Culture and Cultural Engineering

Human as a social being enjoys cultural system. Human beings are the only creatures being able to make cultures. Culture has two dimensions: material and non-material and, in a special sense, includes non-material and cognitive things. The socialization process consists of a far-reaching mechanism which contributes to transferring, institutionalization, and durability of social beliefs, values, norms, customs and practices. Although culture is a cognitive and subjective matter and – unlike material or concrete affairs – cannot be easily manipulated or changed, a lack or weakness of management in this domain may lead to a kind of cultural dissolution. In this case, the organizations responsible for culture and cultural socialization would suffer dailiness. The natural outcome of such a condition is a crisis of social identity and a conflict in the cultural arena of the society. The organizations responsible for cultural affairs seek to institutionalize, preserve and transmit the culture, beliefs, and the cultural values and behaviors through socialization. In our Islamic society, the formation of socialization system is influenced by universal, national, religious, ethnic and racial conditions, and is formed in terms of preservation and protection of beliefs and values. Conflicting values and behaviors stemming from these various origins, and the diversity of the institutions responsible for culture and socialization would prepare the ground for identity crisis, conflict, offering improper models not consistent with national, local and religious doctrines. Thus, cultural management and cultural engineering become necessary in the society and, it is through them that we may investigate – with a scientific approach – the function of the institutions responsible for culture, their efficiency, and the degree of their effectiveness in society, recognizing their internal consistency and their compatibility with the historical, national, and religious identity of Iranian society.