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The Principle of Homeostasis Considered in Relation to Political Events in Iran in the 1960's

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Roger M. Savory
Affiliation:
University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Extract

The dictionary definition of ‘homeostasis’ is: ‘the tendency of an organism to maintain a uniform and beneficial physiological stability within and between its parts; organic equilibrium’. As applied to a political organism, it denotes the tendency of that organism to ‘maintain as much of its former condition as is practically possible’, however determined the attempts to alter its shape. In a paper presented to the meeting of the Middle East Studies Association of North America in 1967. I suggested that the principle of homeostasis was inherent in the Persian polity.Iran's ancient civilization has produced social attitudes and deeply ingrained characteristics which do not admit of rapid change,except by means of the disruptive force of violent revolution. The 2,500-year tradition of the Persian monarchy, a tradition fostered and preserved under a succession of alien rulers — Arab, Turk, Mongol, Tatar and Afghan - has given to the Persian polity, and to Persian society, an organic stability which places Iran in a category completely apart from most other countries in the Middle East, and from the majority of the so-called 'emerging' and 'underdeveloped'nations in general. As E. G. Browne noted at the time of the Persian Constitutional Revolution in 1906, the chief characteristics of the Persians are: (i) the stability of the national type and (ii) the power of national recovery.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

page 282 note 1 Quotation from a paper by William H. Hallman, made available to me through the courtesy of Professor T. Cuyler Young, Senior.

page 282 note 2 At the plenary session of the First Annual Meeting of MESA, held at Chicago, Illinois, on 8−9 December 1967.

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