How can we believe that Kamala Harris is popular, that price controls will solve inflation, or that open borders are good for the economy? How can an entire nation built on freedom allow a terrible flu to close churches, schools, and businesses for years? Our society seems unable to recognize obvious facts, even about the most basic truths of human existence, like the differences between men and women.
The cry most frequently heard from conservatives is a call for a return to “common sense,” but what many fail to understand is that common sense requires a common tradition: without a common moral framework for understanding the world, self-evident truths quickly sink into a quagmire of relativism and propaganda.
The average American in 2024 has lost all contact with the social forces that foster common sense.
Any society that grows beyond a certain size must rely on the authority of institutions. When a civilization is small, family and tribal authority provide natural bases for social coordination by perpetuating religion, customs, and traditions. But as societies expand to encompass new territories and peoples, they must shift some of the burden of authority to specialized institutions that can scale coordination. These institutions often emerge from the organic needs of society, and because they transmit hard-won knowledge over generations, they become important pillars of a nation’s success.
Common sense emerges from a combination of religious truth, cultural practice, tradition, and institutional authority. This rich cultural web gives ordinary people access to generations of knowledge and wisdom, effortlessly shaping their worldview. When faced with a new idea about gender, history, or ethics, people compare it to the collective experience of their society, and only the most robust ideas become part of the tradition. Like a fish that does not know the water it swims in, those who are immersed in the appropriate culture are unknowingly protected from extreme ideologies.
The enemy of common sense
The average American in 2024 has lost all contact with the social forces that foster common sense. True and vibrant faith in Christianity as the foundation of truth has collapsed. Culturally indiscriminate legal immigration and open borders that regularly allow millions of illegal immigrants to enter the country each year without screening have allowed a large population of foreigners of different faiths to fundamentally change the religious makeup of the country.
Even more destructive is the modern obsession with “secular neutrality,” which seeks to remove the influence of religion from both public institutions and private life. Without a shared moral outlook, ordinary people are unable to draw common-sense conclusions.
Our modern obsession with individual freedom has dismantled important institutions such as family and community, which are essential foundations of culture. Society encourages young people to leave their communities in search of educational and work opportunities, encouraging them to abandon the social networks that support their way of life.
Marriage and child-rearing are now seen as low-status options, forcing people into a succession of disposable relationships that allow them to focus on empty corporate careers. Young couples are shut out of the housing market, lack the support of extended family, and rely on expensive child care fees while both parents work to make ends meet. For most people, the personal and professional costs make having a family an increasingly unfashionable and unattainable goal.
Fraternal orders, church groups, bowling leagues, civic organizations, and all the other voluntary social organizations that once characterized American life have disappeared as families shrink and nonreligious, self-described “global citizens” retreat into their apartments and behind their televisions. Online dating, Netflix, and grocery delivery have made it possible to live a thoroughly modern life without organic social contact.
Becoming middle class no longer means independence from wealth or family descent, but access to a wide range of subscription services that can be enjoyed in isolation. It is no coincidence that this lifestyle is what prompted the national lockdown.
Repairing the social fabric
When cut off from religious truth, cultural practices, family, and basic daily social interactions, an individual’s perception of reality quickly becomes distorted. Common sense is not an innate grasp of truth, but rather an inherited store of knowledge and wisdom that helps us navigate complex situations with seeming normalcy.
Without these organic social connections, individuals feel unshackled and highly susceptible to propaganda and suggestion. The constant flow of information through television and digital media, combined with the curated algorithms of social media, can rapidly and radically alter an isolated person’s view of the world.
Stripped of the continuity of tradition and the organic foundations of community, individuals turn to the authority of institutions as a source of truth. This may work for a while, but when the institutions themselves are divorced from the mandates they were founded on and the people they are meant to serve, what should have been pillars of truth quickly become conduits of lies.
Public health experts, scientists, journalists, academics, and even military leaders have proven themselves willing to sacrifice credibility in order to bow to political power. When epistemology breaks down in this way, truth is lost entirely, and media manipulation becomes the driving force behind elites maintaining power.
If conservatives want to end media domination and restore common sense, they must first repair the social structures that support it. People can only resist media discourse if they have a daily contact with reality and a high tradition of evaluating new information. A man who has been confined to his home, watching streaming entertainment and having food delivered to him can easily believe that the pandemic is ravaging the outside world. In contrast, a man who regularly attends church, meets with friends, and takes his wife and children to the park can easily see through the media’s nonsense.
The solutions proposed by progressive politicians like Kamala Harris are absurd. They run counter to moral truths, economic realities, and social conventions that were once obvious to all. But as the common social fabric that once bound our communities frays, common sense loses its footing, and isolated individuals become highly susceptible to manipulative media and corrupt institutions, conservatives must first restore the traditions and communities we once shared.
