Discourses persist across centuries by carrying unexamined assumptions into new contexts.

Evidence

In response to this argument, you may find yourself saying, “Yes, perhaps the early stages of the ‘science of man’ were influenced by the discourse of ‘the West and the Rest.’ But all that was a long time ago. Since then, social science has become more empirical, more ‘scientific.’ Sociology today is, surely, free of such ‘loaded images’?” But this is not necessarily the case. Discourses don’t stop abruptly. They go on unfolding, changing shape, as they make sense of new circumstances. They often carry many of the same unconscious premises and unexamined assumptions in their bloodstream. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 671

Categorization

• XREF: Directly links to Foucault’s concept of discourse as discontinuous yet persistent in ‘genealogy’ terms — a core building block for the Islamophobia toolkit.