The Shiite Utopia and Its Influence on Shiite Political Action from the Perspective of Jacques Lacan's Psychoanalytic Theory
Keywords:
Shiism, Mahdism, Utopia, Justice, Infallible ImamAbstract
Attaining the utopia of Mahdism is an ideal that, through the reproduction of a powerful discourse, has historically exerted decisive impacts on the socio-political life of the Shiite community and the Islamic world. Essentially, utopian thought seeks to reclaim the totality of goodness and happiness—in other words, humanity’s lost paradise. However, based on Lacanian psychology, the human being is trapped in the symbolic order and within a structure produced by language, a realm inherently characterized by lack and rupture. According to this theory, utopian thought, as an ideological-social fantasy, conceals the inherent antagonism of human societies and sustains the desire for movement among its followers by promising wholeness. It motivates them toward action in pursuit of their goals and to combat those elements introduced as obstacles to the restoration of totality. This article aims to examine the influence of Shiite utopian thought on Shiite political action from the perspective of this theory and by employing the method of critical discourse analysis. Accordingly, it first identifies several of the most significant characteristics of utopianism and arrives at a specific definition of the concept. Then, it analyzes the discourse of Shiite utopianism and concludes that what Shiites pursue in their envisioned ideal society is the totality of justice, which can only be realized under the divine leadership of the infallible Imam. In the final analysis, the article concludes that this thought, by presenting the idea of "struggle against the oppressor and establishment of justice" as its central signifier, constructs a powerful discourse that mobilizes its followers to engage in a sacred struggle on a global scale against oppression, and to wage jihad for the establishment of a global utopia under the leadership of the most knowledgeable and pious human being, divinely appointed by God.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Rasool Taghizadeh (Author); Hossein Moeinabadi (Corresponding author)
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