Answering Readers, Part 16

Biblical (תַּנַ״ךְ) depiction of
the flight from Sodom and Gomorrah

The Persian Choice |
Thursday – October 29, 2026

I am back to my old writing schedule and in this latest installment of this series, I am going to deal with a topic slightly similar to a topic that I have already covered, namely the choice, or anti-choice, of fighting in the army. Now, if you know anything about my views, I tend to argue against any kind of military service, for a variety of reasons that you may read more about here.

    Now, I am back as I mentioned above and if you wish to read about my latest medical episode, you may do that here. At any rate, I am still somewhat groggy and I am not yet back in terms of my capacity, but I am gaining more and more strength for every passing day, and I expect to be fully back in no time. Because of this, do expect me to be somewhat diminished in my capacity and perhaps even more so in my style, which means that you should bear with me. Now, perhaps I should clarify this note by stating that I do not consider myself to have a personal style; rather I do consider myself to have a certain track, and this track is not necessarily a matter of individual preference, read more here.

    As usual in this series, I should make certain rules and conventions clear. First of all, I do engage in a certain editorial policy, if you will, and this means that I will sometimes change or alter the content of the letters that I receive in this series, because the whole point of this series is to answer your (the readers) questions, and so the premise is that I receive letters from you and then I respond to your letters. As a result of me having to deal with many letters, it is not possible for me to engage, generally at any rate, in correspondence with you if you have sent me a letter, instead it is necessary for me to simply read you letter and then attempt to address it, and because many letters contain few details that may be relevant, I will often find it quite necessary to engage in a certain level of conjecture, meaning that I will perhaps add certain details that may be false; as far as I am aware, this is quite unavoidable. Another rule or practise that I also keep returning to is the fact that I may find it necessary to substitute a letter or passages of a letter that I end up quoting on this page, because it is the purpose of me to quote all or as much of your letter as possible, and in doing so it may happen that I find if necessary to substitute certain passages of a letter that I find offensive or in violation of my editorial policy, and this substitution will be indicated by the usage of two brackets, [text]. Now, any substitution will always be indicated with two brackets, and this includes simply removing certain passages that are irrelevant in the course of me answering your questions, and this will be specifically indicated with the usage of three dots inside twho brackets, [...]. I did mention that many letters contain "few details" and while this is true, I should say that sometimes a letter may contain details that are too sensitive or too privileged, and such details will also be substituted or simply removed, and which will be clearly indicated. Now, most of the time I will find no need to engage in substitution, but this policy must still be clearly stated, and if it is the case that a letter is too irrelevant or too offensive, I may simply choose to never address it.

    Now, the letter at hand is fairly straightforward and I believe that I have answered a previous letter containing a similar question, but this question is also different, which is why I have decided to respond to it. I have not found that the letter contains any offensive language or anything else, that is other language, that violates the editorial policy of this series, which is why I can state that there is no reason to substitute anything in this letter, which is good.* Now, I did decide to label this post "The Persian Choice" because of a young man's decision to either go on in the Iranian Army or to leave the army behind and potentially flee the country, but more to follow below.

    Mr. Anosh Hosseini asks:

"Hello Mr. Dutt, My name is Anosh Hosseini and I have been needing to escape the army. I am in the Iranian army and I seek to go to the Western world. Should I do this or must I stay behind? What about my dream of becoming a scholar? I am 21 years of age and I am a devout Shia Muslim. Sincerely, Anosh." – Anosh Hosseini.

Mr. Anosh Hosseini, since you describe yourself as a "devout Shia Muslim (الشيعة)", I cannot advise you going to the Western world, read "Modern Civilization", since the Western world is completely devoid of any Moslem aspect, and so you going to the West seems to me to not be well advised, unless of course you may have the intention in mind of converting people, but I would still advise you against this. This does not mean that you cannot leave your current country (The Islamic Republic of Iran), but it does add a complication, because Mr. Hosseini, I can assure you that your views will not be welcomed by most people in the Western world, unless of course they happen to be a part of the same madrassa (مدرسة) as you. Of course, understand your unwillingness to die in this war, really in this race to the bottom, but Mr. Hosseini, you must understand that you do appear to find yourself in quite a predicament here, and I understand that you do not wish to deal with the army, and for this I can only wish you good luck, read more about the war in Iran here. Of course, you may say, Mr. Hosseini that this war was brought upon your civilization by Western powers, and this would be true, but this war seems to me to be more than an expression of Western fragility; really, this seems to me to be an expression of Western confusion and an attempt to quickly create a new power vacuum in Iran, an attempt that is destined, as I have stated, to fail. So, you now find yourself in a strange predicament and you hope this race to the bottom, this war, to come to an end, and for this you cannot possibly be blamed.

    Now, you could go to the Western world if you wish to suppress your own sense of identity and the Islam within you, and to this end you can certainly embrace the Western decadence and degeneration, and really the core of the Kali Yuga, perhaps a concept foreign to your seemingly more rabid and lexicalical notion of Islam,† read "The Eschatology of the Kali Yuga". Now, I still do not advise you to seek shelter in the Western world, and this is also not a guarantee that you will never face military conscription, as most of these nations practise this form of perversion, read more here. Again, the assumption in my argument thus far is that you are still closer to the primordial tradition in your current form, read "Traditional Forms", than if you were to embrace the Western lifestyle, if we consider this a "lifestyle". Is your expectation really that you are going to be able to keep true to your Islamic notions and your Persian Identity? I can tell you this Mr. Hosseini, I once knew a man from Sistan, Iran, on the border of Pakistan, and for him the idea of young Iranians going off to the West was not a good thing. Now, at the same time I can surely understand the totalizing nature of the current regime in Iran, which is why the choice must be yours to make at the end of the day.

    The fact that you are 21-years old and in the army, if I have read what you have written correctly, means that you have a very small chance of actually escaping the army, which is why you should do a couple of things, bear with me. If you were in the army of a different country, you could have pretended to be a homosexual, but the problem with this is that you are likely to be severely punished in the Iranian army for being homosexual rather than simply expelled, and even if you are expelled for being homosexual, this alone is no guarantee that you will not be murdered once on the outside. If you had been taken up in the army of some different country, then this strategy may have worked, provided you were willing to undergo very humiliating "homosexual screenings" in some instances, but this you should rule out in your case. This means that if you are going to leave the Iranian army, you must escape somehow, which will be a crime, and something that will put you in danger. This is why I would advise you to take on a role that makes it unlikely for you to see combat. Do not be tempted by medics and engineers, for these roles will often see combat and close up. Instead, you can hurt yourself in the foot and get into the field hospital and this way attempt to escape. Again, you are finding yourself in a difficult situation and another option could be fleeing to the neighboring country Iraq, but this is only one option and this would be hard. At least you are not likely to face combat at the moment which is helpful, and hopefully you will not face combat anytime soon either as this is a rather limited war.

Reginald Drax (AKA, M. C. Dutt) – October 29, 2026.

Footnote(s)

* Perhaps I should add that I generally do not care if language in and of itself is "offensive", to use that stupid word, but I do care about such matters in the purview of this series, because "policing" language is simply a measure or a guard against turning this series into something different that what it is intended to be. For more information about similar matters, read "Notes on Reading" and "Ideological Indoctrination".

† For more on this, I direct you to my posts: "My Views on Fundamentalism" and "The Hypocrisy of the Pious". I also recommend two other posts on this subject: "The Archean Eon" and "The Universe". These posts will deal in greater detail with the problem of "lexicalism". Another notable post is: "The Problem with Protestantism".