Theorists’ political loyalties and productive interests can violently contradict each other

Evidence

If I refused on that occasion, for the sake of my own productive interests, to appropriate an esoteric development of my ideas, and to that extent to carry on as usual without regard to the interests of dialectical materialism or the Institute, it was in the end not just out of solidarity with the Institute or mere loyalty to dialectical materialism, but out of solidarity with the experiences which we have all been through in the last fifteen years. It is therefore a matter of my very own productive interests here as well. I won’t deny that these interests may now and then violently contradict my original ones. There is an antagonism here which I would not wish to be without in a thousand years. Overcoming it is what constitutes the problem in the work, and the problem is one of how to construe it. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 236

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Local experts contradict each other when each has interests at stake. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 183; Totalizing theoretical claims can erase the theorist’s professed comrades — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 373; Political theorists cite incompatible authorities as casually as conservatives do — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 113 (+8 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Local experts contradict each other when each has interests at stake. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 183; Totalizing theoretical claims can erase the theorist’s professed comrades — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 373; Political theorists cite incompatible authorities as casually as conservatives do — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 113 (+8 more)