A Problematization of Feelings in Contemporary Iran: A Theory on the Mechanisms of Emotional Patterns in Iran

This paper presents and formulates an approach on emotion or feeling changes in contemporary Iran. In the Introductory, I formulate a problematic approach to analyze emotions and feelings in Iran. In the second part, I introduce and explain the key theoretical concepts including Sociological Imagination, the Complexity theory, the Cultural paradigm, the Structure of feelings, and Triple emotional patterns consisting of the Residual, Dominant, and the Emergent patterns. I draw these concepts from works of Raymond Williams, Edgar Morin, Alain Touraine and C. Right Mills. In the last part and the main body of the paper, I examine the Iranian contemporary structure of feelings according to the tripartite patterns and in each pattern I differentiate the main elements and features of the pattern explained.
The general postulation of this study is that human feelings are social contractions and therefore all feelings are social and cultural. Accordingly, to examine and defamiliarize feeling we need to consider socio-historical contexts that would construct and change the feelings. This view is against “essentialist approach” which analyzes Iranians Based on a pattern of eternal and immutable emotions which is quite pervasive among the masses and ordinary people. Methodologically, this paper is a conceptual and cultural analysis to defamiliarize and problematize the Iranian contemporary feelings and emotions.