Template:Short description {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} {{SAFESUBST:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= {{#switch: |Category=For categories please use the templates available at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. |Template=For templates please use the templates available at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. }}Template:Mbox{{#switch: ||Talk=Template:DMC |User|User talk= |#default={{#if:||Template:DMC}}}}Template:Merge partner }} 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
HistoryEdit
The term "conventional wisdom" dates back to at least 1838, as a synonym for "commonplace knowledge".<ref name="GBS-Inquiry">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Refn It was used in a number of works, occasionally in a benign<ref name="GBS-History">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").</ref> or neutral<ref name="GBS-Shallow">E.g., "Shallow Theorists", American Educational Monthly 383 (Oct. 1866) ("What is the result? Just what conventional wisdom assumes it would be.").</ref> sense, but more often pejoratively.<ref name="GBS-Technique-Meditations">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").</ref> 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:<ref name="Leibovich">E.g., Mark Leibovich, "A Scorecard on Conventional Wisdom", N.Y. Times (March 9, 2008).</ref>
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.Template:Cn 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.Template:Cn