What are we doing when we theorize social change? What do we resort to and make use of when doing so? What are our motivations?
I would suggest that in the mix of motivations is/are concerns of the investigator that he or she be legitimate, useful to something, someone, some idea or principle, and that their means and logic are credible in that regard.
A somewhat contrary, or contradictory (or at least seemingly so) tendency is the objective stance independent of utility or practicality, the vulgar view of Theory as Lofty Aesthetic (Ascetic) Practice with only a rarefied meaning, or a cultural product and projection.
Yet these both have significance as obstacles to rupture from common sense, in Bourdieu’s sense, as obstacles to science as Reflexive Practice.
So whether we play with abstract ideas (state, class, etc.) and perhaps impose this frame on reality, or we take up legitimated categories as real and natural rather than as problematic, we are stuck with a question of our utility. Will we allow ourselves to be mere tools, or will we relegate ourselves to uselessness?
These two images of possible Relation to Knowledge and Political Practice are related to each other. I say Relation to Knowledge and Political Practice rather than between them because I wish to emphasize social-object/agent’s relation to these spheres as opposed to the relationship between abstract spheres, or between an abstract sphere and a practical sphere.
Both images can be pressed into the service, or use of control.
Both segment the Lifeworld as a means of control.
Both have a tone of ‘naturality’ … paternal permanence and continuity which do not take particular relations and possession of knowledge as significant, which amounts to a lack of concern for the maturity of persons… (not to say that there is a practical empirical measure of this).