Historical outcomes depend on practice because social forces are structured yet open-ended.

Evidence

History is not infinitely open, without structure or pattern. The social forces at work in any particular conjuncture are not random. They are formed up out of history. They are quite particular and specific, and you have to understand what they are, how they work, what their limits and possibilities are, what they can and cannot accomplish. As Gramsci said, “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” But the outcome of the struggle between those different contending relations or forces is not “given,” known, predictable. It has everything to do with social practice, with how a particular contest or struggle is conducted. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 1197

Categorization

• DEFINE: Completes the definition of contingency: structured but not determined, which is the epistemic precondition for political agency.
• XREF: Directly invokes Gramsci’s famous formula, which anchors the hegemony/commonsense building block this reader is extracting.