Reclaiming Common Sense ― Finding Truth in a Post-truth World

Common sense thinking has fallen out of favor. Because it has been under attack for a very long time, it no longer gets the respect it once commanded. Deep thinkers have rejected it, elites have learned to disdain it, and many of us have had our confidence in the value of common sense thinking badly shaken.

The consequences have been enormous. Faltering belief in common sense thinking is at the core of the rejection of the American Founders’ idea of America, and, more broadly, the astonishing rejection of Western civilization by its own people which has reached what looks to be a civilization-ending crisis in Europe.

Yet common sense in itself remains untouched by these attacks for the simple reason that we cannot get along without it. It is the foundation of thinking and of human action. The unrelenting attacks on common sense have created something truly strange: a widespread idea that we have somehow moved beyond common sense which, at the same time, requires us to ignore the simple truth that we live and move and act in the realm of common sense in our every waking moment.

Restoring common sense properly understood is what Reclaiming Common Sense is all about. This project of restoration includes an examination of the absurdity of the attacks on common sense. It also turns to well-known stories drawn from the Western literary tradition to help us again find our footing in the world of common sense.

Robert Curry is the author of Common Sense Nation: Unlocking the Forgotten Power of the American Idea from Encounter Books. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Claremont Institute. His articles and reviews have appeared in American Greatness, the American Thinker, the Claremont Review of Books, the Federalist, and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.