Too much common sense,not enough critical thinking!

This paper explores two different views about common sense—those of Clifford Geertz and Antonio Gramsci. It examines their presuppositions, assesses their utility for archaeologists, and considers the implications of current common-sense explanations of the past. It points out that common sense is both historical. Yesterday’s common sense sometimes morphs into today’s good sense or scientific truth. Today’s common sense or scientific truth often becomes tomorrow’s false consciousness or folklore. Common sense is also relational. Groups with different positionalities in hierarchically organized societies may have widely divergent views about what is common sense. Finally, it raises the question of why particular “common sense” explanations of the present—buttressed with claims that they are rooted historically in a fixed, unchanging human nature and morality—are repeatedly resurrected by fundamentalists and conservatives in both hemispheres to justify political arguments and to reassert or impose or particular power relations.