Operational concepts miss the determining facts and thereby sustain ideology

Evidence

But operational concepts do not even suffice for describing the facts. They only attain certain aspects and segments of facts which, if taken for the whole, deprive the description of its objective, empirical character. … Many, and I think the determining, constitutive facts remain outside the reach of the operational concept. And by virtue of this limitation—this methodological injunction against transitive concepts which might show the facts in their true light and call them by their true name—the descriptive analysis of the facts blocks the apprehension of facts and becomes an element of the ideology that sustains the facts. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 460

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the Milgrom law-merchant material in the reader’s notes: what counts as a ‘fact’ of trade (cheating, reputation) depends on which institutions you admit into the description. — connects to: Operational concepts perform a political function by inducing adjustment to society — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 427; The operational concept becomes false by atomizing facts within the repressive whole — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 430; Ideological scientificality overrides factual reality in totalitarian action (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Ideological scientificality overrides factual reality in totalitarian action #expands (0.82)
• Misusing a concept’s level of abstraction produces serious theoretical error. #expands (0.75)
• Ideology expresses lived imaginary relations rather than actual conditions of existence. #complicates (0.72)