A look at the relationship between culture and society in the second Pahlavi period

Abstract

In the second Pahlavi period, with the spread of modernization in various aspects of the social system, major changes occurred in the economic, cultural, administrative and social structures. These changes, through changes in material wealth, livelihood style, cultural capital and social status of individuals, led to increased social mobility and fluidization of the social structure. For this purpose, in this article, we investigated the relationship between culture and society and the effects that these two variables had on each other. The results obtained through content analysis of 10 articles and theses showed; What was going on in the Iranian society at that time was nothing but a "return to ancient Iran with a western secularized approach".
The glory of ancient Iran and the dream of returning to that period was an excuse and a pretext for Pahlavi II to show a strong international face in competition with Western governments. The second Pahlavi government, relying on the all-round intervention of the Americans in the social and cultural affairs of the country, established a new middle class that had gross and exaggerated differences with the native and traditional Iranian culture.