Here's a quotation on theory that brought a grin to my face and a huge, healthy chuckle from my belly late on this Saturday night as I worked on a paper for a class in my MA in communications program at Royal Roads University. Fellow learners of all persuasions, enjoy...
“Because theories are seldom if ever decisively disproved in clinical use but merely grow increasingly awkward, unproductive, strained, or vacuous, they often persist long after all but a handful of people (though they are most passionate) have lost much interest in them. Indeed, so far as anthropology is concerned, it is almost more of a problem to get exhausted ideas out of the literature than it is to get productive ones in, and so a great deal more of theoretical discussion than one would prefer is critical rather than constructive, and whole careers have been devoted to hastening the demise of moribund notions. As the field advances one would hope that this sort of intellectual weed control would become a less prominent part of our activities. But, for the moment, it remains true that old theories tend less to die than to go into second editions” (p. 27).
Geertz, Clifford. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books.
Agree or disagree, read it out loud--it falls so deliciously from the tongue!