When I first met Erik Wright, my PhD supervisor, I was an orthodox Marxist. I had just entered graduate school and was about as dialectical as it gets. Now, on the other side of graduate school, I am still a Marxist, but a more ecumenical (and hopefully a more analytical) one. To a considerable extent, Erik is responsible. The logic crushes all resistance; I could only maintain my dialectical twirling for so long.

Erik liked to quote Marx’s eleventh thesis on Feuerbach (“Hitherto philosophers have sought to understand the world, the point however, is to change it”), but he interpreted it somewhat atypically.

Yes, the point is to change it, and indeed, Erik believed deeply that changing it for the better requires understanding it. But he also emphasized the tension inside the famous dictum: the desire to change the world can infect our understanding of it. For Marxists and fellow travelers, the power of wishful thinking is more seductive than it is for others without such normative commitments.