Introduction:
Intellectuals in any society play a major role in constructing definitions, facts, and events by producing and validating certain ideas, beliefs, and specific policies and delegitimizing other linguistic goods. Since the confrontation of tradition with modernity has been, if not the most important, at least one of the most important challenges facing the Iranian subject, studying the way intellectuals responded to this confrontation and their effective role in inspiring and politically mobilizing broad segments of society in this confrontation will be of great importance in the study of contemporary Iranian history. In general, two types of intellectuals can be distinguished in the contemporary intellectual field of Iran in a general division: secular intellectuals and religious intellectuals. These two intellectual groups had somewhat different positions towards different events (including the confrontation with the West and modernity) and produced different linguistic capitals and goods. Following these different positions and their evolution in different periods is an important and interesting discussion that has received less attention. The aim of this research is to examine and explore the way intellectuals formulated their language and discourse and how they created a symbolic capital for the Islamic Revolution.
The main hypothesis of the research is that secular intellectuals, while fundamentally criticizing modernity, the West and the established government, played an important role in producing symbolic capital around tradition and religion as a factor of morality, meaning and independence and using it to mobilize the masses for change and struggle, in producing symbolic capital in the verbal market and reconstructing tradition. The method used in this research is descriptive and analytical, and the data collection method is documentary and library and in the form of record-keeping. Peter Bourdieu's theory will be used to answer the main question.
Materials & Methods:
The victory of the Islamic Revolution was a process that, although initially different fields and currents played a role in its creation and advancement, ultimately achieved victory with the convergence of these different fields and with the dominance of the field of tradition and religion over other fields. Tradition, before this victory, had been reconstructed by the bearers of linguistic and verbal capital in the language market. The competition between the main actors in the production of linguistic capital in this language market, and how tradition was reconstructed in this field, are among the most important factors in the victory and production of discourse after the victory of the revolution. The main actors in this language market were the actors of the intellectual field, the field of tradition and religion, the field of culture and art, the field of politics and governance, and the field of business and the market.
Discussion & Result:
It is often assumed that the monopoly of concepts, theories, linguistic capital, and the motivating force of the Islamic Revolution belonged to the field of religion alone, and that intellectuals played a minor role or, at most, a follower role in this field. If they want to give intellectuals a role, they give it to religious intellectuals – especially Shariati, Al-Ahmad, Bazargan and Soroush. But a deeper examination reveals different interesting points.
encounter with the West. Once upon a time, during the constitutional era, the image of the West and modernity for ordinary intellectuals was an astonishing and generally positive one. They viewed the scientific, political, technological, and health achievements of the West with admiration, if not with fascination, at least with admiration, and in comparison with them, they saw their own society as backward, and they considered the right way out of backwardness to learn from them and follow in their footsteps. However, due to the reasons that the Iranian subject went through from that date until the decade leading up to the Islamic Revolution, this positive image gradually faded. To the point of leading to a "return to oneself" or a "return to tradition." Bourdieu's theory was able to provide us with appropriate conceptual tools for this analysis. Using this theory, the role of secular intellectuals in reproducing the symbolic capital of Islam and religion can be analyzed as follows: secular intellectuals at that time, by simultaneously criticizing three fields: a) the field of modernity and the West, b) the political field and sovereignty; c) and the internal criticism of the intellectual field and the reconstruction of its habits, placed their theological capital at the service of the field of tradition and helped symbolize religious and religious capital.
Internal criticism of the intellectual field and the habitual reconstruction of commitment: By redefining their role, secular intellectuals did not consider passivity and isolation to be worthy of the role of an intellectual and were able to make it prominent among the intelligentsia in the company of religious intellectuals in a habitual way.
Criticism of the West and modernity: The habitual implication of commitment forced secular intellectuals to take a position in relation to the confrontation with the West. Influenced by Iran's historical experiences as well as the intellectual and objective requirements in the global dimension, they criticized the West and modernity, and at least considered following the path of the West a form of submission that, considering the authentic and Islamic culture, was not only unnecessary but also harmful.
Othering with the political field and the government: However, since the criticism of modernity was confiscated by the political field and the Shah himself, and the Shah, at least in a dramatic way and in the verbal market, called himself independent and even critical of the West and praised the return to the tradition of ancient Iran, secular intellectuals emphasized the tradition and history of Islam in order to othering, and considered it to contain not only spiritual and moral elements, but also revolutionary and mobilization elements that could lead Iran towards a better society.
Secular intellectuals and the production of symbolic capital for the field of tradition: This linguistic capital produced by the intellectual field, which was in line with the linguistic capitals of the religious intellectual field as well as the field of tradition and religion, gained credibility in the absence of other credible alternatives and took the form of the symbolic capital of the revolution, and this symbolic capital itself led to the political mobilization of various social groups and classes.
Conclusion:
Given that research on the Islamic Revolution often focuses on the role of religious intellectuals and clergy in presenting religious and traditional concepts, it seems that the role and performance of secular intellectuals are neglected. This neglect leads to a misunderstanding of the intellectual space and field in general, as well as the theological market that dominated that historical period. Therefore, in this research, we were looking for the role of secular intellectuals before the Islamic Revolution in reconstructing the field of tradition and producing religious and theological capitals by this group of intellectuals.
Bourdieu's theory was able to provide us with appropriate conceptual tools for this analysis. Using this theory, the role of secular intellectuals in reproducing the symbolic capital of Islam and religion can be analyzed in such a way that secular intellectuals at that time, by simultaneously criticizing three fields: a) the field of modernity and the West, b) the political field and sovereignty; and c) and the internal criticism of the intellectual field and the reconstruction of its habits, placed their theological capital at the service of the field of tradition and contributed to the symbolization of religious and religious capital.