Reality never conforms to abstract theoretical schemas.
Evidence
There exists a scholastic and academic historico-political outlook which sees as real and worthwhile only such movements of revolt as are one hundred per cent conscious, i.e. movements that are governed by plans worked out in advance to the last detail or in line with abstract theory ( which comes to the same thing). But reality produces a wealth of the most bizarre combinations. It is up to the theoretician to unravel these in order to discover fresh proof of his theory, to “translate” into theoretical language the elements of historical life. It is not reality which should be expected to conform to the abstract schema. This will never happen, and hence this conception is nothing but an expression of passivity. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 810
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- DEFINE: Defines the scholastic outlook that demands fully-conscious movements as the only real ones, and explains why it fails.
Related
- Every prior philosophy expressed social contradictions without consciously knowing them (similarity 0.79)
- Transforming concrete political questions into abstract principles guarantees political failure. (similarity 0.79)
- Failed revolutions invalidate tactical estimates but not underlying historical analysis (similarity 0.78)