This is an edited extract from ‘In Defence of Populism’ by Frank Furedi, published with permission.
In recent times I have been struck by the frequency with which common sense serves as a target of scorn by educators, especially in universities. It is also treated with contempt by the cultural elites in the media. Common sense is frequently represented as inherently flawed and charged with naïve acceptance of unexamined opinions. It is invariably dismissed as a medium for communicating prejudice. Those ‘accused’ of seeing the world through the prism of common sense are regarded as potential threats to expertise and science.
Hostility towards populism runs in parallel with denunciating its ideological adherence to common sense. Apparently populist politicians politicise common sense and ‘exploit’ or ‘manipulate’ its influence over sections of the electorate. Appeals to common sense by populists are inevitably represented as an insincere demagogic ploy.
Critics of common sense take the view that this sensibility favours conservative or populist narratives and therefore its acceptance by millions of citizens represents an obstacle to progress and social change.
The populist disposition reflects the common sense prevailing in different communities. What’s important about this sensibility is that it draws on the common experiences of people. Common sense expresses what people have in common and its articulation helps forge a point of contact between people. Common sense is not simply the attribute of an individual’s accomplishment, but also the outcome of the distillation of sentiments and attitudes that prevail within a community.
The ‘common’ in common sense is linked to a web of meaning that binds people together
As the Oxford English Dictionary reminds us, common sense can be defined as ‘a generally held belief or opinion; a widely shared feeling or judgement’. What is at issue here is not just a way of making sense of the world, but views that resonate widely because they are held in common. The commonality of this sensibility is sometimes dismissed as simply superficial folk knowledge. But the common in common sense is linked to a web of meaning that binds people together. That is probably why Trump referred to his re-election as ‘the revolution of common sense’ in his second inaugural address.
Amongst academics, common sense is referred to as a form of ‘lay epistemology’. Those who are sceptical of the efficacy of common sense argue that it is merely guided by ‘direct experience, emotions and intuition’. However, it is more than simply an expression of a spontaneous, interpretative reaction to events. It embodies the accumulation of taken-for-granted knowledge of a community, building on the wisdom and experience of pre-existing generations of people. It is for that reason that opponents of populism dislike and denounce common sense as ‘reactionary’ and incoherent.
Populist common sense is often denounced on the grounds that it elevates lay epistemology at the expense of scientific and expert knowledge. It is the case that, in some instances, common sense is elevated to the point where it is assigned the status of serving as the principal source of Truth. However, the populist affirmation of common sense easily co-exists with science and expertise, and has no pretension to challenge the facts gained through scientific research. It merely claims the right to interpret the meaning of these facts for people’s life world.
The technocratic-managerial elites are often estranged from a community’s common sense because of their detachment from it. That is why they don’t understand that so many of their policies violate the common sense of millions of people. In contrast, populism champions an egalitarian form of common sense against the oligarchical disrespect for people’s sensibilities.
Opponents of populism do not demonise common sense merely on the grounds that its insights are inferior to science, but also because it allegedly contains the most ‘reactionary ideas’. Antonio Gramsci conceded that common sense contained ‘nuggets of good sense’, but he had no doubt that it was ‘crudely neophobe and conservative’. The misguided use of the term ‘neophobe’ – the fear of the new – misunderstands the significance of common sense. Common sense does not automatically presume in favour of the new, but fiercely upholds the existing system of meaning in the face of new interpretations of reality which, without common sense, can lead to the ‘growth of meaninglessness’.
If there is a phobia, it is communicated through hostility to populist common sense. ‘What scares me most is the word “common sense”’, wrote Lorenzo Robustelli, the director of Eunews. Anxiety about the influence exercised by common sense is motivated by the fear that populist common sense makes more sense to millions of people than the outlook promoted by the technocratic-managerial elites. That is why, as long as it can communicate this sentiment, populism is assured of a powerful role in public life.
Frank Furedi’s In Defence of Populism is published by Polity Press.
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