Demands to subordinate theory to praxis can turn resistance into repression
Evidence
Whoever restricts himself to thinking but does not get involved is weak, cowardly and virtually a traitor. This hostile cliche on the intellectual is to be encountered with deep roots within that branch of the opposition that is in turn reviled as intellectual without any awareness thereof on their part. Thinking activists answer; among the things to be changed is that very separation of theory and praxis. Praxis is essential if we are ever to be liberated from the domination of practical people and practical ideals. The trouble with this view is that it results in the prohibition of thinking. Very little is needed to turn the resistance against repression repressively against those who - little as they might wish to glorify their state of being - do not desert the standpoint that they have come to occupy. The often-evoked unity of theory and praxis has a tendency to give way to the predominance of praxis. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 284
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to my existing interest in how good-sounding institutional demands secretly serve the status quo — same pattern as reputation systems in the Milgrom diamond trade literature being built on control. — connects to: Revisionism makes theory palatable by suppressing whatever demands praxis, notably class struggle. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 21; The last twenty-five years ran on controlled desublimation rather than open repression — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 983; Severe repression can accelerate the very mobilization it targets. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 578
- SEED: Article angle: how ‘stop thinking, act’ rhetoric from both left and right consistently ends up protecting the very hierarchies it claims to oppose, from Young Hegelian mockery to modern startup hustle culture.