Dear Dariush: I f you had not put your name under this comment, most people would think that, it is written by an old fashioned, conservative from Victorian era. What surprised me is not the article itself but your response to it. The article by itself was useless anyhow. It seems to me you were dissatisfied by even raising any question, on figures like Molavi, Ferdosi and others. Also there is some evidence that Molavi might had sort of sensual feeling toward Shams, but it really matter if he was even open homosexual like Oscar Wilde? Why we are not so surprised when we read Foucault, Roland Barthes, Alan Turing, Janet, Gide, Leonardo da Vinci, Wittgenstein, Sappho and hundreds of openly homosexuals?
You have raised the question whether the Britons would have treated Shakespeare like that? Mr. Dariush: I am not sure whether or not there is any Shopkeeper’s biography, but I am sure if the Westerns have any knowledge of his “ dark “ side, they would not hesitate mentioning it. As a matter of fact there is speculation that there were no such person named Shakespeare and Francis Bacon is the real author of all which is known as work of Shakespeare. The Westerner goes even so far that John W. Miller--- professor Emeritus of Religion Studies at Conrad Grebel College, University of Waterloo, Ontario--- in his book “ Jesus at Thirty: A psychological and Historical Portrait” says that “ Jesus may have been a homosexual and if we really look deep into Jesus’ life style, his speculation becomes more real.
It seems to me we Iranian would love only talk on “enlightenment” but not to apply it in our daily life. We would not care if Foucault was a homosexual but “ rage ghardane moun mizane biroun, if some body says hey, Molavi may have been homosexual. Imagine an Iranian man, which just was told that his sister is not virgin anymore. We all may not agree with Freud’s book on Leonardo da Vinci but this book is a real on the sources of intellectual activity.
Have we ever asked ourselves, why there is a close connection between being a genius and having some dosage of madness? Have we thought about why Picasso was misogynist? Have we ever asked why Nietzsche became insane? Why Louis Althusser killed his wife and was pronounced insane? Why Charles Bukowaski, Hemingway and thousands of other artists, writers, and poets were alcoholic? And why the suicide rate is much higher within artist than say scientists? All these go back to unconscious, which is repository of all artistic, and scientific and other intellectual activity. If we believe in unconscious and it’s being the “ master of the house” we need to answer, what is the content of it? What is made of from? According to Freud (discoverer of unconscious) and psychoanalysis, the content of unconscious is all sexual (not sex, sexuality means libido, the life’s sustaining energy “ Life is nothing but desire to find the lost object (object petit a, as Lacan calls it) In artists this libido (mental world) is not as organized as say in scientist, so the mental life is more fluid. How many homosexual scientists do we know? Not too many. How many homosexual artists, painter, fashion designer, poet, and musician do we know? A lot.
Any how I would recommend reading a very well written book by Parveen Adams titled “ Art, Sublimation or Symptom”. She is director of postgraduate psychoanalysis Studies program at Brunel University in UK.
I am not even going to reply to your criticism of Shamlu, Barahani etc, because your defending of the past without a critical thinking remind me of Einstein which said “ the breaking of the tradition is harder than the splitting of the atom.” The Turkish director, screenwriter Yilmaz Guney in the interview for his film “YOL” said, “ People are prisoner, some locked up behind bars and some inside their mind.” No wonder why we all complain about why we the Iranian have not progressed too much, we read Kant’s article on “ enlightenment” just for intellectual curiosity but deep down we mostly are traditional, some with bow ties, and some with out.
