Education as obedience: Persian classical etiquettes and the tradition of question avoidance

Etiquettes have played a predominant role as educational texts among Iranians. The dominant method in these contents is one-sidedness and the inclusion of some pieces of advice for doing or prohibiting doing things. It is also noted not to be accompanied by rational reasoning, to a great extent. The concepts and topics contained in these texts are political and moral. Furthermore, they tend to use religious, mystical, and customary supports and, accordingly, the structure and necessity of social institutions, including the institution of education, are used as a model of instruction-suggestions with the listener/reader. To add up, the method of disseminating the mentioned knowledge with the repetition-reminding structure is based on the compliance strategywhich has usually suspended the principle of questioning and dialogue in educational interaction. In this article, the aspects of question avoidance and the reasons for its refusal are indicated and interpreted in five political-ethical etiquettes that appeared or were re-considred in the 5^th to 7^th centuries of AH. The results have indicated the author-narrators of the mentioned texts sometimes directly and explicitly invite the listener/reader to refrain from asking questions. Sometimes they have dealt with this matter indirectly by telling stories and planning punishment/encouragement discourse. The discursive order of the proposition/production anecdotes/prevalence of questioning in these texts is organized around the two elements of the nature of the subject and the position of the narrator, which seems authoritarian based on the vertical structure hidden in the theory of education. Of course, in explaining this authoritarianism and interpreting it as educational tyranny, one should think about it because there are other textual and extratextual implications that modify such a view. 
Introduction:
Etiquettes are the repetition of common concepts which have come across changes with respect to the impact of dominant attitudes in different eras. These changes, however, are neither similar to the fundamental differentiations in specific eras, nor manifest the Ricoeur's classification. Thus, they cannot be counted as ethers. Despite that, Iranian ethics, in a way that some of those texts had been devoted to ethics in its ultimate form, act as a foundation for practical wisdom. Although etiquettes have theoretical weaknesses and a lack of a pedagogical framework, they are still educationally significant in nurturing a skillful, socialized, and professional workforce. The important point is the interpretation of the structures and the methods of spreading wisdom, their taking sides, and their reasoning towards education which is mainly based on obedience, not questioning. The present paper is an attempt to justify, classify, and interpret the aspects of question avoidance and its reasons in five dominant political-ethical etiquettes. These works are "Qaboosname", "Siyasatname", "Kimiyaye Saadat", "Kelile va Demne", and "Golestan".
Materials and Methods:
Philosophical ethics does not make use of literature as a means of reasoning while the etiquettes, by the use of literary narratives, encourage the reader to abandon doing specific things and partially carries the burden of an educational institution. Additionally, the educational institution in Islamic-Iranian culture is owned by masques in terms of atmosphere and space, which has become the prior traditional kind of school in the Islamic world and consequently, had become relatively dominant in the form of mosque- schools. Pedagogical circles are the most significant forms of the institute space that is indicated in forms of dictation and a Discussion about headings. Classifying knowledge to “Rewaya & Deraya” accompanies methods and devices, questions and controversies and negotiation and debate apart from memorization and dictation. It has to be pointed out that considered as understanding, “Deraya”, requires question, however, understanding needs to be known and the domain of its accurance should be specified socially, educationally, and culturally and, finally, the nature of the question upon which is formed. Moreover, the ultimate goal of mundane and spiritual redemption was to provide smaller framework(s) for education. To be precise, the touchstone which has distinguished the beneficial knowledge and determined rules of the acquired knowledges from obligatory to the prohibited ones. Changes like the closure of "Ejtehad" which was initiated from the second half of the 4^th century and reached its peak in the 7^th century, had significantly influenced the process of education in schools. From classes in mosques to general school classes, questioning and answering has always been an important part of a class. However, all class procedures, including questioning and answering, have been a pursuit of the teachers and class ethics. Non-affirmative and rhetorical ones serve a greater aim beyond finding the unknown. Astonishment, emphasis, sorrows, and denial in philosophy are, however, related to thinking and dialogue. Socrates integrated questioning to surpass the illusion of knowing and to discover the truth. Questioning in Descartes attempt for finding certain knowledge and plays a great role in forming doubt and being an explorer to find the answer. In Bakhitinian discourse, meaning is the result of sounds distinction and "questioning" is an outcome rather than a means of finding the answer. The ultimate goal of dialogue which is recollected by Gadamer is to question the interpretation of understanding and misunderstanding, since neither truth is what that is accomplished ultimately, nor is the modern enlightenment a way of reaching the truth. In Gadamer's view, teachers cannot pose a real question as they follow specific aims in training. This meant, for a question to be real, it should be open-ended rather than having a predetermined answer. Therefore, the framework of education which is trying to establish and accomplish wisdom is based on dialogue.
Results and Discussion:
Persian etiquettes, in the present paper, have marginalized or suspended questioning in two ways. A group of the exposures consider questioning directly and explicitly, contrary to the nature of education and learners' manners. The other groups, however, implicitly and by the use of metaphors, allegories, and images marginalize the notion of questioning. In the direct instances, explicit dos and don'ts can be observed and metaphorical images in allegories and stories work as a fundamental educational discourse. The mechanism of implicit complications in a text bears a discourse-like discipline in which meaning production occurs. In Foucault’s words, discourses hide their interactions in this process, however, they force multiple ways of thinking such as blued words in special ways and stop other blending and transfer theme. Following the same way, the tradition of question avoidance relying on the nature of the speech subject and the position of the narrator, makes the reader follow and refuses questioning.
Conclusion:
The producers/propagators of the theory of education in the Iranian classical world have tried to warn the listener/reader from any questioning based on the religious nature, the basic and moral class of the subject. They have also made an attempt to invite the listener or reader to obey by referring to the political-occupational, status/authority, Gender/age and emotionality of the narrator/educator. In such a discourse, the concept of boundaries and keeping discipline in its different forms including bottom -up (expressing individuating), the combination of two parallel incomgualies (eclectic), and an open domain (uncertainly in conclusion) have been considered as chaos or contamination, as well as a reason for annihilation. Although question in its philosophical sense means a penetration into the work or an obstacle on the way of certainly/confirmation, the ancestors have considered it as the chaos or the aliment leading to it. It has to be noted that the acceptance of these obedience has guaranteed their socio-cultural survival. Following this viewpoint, people were safe from the so called chaos like a simple give and take. To conclude, although the structure of the aforementioned interaction is hierarchical and authoritarian, it was a sort of logical interaction for the people of the era, while contemporary man notices desire more than needs. Desire and question are intertwined and the desirous subject considers salty and finding answers as natural rights, ponders on their individuality and tries to experience the incongruent experiences in which the boundaries overlap. Although the question avoidance structure of the ancestors' interaction does not look pleasing, they cannot be condemned of being totalitarian regarding their attempts in producing/distributing wisdom.