Address by the Empress at the Persepolis

Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies Persepolis Seminar

During my brief visit to Aspen in earty July of this year, I was very much impressed with both the content of the seminars and the setting in which they were conducted. I had the opportunity to attend the Institute's annual meeting of the board of trustees and discuss many issues I consider relevant to the plight of modern man. I realized how important it was for the active individual-whether his activity be business, politics, science, medicine, etc.-to be able to break away from the socially conditioning and partially imprisoning routine of daily life in order to come to a place like Aspen, where the Institute can help put him in touch with the social value of his work.

Too often we fail to question the roots and the ethics of the businessman's urge for profits and the politician's quest for power. Medicine begins as a lofty pursuit in the tradition of Hippocrates and winds up as a commercial proposition. Even science, which has been heralded as man's savior in the 20th century, fails to instill in people the need to question the value of what they are doing. There are many other examples on which I shall not dwell. Yet, I want to emphasize that although we live in a world of specialization, with tremendous forces attempting to shape us into technocrats, it would be to the benefit of man and society to question the values that lie behind our behavior. We must begin to think of ourselves as Renaissance men and women, rather than technocrats blindly doing a job; to place the individual again in the center of things and to remind ourselves that the ultimate aim of human activity should be geared toward the achievement of a creative humanistic world free from material want.

The Renaissance man may indeed be what we are all after. Otherwise, why bother to arrange for business managers to attend executive seminars that concentrate on Plato, Dostoevsky, Locke and Machiavelli, to name just a few. Wouldn't a series of lectures on business or economics be more appropriate? As seen from our vantage point, we would say no. For we share the Institute's desire to widen the horizons of man in the hope that he will recognize-more profoundly than the technocrat-the interdependence of social phenomena.

In Iran, we are not oblivious to the chasm that exists between the Renaissance man and the technocrat, between overall knowledge and excessive specialization. We are trying as rapidly as possible to achieve the goals of what His Imperial Majesty The Shahanshah has termed the Great Civilization. While the process of the economic transition and social transformation toward that goal seems clear, some ambiguity surrounds the cultural and psychological elements of this civilization.

Progress is not simply a quantitative economic phenomenon. It is above all a human process. Failure to work this significant factor into any calculus of development is an invitation to social and human catastrophe. Progress requires and creates new cultural values, norms and concepts while redefining the traditional ones.

In Iran, while we are proudly committed to our rich heritage and traditions, we shall not hesitate to create an environment conducive to achieving the human aspects of our aspired goals. This may well entail a new set of values under which a greater balance will be achieved between the material and the spiritual needs of man.

It is our hope in Iran that the end result of our unified approach to development will eliminate the alienation of man from man, of man from nature, and of man from society. In our schemes for development and our aspirations for a new economic, social and political order, man is the end and not simply the means. The cultural and sociopsychological changes that must-of necessity-accompany the economic transformation of our society will hopefully be a synthesis of our traditions and the social requisites for modernization. If the requirements of specialization have taken man away from the focal point of human endeavors, our hope is that through awareness, good leadership and good planning, we will reach the era that will restore the individual to his proper position. While the task is difficult and success by no means guaranteed, we should not be dismayed. And we must not forget that the spiritual bal ance we wish can be achieved only after the attainment of a material balance whereby all individuals are able to satisfy their basic human needs.

In the transition period to affluence, rather sophisticated indicators for the precise measurement of economic progress, in terms of its psychological, social and cultural effects, need to be emphasized. We are indeed in great need to develop human and humanitarian indicators to measure the effect that any social program has on the psyche of man and the extent to which it contributes to his happiness or alienation. In the battle of indicators, man must prevail, and it is my hope that all men and women of goodwill throughout the world will contribute their share to this endeavor.

As the Symposium~s final act, Aspen Institute chairman Robert 0. Anderson and President Joseph E. Slater, on behalf of the Institute's trustees, presented the Aspen Institute's Special Humanistic Award to Her Imperial Majesty Farah Pahlavi The Shahbanou of Iran. The citation read:

"Special Award of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies

to

Her Imperial Majesty Farah Pahiavi The Shahbanou

of Iran

In recognition of Her Majesty's extensive commitment to social, cultural, and humanistic development; personal demonstration of the contribution that dedicated, sustained leadership can make in society; and Her Majesty's services towards improving the quality of life and in the mobilization of those cultural traditions, the richness of which provide individuals with the means of recovering their identity as well as their capacity for creation and expression.'

The Shahbanou accepted the Special Humanistic Award with the address below:

I feel deeply honored to be the recipient of the special award of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, which I accept with the utmost pleasure. I also wish to express my sincere joy at meeting you once again at the culmination of what I hope has been a sucessful Symposium. In thus honoring me with your special award, I consider this a tribute to the Iranian people as a whole. For whatever this country has achieved during the past few years is the fruit of dedicated and imaginative endeavors of our people as a whole, under enlightened leadership.

Your gathering at Persepolis bears testimony to growing interest in international dialogue, aimed at achieving deeper comprehension not only of thoughts and ideas but also of hopes and common endeavors. It is my hope that the contents of the essays presented here and the ensuing dialogue have served to provide you with a more intimate knowledge of the Iran of today and her prospects for the future.

I would like to extend my warmest appreciation to the Institute for its efforts in making this a creative gathering. Fortunately for all of us who inhabit what Buckminster Fuller called "Spaceship Earth," there exist organizations that concern themselves with the value content of re search, of ideas, of those activities that ultimately aim to promote the quality of life.

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