The Most Useful Skill You Can Learn Today
Yet, most people choose to ignore it.
In 1958, economist John Kenneth Galbraith coined the term “conventional wisdom.”
Conventional wisdom is simple, convenient, comfortable, and comforting. Much of it gets passed down to us from parents, teachers, elders, bosses, clergymen, and other authority figures in our lives.
It’s essentially a body of ideas or explanations that the public and/or experts generally accept and propagate as the truth.
We associate the truth with convenience, Galbraith lamented. As anything that syncs with self-interest and personal well-being, and promises to avoid awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation of life.
To an extent, conventional wisdom is useful.
It saves us from overusing our brains every day (we don’t try drying our clothes in the oven), and keeps the community in motion (each of us knows our roles and duties).
But its pitfalls outweigh its usefulness.
The Unconventional Truth About Conventional Wisdom
For one, it makes people cling to the beliefs they find convenient, and dismiss any new information or explanation that might diminish such beliefs. As a result, progress stagnates…
