎create their own belief system and cultural praxis. In this sense, I assume that every generation ‎has its own cultural system that in some ways is different from the cultural system of other age ‎groups and of society at large. A generation’s period, based on the traditional definition of ‎generation, can cover ten to fifteen years or so during which the individuals’ aspirations and ‎belief systems remain stable and radical attitude change is not prevalent. However, once we have ‎redefined. The ‎Generational Gap in Contemporary Iran the concept of generations, we would be ‎methodologically able to say that the cultural values of each age group can be different even ‎when they belong to the same generation.‎ Third, the difference between generational subcultures also requires our attention. In more recent ‎years, women are more active in some cultural institutions than men (e.g. Abdollahyan and ‎Mortazavian, 1998). The same thing can be said about male and female generations in Tehran ‎compared to other small cities or rural areas. It is evident that the modernization process of the ‎pre-1980s centralized the process of change in Tehran and did not take the same measure to ‎affect the socio-economic structures of small cities and rural areas. Therefore, cultural ‎heterogeneity is prevalent across gender groups of generations and across urban and rural areas. ‎ Fourth, it also needs to be said that working with the concept of generations in Iran forces us to ‎take into consideration the gaps in the history of Iran. While the continuity of social, political, ‎cultural, and economic institutions in a historical context provides the necessary grounds by ‎which one can follow changes, it has not been so in the case of Iran. For example, the 1979 ‎revolution rearranged almost all social, economic, cultural, and political institutions in Iran. These ‎changes should be considered as a historical gap which would bring delicate issues into the ‎understanding process of generations. This is important because many changes that are usually ‎attributed to the issue of generations might actually have been the outcome of the 1979 historical ‎gap. ‎ Fifth and finally, the relationship between the contemporary cultural changes and their logical ‎consistency with the results of the modernization process also requires our attention. Are these ‎changes a sign of a new era or are they the outcome of the modernization process? I believe, the ‎modernization discourse makes it clear that cultural changes need to happen in order for society ‎to develop (e.g. Almond & Verba, 1963:8). In this sense modernization and development require ‎modernized elites and a nation state. (see Harrison, 1988). While this might have been the case in ‎Iran, the changes that we refer to have not resulted in the production of national patterns of ‎modernized elements at the individual level. On the contrary, the modernization process has only ‎provided grounds for a diversified pattern of social relations. Therefore, when we talk about ‎generations we use them as indices of a diversified culture, not as indices of the formation of a ‎pattern of the development of a universal mentality. Considering these five theoretical and ‎methodological concerns, we are ready to construct the theory we need, in order to address the ‎problem of generations in Iran.‎ Keywords: gernerations gap, Iran, generations ideals, modernization, cultural change, age and gender-based changes.

The paper explores how mounting elderly are facing lack of leisure and recreations in Iran in general and in Tehran in particular. Though their number is increasing, and their life patterns changing as compared with the past aging people, yet they lack leisure services. Income, neighborhood and social status all influence what an older person chooses to do. Those with low income, and little education, and those with high income, or middle income and more education show different involvement in leisure pursuits. Some theories of aging describe leisure activity of the elderly people as those that they did in their middle age. Though the elderly are largely in need of increasing welfare services and leisure, yet there are not sources enough to meet such needs. Increasing life expectancy everywhere including Iran means that the elderly would need more leisure for now and for the years to come. However, in Iran retirement diminishes family's income which eventually leads to lower budget to spend on leisure pursuits. Similarly, death of a spouse is followed by shortage of leisure for the other. After reviewing the background theories and literature , some 452 questionnaires were completed, and through which various queries were examined. In the process of referral, the researcher could find 272 live aging men against 402 aging women on a random basis. However, though in theory people are expected to have more fun and leisure during their old age, yet it does not happen so in Iran in most cases due to shortage of funds and financial resources. Because of considerable socio-cultural change in recent years, the elderly much feel detached from the family network, i.e. the network which was used for their leisure time according to the erstwhile standards. The unprecedented population aging in Iran especially in Tehran followed by shortage of leisure among them is a new phenomenon. In this process, we need invention rather than imitation. That is, we cannot look to the past for ways to create a good old age today. However, to prevent the elderly from social exclusion, leisure pursuits need to be provided for them. Aims The main objective of the present paper is to reflect an image of the elderly people in Iran as far as their leisure in general is concerned. With aging, there is a definite shift in time allocation from paid work to leisure activities. We will see how satisfactory and adequate this shift is. Many countries in the developing world including Iran have failed to plan for the changing shape of the population into old age. The present work will try to reflect an overall picture of the aging people who are mostly grandparents too. The paper will find out how retirement brings a change to family life which needs new alternatives. In this study, indicators such as income, welfare, insurance, safety etc. among the elderly will be investigated too. Generally speaking, the extent and quality of help, and social work services needed by the elderly are different. Social work agencies, like most others, have failed to plan for the changing shape of the population, so agencies and services are being adapted in the midst of overwhelming demands on what little help is available [6]. As aging and longevity are gradually increasing in Iran, the present study aims to find out the health and socio-economic conditions of the elderly people. Though there are very few sources and scientific documents on the elderly in Iran, the author is trying to create views and literature on the topic by collecting data and using relevant materials through referring to foreign resources. While the concept of "Third Age" was not very popular in the past, it has found its deep meaning during the twentieth century, in which industry and medicine created miracles-leading to aging and increase in the number of the elderly. While in the past, the elderly were very influential over the youth, social structure of the family was such that, almost every decision-making of the younger generations was directed by the authority of the elderly [7], yet, in the course of time, and due to rise in educational status of children and youth, the authority of the elderly over children and grandchildren declined. This means, a decline of care services by the youth and the grandchildren towards the elderly and the grandparents. The present work tries to reflect a perspective of the elderly with special reference to their own lives, i.e. their safety and quality of life. Increasing life expectancy everywhere including Iran means that couples are likely to remain married for longer time; letting them likely appear as grandparents.

'Generation' as a concept, both in popular and academic discourse, is highly contextual and often overloaded with different, problematic or even antagonistic meanings. According to a meta-level classification proposed by, among others, Semi Purhonen (2016), three basic ways to use the term 'generation' exist. The first, genealogical usage of the concept refers to familial generations and is dominant in anthropology, sociology of the family, studies on socialization and education, social mobility, migration and so on. The second meaning of 'generation' is synonymous with 'birth cohort' or 'age group', and designates a group of people born at the same time or during a certain period. The third use of the term is in the sense of social, or cultural or historical generations, where the very notion of a 'generation' depends on the existence of shared generational identity and self-consciousness (Mannheim, 1952). Although the three meanings are connected, they should be kept analytically distinct for the sake of conceptual clarity (Kertzer, 1983) and methodological implications. This chapter employs the concept of 'generation' mainly in the third sense, focussing on social generations in the sense of socially constructed collectivities produced by shared experiences, and being closely linked to the concept of social time and chronological consciousness (Lovell, 2007), as well as societal changes. In this chapter, 'generation' as a concept is clearly distinguished from the more neutral 'cohort' or 'age group', the latter signifying a group of people born in a certain time period without necessarily forming a generation in the social sense. The relation between the concepts of 'generation' and 'societal change' is complex and ambiguous. Often, the notion of generation is used to signify different aspects of stability, either in terms of social time, or mental structures such as values or identity. In such cases, people refer to phenomena that have 'lasted through generations', or traditions that have been passed on across generations. At other times, the concept of 'generation' is meant to describe the collective identity and solidarity that have emerged in the past but that define the values of vast birth cohorts across time. Paradoxically, however, according to a widespread conviction and line of theoretical thought in social sciences, it is only during times of (exceptional) societal changes that generations come into being: when new birth cohorts have to negotiate their

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