From Erziehung to Bildung: Sadegh Hedayat’s Experience of Modernity (A Figurational Sociological Reading of Temporality in The Blind Owl)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Ph. D. Student in Sociology, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran

2 Associate Professor in Sociology, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran

3 Associate Professor in Sociology, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran.

Abstract

Sadegh Hedayat’s cultural modernism formulates an enlightened subjectivity, which founts the historical sociology’s experience of modernity in Iran. His literary experience conceptually differentiates Erziehung and Bildung. For him, a critical encounter with ideology forms Bildung, while Erziehung is subtle thinking informed by an encounter with an-other. Debilitating the sensorial paradigm of Iranian modernity is a social action that is only possible through a decoding of its temporality, all of which explains the chaotic narrative form of The Blind Owl. Investigating Hedayat’s experience is only possible through the non-I and other realisations in The Blind Owl. By suspending the ideological representations and mental structures, Hedayat represents a waned reality. In The Blind Owl, attention to places, recollection of memories, and dynamic forces that affect subjectivity and inform a migrative nurture. The Blind Owl is the structured explication of the chaotic experience of modernity in Iran. It is the roadmap of a heterotopia which leads to India, or an other within the self – as a promise.
 
Extended Abstract
1.Introduction
Contrary to his Critical Social Theory, Theodor Adorno’s theory of education explores horizons in accordance with conceptual patterns. Sadegh Hedayat’s cultural modernism formulates an enlightened subjectivity, which founts the historical sociology’s experience of modernity in Iran. His works echo receptivity toward a true Bildung. For him, Erzienhung, affected by the intellectual society and the experience of living in Europe and India, is conducive to the formation of Bildung. This notion had negative denotations for Hedayat: what are the things that obstruct the subject’s process of addressing the truly hush-hushed cultural notions and keep him from contemplating on the mechanisms of cultural industries and their traumatising consequences? Where does that flawless Erziehung, which informs Hedayat’s Bildung, come from? 
2. Methodology
In Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project, the cultural fragments, identified as “a world of mysterious kinships,” are philosophical ideas that are arranged in cannons which include experimental, material, and historical phenomena. One can only fully understand Benjamin’s approach by referring to the Montage-séquence. He introduces the fragmented and interrupted characteristics of the experience of modernity which include shock, struggle, and unpredictability. The nature of a canon, Benjamin argues, is reciprocally connected to the representation of the truth of modernity, which is fragmented and defaced.
3. Theoretical Framework
Bildung, for Adorno, is not a supra-social phenomenon that goes beyond all institutions and social actions. In other words, the representation of the “objective spirit” is in accordance with the sociological structures which, in turn, impact society’s sensitivity in understanding the “objective spirit” and receptiveness toward the world. For Adorno, Bildung is interconnected with society’s material reproduction, which is against the Idealist tradition, on the one hand, and is not confined by society on the other. In this respect, Bildung is to open the eyes to the objective world of meanings that go beyond the patriotic confines of the mind.
4. Discussion and Analysis
Hedayat’s pedagogical motive that relies on his subjectivity is affected by an identifiable and definite Erziehung: the experience of living in Iran, India, and Europe. Hedayat’s Bildung consists of three parts: a critical encounter with the societal structures which, he believed, would confuse the understanding of the “objective spirit” (culture); his internalisation of the said “soul” in the education process; and encountering the half-education ideologies. In this respect, Hedadyat’s global citizenship is influenced by the identification of human rights in language and native culture (from “below”). In The Blind Owl, the cultural objects become “autonomous.” Meanwhile, Hedayat remains objective in critically encountering the ideologies. He contemplates on half-education and turns to the traditional Bildung forms. To question the origin of Hedayat’s Bildung involves a contextualised sociological debate. His route must be rediscovered in accordance with his imagination in fragmenting the temporality of The Blind Owl and the images which presuppose an-other. It is in this respect that the sociology of the experience of modernity must learn from Hedayat’s Erziehung.
5. Conclusion
Hedayat’s roadmap of heterotopia leads to India – an-other and a non-I, both of which are within the “self.” In other words, it is a heterotopia within a “self” which carries its “other.” As far as a fulfilled self, in the identity paradigm, is concerned, Eastern and Western cultural encounter produces a problematised self which is paradoxical by nature. By incorporating the momentary recollection of an-other, Hedayat obfuscates the self and creates a suspended system in the middle ground, which is only possible through art. In this respect, recalling a temporal element in an-other’s system vitalises another space.
Bibliography 
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Literary Theory and Criticism
Volume 8, Issue 2 - Serial Number 16
Serial 16
March 2024
Pages 157-188

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