Blogs away! and the completion of my paper

The paper is finished. I created an interdisciplinary answer to my question about the effects of the explosion of Iran youths blogging and now I have moved on to another paper this time covering the reservations of Charles Lyell in accepting evolution. Make note, I am going to bed at a civilized time tonight, but I predict another all-nighter tomorrow as I frantically finish this last paper of mine for the semester.

I want to give a brief summary of my INDS paper and continue the analysis of the experience of blogging. I found after reading the literature and reading some blog entries that the effects of blogging for Iranian youth will be thus: there will be social change in Iran and it will be caused in part by blogging, but it will be a reformist change and not a revolutionary change. I believe that social liberalization will occur as the flow of information continues to and from Iran. I think significant change is in store for Iranian women as they are able to express themselves more, albeit on-line currently, and are able to discuss taboo topics. Also, the mixed gendered interactions taking place, facilitated by blogging, will inevitably bring change as the youth in Iran (point of clarification-this refers to those 15-35 as they make up 40% of the country, a very high number) circumvent the traditional segregationist policies of the regime. I believe these changes will occur because the government will allow them to occur. They will stay in power to through liberalization.

The above discussion is based on five major disciplines that I encountered: anthropology, sociology, religion, technology, and political science. I found that the discipline of anthropology and specifically the theory of studying cultural scripts interconnected all of the disciplines. Cultural scripts ultimately reflect identity as the template a person chooses (a cultural script for those who don't know) depends on how they perceive their identity, how they perceive the other persons identity, and how they think the other person perceive s their identity. Each of the disciplines and theories from those disciplines that I used in examining this issue was able to be interconnected with the use of cultural scripts. Interactions in society take place on an individual level, group level, governmental level, and so on. The information one has on another affects which cultural script one chooses and the flow of information changes these cultural scripts. One important thing to keep in mind is that all these identities created and interactions between people in Iran need to be contextualized with the realization that they are made in a theocracy where government and religion are one unit. Also, one must keep in mind that all technology brings change, but it preserves continuity as the technology is co-opted into mainstream society. This is illustrated in Iran through the the grand ayatollahs creating blogs and using the Internet to export their ideology.

Bottom line, blogging brings opportunity for change by creating what is an essentially an identity crisis. Blogs change cultural scripts which equals identity which equals change in identity.

This is my paper and I think I argued it a little more gracefully than what I just did but this is the gist of it.


For each of my blogs, I feel hypersensitive to whom I am writing as well as for what purpose. This feeling has not gone away yet, and I wonder if it ever will. I have found that my writing kind of flows with a stream of consciousness colloquial oral discussion bent. It is less formal than paper writing but not choppy like text messages. I also write knowing that nobody I don't think reads this but that there is a potential to for billions of people to read it (but that will never happen, and I don't want it to) I still struggle against my own notion of expressing what I feel for others to see, especially those I don't know. I also don't want to come across as a self absorbed person who thinks that everyone wants to know the intimate details of my life. I think blogging can make it easy to fall into that trap.

But most of all and most surprising, I like to blog. Perhaps it is still novel, but I actually look foreword to blogging each night. We will see how that goes, thanks for reading (am I talking to myself?)

P.S. I am going to try to blog in Arabic when I get done with school, and I wish I knew Farsi so I could use it too.