in praise of thought as material/action/activism

Interestingly, after, earlier today, struggling with alix olson's definition of an activist, I returned to an article by Eric J. Weiner, which I'd forgotten all about: "Beyond Doing Cultural Studies," and he reminded me:

Unfortunately, thinking theoretically as a political practice has been denigrated by those on the right and the left and must be re-legitimized as a form of pedagogical praxis. On the right, the logic of the bottom line encourages thought primarily as it applies to accumulating capital. On the left, the production of theory is seen as both a luxury of privilege and an excuse for not engaging in 'real' political work.... Common sense tells both that meaningful 'work' is constituted by the production of material things and is essentially pragmatic. (59)

How susceptible I am to this line of thought--the naturalization of theory as not "real" of thought as not "work"...even when I think I'm not.