Movements that reach the people pay for it with slowed theoretical development

Evidence

I want to hold to the notion, implicit in both these examples, that movements provoke theoretical moments. And historical conjunctures insist on theories: they are real moments in the evolution of theory. But here I have to stop and retrace my steps. Because I think you could hear, once again, in what I’m saying a kind of invocation of a simple-minded anti-theoretical populism, which does not respect and acknowledge the crucial importance, at each point in the moves I’m trying to renarrativize, of what I would call the necessary delay or detour through theory. I want to talk about that “necessary detour” for a moment. What decentered and dislocated the settled path of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies certainly, and British Cultural Studies to some extent in general, is what is sometimes called “the linguistic turn”: the discovery of discursivity, of textuality. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 251 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

  • XREF: connects to: Social movements generate theory rather than merely applying it; Social movements and historical conjunctures generate theoretical moments rather than merely consuming them — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 251

Broader Connections