نشریه معرفت فرهنگی اجتماعی
سال هفتم شماره 4 (پیاپی 28، پاییز 1395)

The influence which culture and economy exert on each other is an important topic which has always been the special concern of economists and sociologists, each of whom offers definitions which contribute to the explanation of the relationship between the two. Because the realm of development, is the wider arena of communication of these two things and social capital is the most important factor of development, this paper seeks to explore the relationship between culture and development in the sphere of social capital. Social capital is based on man’s one-to-one and contractual relationships in society and it is closely connected to the culture of society. On the other hand, culture is influenced by the extent of development of society, and it changes in line with the substructures, developments and communications. The research findings show that the main indicators of social capital are: trust, and cooperation, being under the influence of the religious beliefs, values, and cultural norms of society and effects on their deep structure and consistency. Therefore, progress and development require considering the importance of culture and its role in preparing the ground for social interactions.

This paper first makes explicit the instrumental attitude to modern technology by explaining its epistemological and ultimate principles, and then highlights the effects and requisites of this view about modern technology. After that, it criticizes the instrumental attitude based on Frankfurt’s cultural critical circle approach to science and technology and refers to the effects and requisites of this view on modern technology. At the end, resting on transcendental philosophy and criticizing the epistemological and ultimate principles of the instrumental attitude to modern technology, the author expounds the critical approach of transcendental philosophy to this attitude. According to this point of view, the nature of existence is aware of the actions of modern man and man’s technological achievements and reacts according to divine traditions, and modern man’s adoption of the humanist approach the brings about the wrath of God in the form of serious environmental problems.

Owing to the extensive media publicity, the world has witnessed tremendous changes in the style of dress in recent decades. Insofar, most of these changes are not compatible with the norms and cultural values of society. The styles of dress in the form of a special lifestyle, such as ‘’ consumption of symbols ’’or ‘’ conspicuous consumption’’, which have influenced the different aspects of girls and women’s and identity, is moving towards a dire future. This paper sheds light on the theory of conspicuous consumption proposed by Veblen, who is responsible for modifying the style of dress in modern time, in order to analyze and criticize it according to the assessment criteria of social knowledge i.e. (criticism of internal and external logic, sociological and psychological validity, philosophical validity and functional validity). According to the results of assessment criteria, Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption is rendered unsuccessful because it lacks an all-embracing view about the desired aims, concentrates on the upper and lower levels, considers consumption as the basis of identity and supposes that man is passive and lacks free will before the assessment criteria.

Affected by three major gaps, Iranians’ cultural identity may gradually lose its identity. These gaps include the ideological gap, the behavioral gap and the situational gap. The present paper seeks to analyze each of these gaps and explain their causes. The results indicate that the two factors of diversity of identity sources and different interpretations of them lead to ideological gap in cultural identity. Factors such as Formalism, amoralism and following false expediency, worldliness, quantity-seeking, politicization, spread of corruption, seduction and etc. prepare the grounds for behavioral gaps in cultural identity; and the two factors of modernity and globalization result in situational gaps in the cultural identity.

Appropriate response to the issues related to cross-cultural communications can assist people in successful communication management in multicultural environments. One of the most important questions relates to the role of culture and language in cross-cultural communications. Now the question is; what role do cultural features, like language, play in cross-cultural communications? Are people able to have distance from their own cultural features? Is the mere proficiency on the audience` language sufficient in establishing a successful cross-cultural communication? Using the researches done and a documentary method, this paper aims at finding an appropriate answer to this question, reference to the Islamic view. The findings show that it is impossible to limit the number of people to the structural features only. Individual features have a decisive role in cross-cultural fulfillment or failure. Understanding our own culture and our audience 'culture, proficiency on the subtleties of language and individual features are the three important components of cross-cultural communications.

Pluralism and cultural diversity are among the issues faced by most of the world countries which strive, in the field of social policy-making, to follow the patterns that lead to social solidarity and cohesion. Studying pluralism and cultural diversity in Al-e-Buye’s Shia government plays an important role in utilizing Islamic TURATH in line with Islamic civilization-building, During the fourth and fifth centuries Hegira, Ale-Buye government dominated a large part of the Muslim world; they ruled for more than a century and could create an “Islamic renaissance”. The required data were collected using thematic analysis and primary, organizational, inclusive, and concentrative encoding. Then, the diagram of the themes’ templates and the network of templates and their analysis was drawn and the pattern of the polices of Al-e-Buye government in dealing with cultural diversity (races, religions and denominations) was inferred. The drawn pattern was based on "unity in diversity”.

Despite Ayatollah Akhund Khorasani’s belief in "Velayat-e faqih ", some try to introduce him as being opposed to Velayat-e faqih. With a little contemplation of his works and outspoken remarks, one can admit to his commitment to the principle of Velayat-e faqih. This is a new course of distorting the history, because just like Imam Khomeiny and not against him, Akhund believed in velayat-e faqih both theoretically and practically. In the position of Vali Faqih, Imam Khomeini led the ousting the Shah from power, declaring the Takfir of Salman Rushdi, threatening Bani-Sadr to dismissal, issuing the verdict of apostasy of the so-called national- religious group and etc. In a similar vein, the late Akhund Khurasani ousted Ali Shah from power, threatened the Sultan of Ottoman, warned the Ottoman Sheikholeslam, expelled Taghizadeh from the National Assembly and anathemized him and all the secular intellectuals. Using descriptive and documentative method, this paper seeks to underline Akhund Khorasani’s theoretical and practical belief in "Velayat-e faqih ". He holds that in the era of the infallible Imam’s absence, Velayat-e faqih is a" right special to jurists” .