If ancestors of a nation could have lived long enough, they would be able to see the difference between their thoughts and behaviors compared to their children’s. There is no doubt about culture changing in the long term. But what causes this alternation? One reason is the astounding evolution and progress in technology. Therefore, a twelve-year old boy is now looking for new computer games to play instead of rambling in his father’s farm land. Along with this progression different factors gradually add to a culture or subtract some traits from a culture while some characteristics remain the same in that culture. However, these changes vary from one society to the other. For example, Iran is a country that always has been under attack of other societies mainly because of its natural resources. Consequently, Iranian culture had been exposed to other cultures which have caused changes in the culture especially during the past 30 years.
Ancient Iranians (550–330 BC) were used to live in a caste system, and were able to tolerate other religions such as Christianity and Judaism. After, Arabs’ invaded the country around 1400 years ago, they enforced their religion, values, and culture into Iranian’s culture which caused gradual changes in the Iranian culture. Consequently Islam became the center of attention and played an important role in people’s daily lives. The cities’ image changed due to changes in women’s clothing, and gradually this change started to cause discrimination between men and women. Women were not able to play their part outside the house, so they stayed inside homes and turned to housewives.
Arabs tried so hard to diffuse their cultural traits into Iranian minds. However, they were unsuccessful in impacting some major aspects of the Persian culture such as language. Although changing some aspects of a culture most probably has impacts on other traits, Persians’ ethnocentric characteristic never let the language to be changed. Nowadays, this feature of Iranians leads them to be so proud of their past (before Islam), and their philosophers who mainly arose after Islam but got executed because their opinions were against Islam and political views of the time.
In the past thirty years, while extremists and radical Mullahs, as the country’s leaders, had been trying to enforce Islam and Islamic rules on the Iranian people’s everyday life, people’s thoughts and values changed again. But this time the change wasn’t because of the diffusion of other societies; it derived from the society itself. The pressure and oppression placed on people from the Islamic government completely transformed most of Iranians’ ideas of Islam. Now, people think more about their culture prior to Islam, and the hatred of religion is growing inside the families. Most of them have become hostile towards Islamic cultures.
The struggling against the Islamic rules brings self-confidence and assertiveness into women’s hearts and attitude. Even though they ought to wear Islamic and covering clothes enforced by the law, they design the cloths so fashionable that anyone around the world could use them as modern and chic outfits.
On the other hand, changes in Iran’s economy inevitably changed the nature of women’s role in the society. Economic and political opportunities have increased for women over the last thirty years. Many men who resisted the existence of women outside the home now encourage their wives to find jobs in order to help the families’ economy.
Overlooking the change in the culture caused by technology improvements is impossible. For example, plastic surgeries especially for men were something unacceptable in the past.Yet, it seems that no one in Iran gets surprised by seeing a man who is having a nose job now a days. Due to the importing of cables, satellite dishes, and high speed internet people get exposed to other cultures. Consequently, under the influence of commercials, looking like a Hollywood star becomes a desire for the young generation in a third world society such as Iran. Gradually, the idea of “looking good” spreads all around the country and consequently becomes a cultural value. Surprisingly, even elders tend to like this change in Iranian appearance and culture.
In all countries depending on whether the country is attacked by the outsiders or is a dominant society which absorbs variety of people around the world, culture change is unavoidable. Nevertheless, the culture change could be insignificant or extreme; for instance, when the Unites States receives immigrants from Asia, Europe, or Middle East there is no doubt about changes in some factors of the American culture over a period of time, however this change could be so small that it remains invisible. In contrast, when a nation like Iranians, is always under pressure of cruel authorities the culture change can be tremendous in some features. But, there are still some aspects in a culture which remain the same such as people’s language.