The idea that theory serves practice was widespread across the Marxist movement

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; The Institute positioned theory as a tool for society’s progressive forces. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 538

Related

• Movements that reach the people pay for it with slowed theoretical development (similarity 0.88)
• Movements transformed ideologies from justification into organizational principles (similarity 0.88)
• Social movements and historical conjunctures generate theoretical moments rather than merely consuming them (similarity 0.87)
• The Institute positioned theory as a tool for society’s progressive forces. (similarity 0.81)
• Marxist currents widely subordinated theory to practice’s needs (similarity 0.80)
• Social movements provoke theoretical advances, yet theory demands a necessary detour from immediacy. (similarity 0.80)
• The conjunctural moment defines both the question and the cultural strategies appropriate to it (similarity 0.79)
• Marxism shaped Cultural Studies by posing central questions even as practitioners worked against it (similarity 0.79)
• Detaching Marxist concepts from their political praxis distorts them into decorative analytics. (similarity 0.78)
• Cultural Studies and Marxism never had a perfect theoretical fit (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Social movements and historical conjunctures generate theoretical moments rather than merely consuming them #expands (0.80) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 251
• Social movements generate theory rather than merely applying it #complicates (0.75)