Balance and maturity

In early years after revolution as well as during Khatami's administration, the Iranian society was quite politically sensitive. They closely followed the political news and engaged in heated political debates in many occasions. Politics dominated the mindset of educated class and undermined non-political arts, peotry, literature, humanity sciences and, to some extent, unfortuantely, even physics.In early months that Shahin and I had returned from abroad to Iran (which was the last year of Khatami's presidency), it often happened that some people in the middle of a quite serious physics seminar started talking politics. Shahin and I strongly protested against such a trend and (at the cost of falling from grace!!) we put an end to it. Yes, in fact we fought to make this change but this change would not be possible if the younger generation did not support us.

Too much of politics can pollute scientific atmosphere. On the other hand, complete apathy towards politics has its negative consequences, too. There must be a balance. The question is what is the balance and who has the right to determine it. As Sa@di has said "hame kas aql-e khod be kamaal binad-o farzand-e khod be jamaal!"But, we must be aware that anybody who proclaims himself as the gauge for "balance is no different from the one who claims he has the truth and the whole truth and therefore has a divine right to lead. Such people and such claims are dangerous.

In an established scientific atmosphere where there is a natural academic hierarchy, balance is in the air and this question does not arise.
Let me explain what I mean by natural academic hierarchy. In an established stable scientific institute, more senior people (even though might not anymore be active)have considerably higher insight about both science and science administration. No matter how smart younger ones are or how hard they work and educate themselves, still their insight does not equal those of the more senior people. The reason is simple. In such institutes,only the professors reach seniority that are smart, devoted to work and have accumlated experience in research and scientific administration for a lifetime. Of course, younger generation can have new ideas that are encouraged by the senior people if their insight tells them the idea is worth investing on. Such senior people "aardhaashoon-o bikhtand, alakaashoon-o aavikhtand". They are mature enough not to wage war against junior people or make a fuss over nothing. In case the junior ones make a mistake or cross a line, through a face to face conversation and a little of explanation they make them aware of their mistakes.
In such an atmosphere and with such seniors who can set the example, the balance is already determined.

In a less established atmosphere, the balance should be determined through discussion and reaching a consensus.

New year is approaching. Happy new year to all of you. As the new year's wish,I hope that we can work next year towards achieving a better established atmosphere such as the one I described. This is not possible unless we try to have a more mature behavior than we had before.
I am telling this mostly to myself rather than anyone else.By making it public, I will feel stronger obligation to keep trying.