The Inquiry of Premodern, Modern and Postmodern Discourses in Akbar Raadi's Drama

In a political approach, Akbar Raadi can be categorized as a left wing writer. But the current study tries to analyze his writings –the outcome of four decade of authorship- using sociological concepts. Raadi’s standpoints on different dimensions of modern life including capitalism, individualism and individual freedom, technologic production, bureaucracy, nationalism and … are going to be discussed here. For defining necessary indicators, Peter Berger and Anthony Giddens’ probe of modernity has been used. The methodology is a combination of qualitative content analysis with what is suggested by Derrida as “deconstruction”. Raadi’s approach toward the concepts named above, his consideration of marginalized voices and his tendency toward cosmopolitanism represents some pre-modern, modern and post modern aspects of his thought. His emphasis on objective representations of his perception of “truth” is accompanied with a compilation of macro and micro sociology which pays attention to both structure and agency- although the latter usually can’t act successfully in altering the situations. He skillfully displays the social problems of his era: the existence of superstitions which is not limited to religious people, emergence of a new social order and the resistance of the pre-modern class, distrust in the state and government among lower classes, appearance of counter cultures and lack of Class consciousness in working class. Altogether Akbar Raadi can be counted as a sociologist with a strong distaste toward the idea of improvement, dysfunctions of instrumental rationality, unavoidable and intrinsic corruption of capitalism and it’s impact on transmutation of personality and the disruption of life-worlds, social structures which encourage falsification, conformism and exploitation of subordinates, the paradoxes of modernization in third world and the tragedies they create and briefly any restriction which prevents human being from reaching equality and human dignity. These viewpoints are the main reasons which make Raadi an anti modernization ideologist.