Polemical labels gain no theoretical validity by being deployed earnestly

Evidence

If some label is needed for this activity, one may call it ‘Third World Literature’ Conversely, however, I also hold that this term, ‘the Third World’, is, even in its most telling deployments, a polemical one, with no theoretical status whatsoever. Polemic surely has a prominent place in all human discourses, especially in the discourse of politics, so the use of this term in loose, polemical contexts is altogether valid. But to lift it from the register of polemics and claim it as a basis for producing theoretical knowledge, which presumes a certain rigour in constructing the objects of one’s knowledge, is to misconstrue not only the term itself but even the world to which it refers. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 374

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the core distinction between polemical and theoretical registers of a term — the load-bearing frame for the strategic essentialism question.
• ADDENDUM: Could support the trees-as-infrastructure article’s method of treating worldbuilding terms as functionally-defined rather than identity-labels — though the theme is the category shift itself.
• XREF: connects to: Definitions can be held provisionally and polemically without belief in essence — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 453; A normative theory must exploit labels, not expunge them — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 231

Broader Connections

• A normative theory must exploit labels, not expunge them #expands (0.85) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 231