Discourse collapses the thought-action divide and shapes how the West behaved toward others

Evidence

One important point about this notion of discourse is that it is not based on the conventional distinction between thought and action, language and practice. Discourse is about the production of knowledge through language. But it is itself produced by a practice: “discursive practice”—the practice of producing meaning. Since all social practices entail meaning, all practices have a discursive aspect. So discourse enters into and influences all social practices. Foucault would argue that the discourse of the West about the Rest was deeply implicated in practice—i.e., in how the West behaved toward the Rest. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 569

Categorization

• XREF: This is the mechanism that makes discourse productive of real-world practice — connects to how colonial discourse justified actual colonial governance, and how Islamophobic discourse likewise licenses policy. — connects to: Western epistemology’s root metaphors sexualize and dominate the known — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1352; Literary description signals the breakdown of human relation to action — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 402; Decoloniality rejects postcolonialism for complicity in Western universalist thinking — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 267 (+4 more)
• DEFINE: Introduces ‘discursive practice’ as the productive link between language and behavior.