American diplomacy is based on the principle of rational self-interest. Indeed standard American political theory, dating to the Founders, is based on this view. Yet, as the great diplomat General William Sherman once said: "Reason has very little influence in this world; prejudice governs." Or we might put it slightly differently: we humans decide as much by the gut as the brain.
Now that Iran is top on the new US president's agenda, we can expect that he and his advisers, trained in politics and history, but not psychology, will try enlightened diplomacy, rationally appealing to shared interests. Diplomacy without knowledge of individual psychology and cultural beliefs is hardly diplomacy, however. So I will presume to offer some unsolicited thoughts from an Iranian-American, trained in psychiatry and philosophy, in the belief that any policy which fails to attend to emotional matters will never begin to approach rational self-interest.
(Disclaimer for bloggers: Readers from both nationalities may take exception, perhaps justifiably, to some of these observations, but these comments are only meant to expand the usual discussion, not to provide proofs).
Some observations:
1. Americans are pragmatic; Iranians are not: Philosophy is often implicit and unconscious. We need not read John Stuart Mill to practice utilitarianism; we learned it in preschool and on the playground. In cultural practice, Iran and the US have quite different philosophical commitments. The only home-grown American philosophy is pragmatism (founded by Charles Peirce and William James), a profound view of knowledge that is often underrated and misinterpreted as superficial (e.g., truth is the cash-value of things). In cultural practice, this pragmatic philosophy has produced a flexibility and provisionality that is second nature to Americans. In contrast, Iran's predominant philosophy has been a Shiite mysticism, personified in the 17th century Islamic philosopher Mulla Sadra. While more open-minded that traditional Islamic theology, Shiite philosophy remains committed to certain basic beliefs about divinity and revelation, a bedrock upon which the whole superstructure of culture is built. These two conflicting philosophical traditions have seeped into the daily habits of the two peoples: Americans are willing to compromise principle for results; Iranians are willing to sacrifice results to principle. (Hence the failure of the Bush stance: compromise first, then we'll negotiate; which to Iranians is just illogical).
2. Americans are Calvinistic; Iranians are not. No matter what one's religious tradition, American culture is suffused with the influence of its Puritan founders: the notion that hard work is inherently virtuous is so deeply believed that it rarely requires mention. The easy acceptance of limited vacations and long working hours reflects this heritage. Iranians tend to be busy, but working hours are much more flexible, midday naps persist, and a more lax attitude to labor prevails. People work hard, but in spurts and with an eye to immediate results, not religiously in the belief in an inherent value of labor, as in the US. To some extent this Iranian approach is based on an experience that work is poorly rewarded, and thus it need not be one's focus. A certain pessimism about earthly success prevails, as opposed to the American optimism about worldly prosperity.
3. Americans worship the future, Iranians the past. Americans have no past, or little of it - two centuries is a lot of time, and very little time. Clearly Iran's golden age occurred long ago, and, deep down, Iranians ache for that lost prestige. America's history has been an upward arc, justifying, perhaps, the belief that the future will be better than the past. Iranians have a deep historical doubt about whether tomorrow will be a better day.
4. Americans value forthrightness, Iranians complexity. American culture (at least in its predominant Northeast and Western variants; Southern culture is in many ways closer to Iranian tradition) hails being a "straight talker," looking the other person in the eye, shaking hands and meaning it. Iranian culture values politeness above all: even if one disagrees with another person, long phrases of praise precede any expression of dismay. Rarely are one's motivations stated frankly and clearly. A popular Iranian documentary movie of recent years simply followed a policeman, standing in front of a hospital gate, whose charge was to prevent parking there: Scores of Iranian drivers pleaded with him, with extensive excuses about why they needed to park in front of the gate. His attempt to drive them off (politely of course) resembled a child trying to shoo away a swarm of bugs. The more he resisted, the more confabulatory and comedic became the stories he heard.
An Iranian writer, Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh (pictured seated), widely viewed as a founder of modern Iranian fiction, lived most of his long life in Switzerland. He once wrote a psychological critique of Iranian culture (The Character of Us Persians) in which he argued, among other self-criticisms, that Iranians have some character flaws, including that they fib extensively, more so than Westerners. Despite his wide prestige, Jamalzadeh's views met with harsh rebuke by Iranian intellectuals. Stated baldly, his generalization about fibbing appears hard to defend, but perhaps he was trying to say something that could be put more validly another way: Iranians appreciate the complexities of truth, and sometimes they may overdo it. Truth is not a simple and straightforward matter; it can be hard to know what is truth , and harder still to express it truthfully. The Austrian existential psychiatrist, Victor Frankl, noted that truth can sometimes produce falsehood, and falsehood truth. The writer Isabel Allende comments that fiction uses falsehood to produce truths, and memoir uses truths to produce fictionalized results. Americans at times may oversimplify, with notions like honesty being the best policy, thinking they are being truthful and forthright when they may not fully apprehend the truth. In contrast, Jamalzadeh implied that Iranians might err too far in the other direction, assuming so much complexity that simple truths are ignored.
5. Americans are postmodern; Iranians are not. While in practical life, Americans are straight and Iranians complex, in beliefs, Americans tend to be more eclectic, and Iranians more committed. In part, this difference may have to do with how Western culture has evolved. Modernism reflects Enlightenment values, the belief in achieving truth and happiness through reason, and a faith in progress. Many would agree that Western culture was modernist in the 18th and 19th centuries, but the disasters of 20th century totalitarianism have produced a postmodern sensibility, that is now deep in Western bones. A skepticism about belief, a relativism about values, and an eclectic comfort with mixing ideas is now part of American culture. Iran, in contrast, especially among its intellectual elites, values the premodern and the modern; for religious Iranians, premodern truths of faith are living and vital; for secular Iranians the faith of theWestern Enlightenment - exemplified by thinkers like Hume and Mill and Voltaire - is the valued goal. Though Americans publicly profess the Enlightenment values of the Founding Fathers, in practice they relapse into relativistic postmodern habits. Iranians can sense this: if one is seen as not really believing in anything, trust can be hard to establish.
