Cultural Development, a Requirement For Economic, Social and Political Development

The last quarter of the 20th century coincided with cultural turn, post-modernism and post- structuralism, both in social reality and in social analysis. This "turn" not only reveals increasing importance of culture in human life and in the humanities and social sciences, but a better and deeper understanding of the role and power of culture in various arenas of human life and social theorizing, what had been overwhelmed for a long time by the economic factor. In this paper we have attempted in, first, discussing the importance of the development of culture and cultural development, and its various aspects and dimensions. Second, utilizing the recent studies about the role of culture in economic, social and political development, we explored the fact that continuous and enduring development of different aspects of societies without development of their indigenous culture neither is possible, nor it may lead to self- realization and accomplishment of human beings. We concluded that in Iran, for the development of various aspects of the society, it is necessary that such development be based on indigenous Iranian-Islamic culture. In other words, the developmental efforts in Iran must be culturally based in order to succeed.