
“The conventional wisdom is often wrong.”
Source: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
“The conventional wisdom is often wrong.”
Source: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
"We Need a Radical Left," The Nation (29 June 1998)
Context: By definition, the conventional wisdom of the day is widely accepted, continually reiterated and regarded not as ideology but as reality itself. Rebelling against "reality," even when its limitations are clearly perceived, is always difficult. It means deciding things can be different and ought to be different; that your own perceptions are right and the experts and authorities wrong; that your discontent is legitimate and not merely evidence of selfishness, failure or refusal to grow up. Recognizing that "reality" is not inevitable makes it more painful; subversive thoughts provoke the urge to subversive action. But such action has consequences — rebels risk losing their jobs, failing in school, incurring the wrath of parents and spouses, suffering social ostracism. Often vociferous conservatism is sheer defensiveness: People are afraid to be suckers, to get their hopes up, to rethink their hard-won adjustments, to be branded bad or crazy.
“The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.”
Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 2, Section IV, p. 21
“Challenging the conventional wisdom is the way to make waves in science.”
[James Lovelock: Challenge the dogma! (Web of Stories), YouTube, 6 August 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA8FbEHsgus]
“Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom.”
“Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.”
Forbes: "5 Obstacles That Inspired Me To Innovate" https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2018/06/28/5-obstacles-that-inspired-me-to-innovate/#8f06bb42b77f (28 June 2018)
“There is a third element in absolute faith, the [[acceptance of being accepted.”
Source: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 177
Context: There is a third element in absolute faith, the acceptance of being accepted. Of course, in the state of despair there is nobody and nothing that accepts. But there is the power of acceptance itself which is experienced. Meaninglessness, as long as it is experienced, includes an experience of the "power of acceptance". To accept this power of acceptance consciously is the religious answer of absolute faith, of a faith which has been deprived by [[doubt of any concrete content, which nevertheless is faith and the source of the most paradoxical manifestation of the courage to be.
Autobiographical Essay (2001)
Source: The 80/20 principle: the secret of achieving more with less (1999), p. 28