Conventional wisdom

For other uses, see Conventional wisdom (disambiguation).

The conventional wisdom or received opinion is the body of ideas or explanations generally accepted by the public and/or by experts in a field. ^[1] In religion, this is known as orthodoxy.^{[ citation needed ]}

History

The term "conventional wisdom" dates back to at least 1838, as a synonym for "commonplace knowledge". ^{[2] [n 1]} It was used in a number of works, occasionally in a benign ^[3] or neutral ^[4] sense, but more often pejoratively. ^[5] Despite this previous usage, the term is often credited to the economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who used it in his 1958 book The Affluent Society : ^[6]

It will be convenient to have a name for the ideas which are esteemed at any time for their acceptability, and it should be a term that emphasizes this predictability. I shall refer to these ideas henceforth as the conventional wisdom. ^[7]

Galbraith specifically prepended "The" to the phrase to emphasize its uniqueness, and sharpened its meaning to narrow it to those commonplace beliefs that are also acceptable and comfortable to society, thus enhancing their ability to resist facts that might diminish them.^{[ citation needed ]} He repeatedly referred to it throughout the text of The Affluent Society, invoking it to explain the high degree of resistance in academic economics to new ideas. For these reasons, he is usually credited with the invention and popularization of the phrase in modern usage.^{[ citation needed ]}

See also

• Common knowledge
• Common sense
• Public opinion

References

Informational notes

1. "It will be seen that we appeal, in such a case, neither to the records of legislation nor yet to the conventional wisdom of our forefathers."—(presumably) T. Frelinghuysen

Citations

1. "Conventional Wisdom - Definition of Conventional Wisdom by Merriam-Webster" . Retrieved 2019-12-13.
2. Warner, Henry Whiting (1838). An inquiry into the moral and religious character of the American government. New York: Wiley and Putnam. p.  35.
3. E.g., 1 Nahum Capen, The History of Democracy (1874), page 477 ("millions of all classes alike are equally interested and protected by the practical judgment and conventional wisdom of ages").
4. E.g., "Shallow Theorists", American Educational Monthly 383 (Oct. 1866) ("What is the result? Just what conventional wisdom assumes it would be.").
5. E.g., Joseph Warren Beach, The Technique of Thomas Hardy (1922), page 152 ("He has not the colorless monotony of the business man who follows sure ways to success, who has conformed to every rule of conventional wisdom, and made himself as featureless as a potato field, as tame as an extinct volcano."); "Meditations", The Life (May 1905), page 224 ("in the end he fulfilled the promise of the Lord, and proved that conventional wisdom is short-sighted, narrow, and untrustworthy").
6. E.g., Mark Leibovich, "A Scorecard on Conventional Wisdom", N.Y. Times (March 9, 2008).
7. John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (1958), chapter 2.

Further reading

• The dictionary definition of conventional wisdom at Wiktionary