Theory must translate reality rather than force reality into abstract 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

• DEFINE: Defines the scholastic historico-political outlook and its opposite: theory translating historical life rather than demanding history match pre-planned schemas.
• XREF: Connects forward to later Islamophobia readings on how ideological lenses force reality into preconceived molds rather than adapting to concrete conditions. — connects to: Brute factual reality resists attempts to impose an alternate one — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 167; Dialectical reason rejects supplementing professional science with metaphysics, reconstructing reality from related concepts instead. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 199