Denying the predictability of social facts logically yields pure opportunism

Evidence

If social facts cannot be predicted, and the very concept of prediction is meaningless, then the irrational cannot but be dominant, and any organisation of men must be anti-historical a “prejudice”. The only thing left to do is to resolve each individual, practical problem posed by the movement of history as it comes up, and with extemporaneous criteria; opportunism is the only possible political line. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 602

Categorization

• XREF: This is a diagnostic move relevant to later Islamophobia readings about how certain epistemologies or historical pessimisms pre-determine political quietism or ad hoc responses. — connects to: Science denial trained today’s politicians to deny any inconvenient facts. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 81