For many years, I hoped that once the baton passed from the first generation of Iranian scholars, who lived the Iranian Revolution, to a second generation with some distance from that trauma, we might be able to have a civil and scholarly discussion about our recent history.

Instead, I'm sorry to see that the second generation has simply adopted the politics of their parents, but often hidden behind a veneer of theoretical and conceptual sophistication. At its core, however, it is still the same arguments we all heard at the dinner table as kids.

I'm growing despondent that we Iranians will never be able to have a civil conversation amongst ourselves, where we don't view people with a different politics or opinion to our own as 'traitors' or 'apologists' or 'Orientalists' or 'imperialists'.

Until we can have that civil and respectful discussion about our history, the purpose of which is to understand and come to terms with our past, rather than to exact revenge or salve our wounds, then we are really wasting our time and might as well work on something else.