On the "Conventional Wisdom"

The common understanding of the term "conventional wisdom" seems to be that it is, as Dictionary.com puts it, "something that is generally believed; prudence."

However, John Kenneth Galbraith, generally credited with coining the term in his classic The Affluent Society (1958) had a much more precise, much richer definition, which gets into the matter of just what tends to be accepted as such, and why, and what the conventional wisdom of his moment actually was.1

The conventional wisdom is accepted because it is what is acceptable to its adherents (8), accommodated "to the audience's view of the world" rather than "the world that it is meant to interpret" (11). Implied there--more than implied--is that rather than being based on the most rigorous examination of all the known facts, it is a matter of what is convenient ("what most closely accords with self-interest . . . promises best to avoid awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation of life" (7)), flattering, easy to understand (no one likes social or economic complexity), and after the passage of time, familiar to that audience--so much so that its very utterance is reassuring, comforting, ego-affirming, an intellectual life "raft" (7) on the stormy seas of life.

Indeed, repetition of the conventional wisdom is virtually a religious rite (10), while just like religious rites tend to be, it is a source of "inertia and resistance" (16) to the acknowledgment of inconvenient facts and truths, let alone serious grappling with them; outlives any usefulness it may have had as an alternative to the confusion and chaos of an utterly uncontrolled and unmanageable flow of ideas (16); and never surrenders, but only dies (12).

Galbraith makes clear that the conventional wisdom changes over time, that there may be more than one conventional wisdom operative at once (for example, a "liberal" conventional wisdom and a "conservative"), and that it may be "articulated at all levels of sophistication" (for example, in both intricately scholarly and crudely mass audience-oriented renditions of the same idea). Still, by and large the conventional wisdom for society at large--like the conventional wisdom he sought to challenge in that particular book--was that of the comfortable, mainstream, respectable, whose received, generally unexamined, commonplace views, defined above all by their congeniality to the maintenance of their immediate, selfish comfort, are the "mainstream, respectable" ideas.

Robust as Galbraith's discussion of the matter in The Affluent Society is, I still find it useful to refer also to his much later book The Culture of Contentment (1992), about the titular "contented" with the status quo in American life. As he observed, they were untroubled by problems not distressing them personally in the here and now, callous toward others' misfortunes, which they justify by blaming those others for their lot, insensitive to questions of justice, the well-being of the community or the public as a whole, or the long-term at any level; fearful and resentful of any suggestion that might even slightly diminish their comfort; and inclined to inaction over action in dealing with the larger problems of the world. ("Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow; better still, never do it at all.")

The "conventional wisdom," one might say, is how a George F. Babbitt or Archie Bunker sees the world.

Especially coming from the left-liberal Galbraith, the term was rather pejorative. But that is a far cry from saying that made it unuseful--rather more useful, in fact, than our bland, mildly approving use of the term today (i.e. as a synonym with prudence), arguably in itself a reflection of progress giving way to regression.

1. Chapter Two of The Affluent Society, which starts on page six, is actually devoted to explaining the concept in depth and detail because, to his credit, it was the conventional wisdom that he challenged in that book and its follow-ups (The New Industrial State, Economics and the Public Purpose).

On "Convenient Social Virtue"

John K. Galbraith first presented the concept of "convenient social virtue" in his book Economics and the Public Purpose--the work that capped off decades of study of the shortcomings of economic orthodoxy as descriptor of or source of solutions for mid-century American life with a social democratic vision for America. There he explained "convenient social virtue" as the presumed "meritoriousness" of "any pattern of behavior, however uncomfortable or unnatural for the individual involved," that is "advantageous . . . for . . . the more powerful members of the community."

One can describe this, as essentially, the demand of the powerful that others quietly defer to their superiors and offer no resistance to their exploitation and misuse because of the presumption that this is right, proper, moral conduct--such that, instead of asking for the material compensation properly due them, or even a measure of genuine respect, they can, at most, be fobbed off with a few words of pious praise for their "good service." Meanwhile, those who refuse to render the service, or demand more than such praise for that service, are subject to "righteous disapproval or sanction" for their "inconvenient" behavior.

Consider, for example, the difference between the way doctors are treated, as opposed to the way nurses are treated. That doctors expect very high compensation for their work is regarded as natural, and society generally does not think it is unseemly when they stand on such a demand. By contrast, nurses who demand better pay or conditions are condemned and even demonized in much media coverage (as in Governor Schwarzenegger's California).

Today where the term "conventional wisdom" remains in use, albeit quite a different use than Galbraith intended, "convenient social virtue" fell by the wayside. This is partly because of the way the book in which Galbraith presented the term has been marginalized--the work summing up his research, thought and proposals even more ignored than those that led up to it. However, it is also a reflection of what led to that work's being so ignored in the workplace. Where "conventional wisdom" was turned from a powerfully critical term into an innocuous or even flattering one, it is difficult to think of "convenient social virtue" being redefined as anything but a criticism of inequality and exploitation in need of redress--a thing with which the conventional wisdom already had little patience then, and rather less now.

Which is exactly why we need the term now more than ever.