After 2007, the common sense that had governed our understanding of politics and the economy dissolved.London, United Kingdom - The common sense that governed us for a generation has collapsed. We are living in revolutionary times, whether we like it or not.
Common sense is the sum of what we don't have to demonstrate or prove, of what we can take for granted. Two plus two equals four. Water is wet. The earth orbits the sun. Common sense appears to us as timeless and uncontroversial. Common sense is what we have agreed on; It marks the limits of acceptable controversy. It is where we live.
Although common sense is meant to be timeless, it keeps changing. Everyone knows that the sun is the centre of the solar system and always has been. But only a few centuries ago that idea was dangerously controversial. Proverbs preserve, as if in amber, commonsensical claims that have long vanished from the culture at large. "Spare the rod, spoil the child" was once a self-evident principle in English childcare. An old French saying had it that "as long as a man has good sense, he must confess that there is a God". There are plenty now who would noisily assert the contrary. Read More
