There's a peculiar phrase that ends arguments before they begin: "That's just common sense." When someone invokes common sense, they're not offering evidence or reasoning—they're suggesting that disagreement itself is absurd. But here's what rarely gets examined: who decides what counts as obvious?

The ideas we treat as self-evident—that markets allocate resources efficiently, that some people naturally deserve more than others, that the current way of organizing society is the only realistic option—didn't fall from the sky. They were constructed, promoted, and normalized until questioning them became socially awkward or professionally dangerous.

Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci called this process hegemony: the way dominant groups secure consent not through force, but by making their worldview appear as universal truth. Understanding how common sense gets manufactured is the first step toward thinking freely about political possibilities.

Every society has ideas that seem too obvious to question. In feudal Europe, divine right of kings was common sense. In antebellum America, racial hierarchy was simply how things were. Today, we look back with the comfortable assumption that we see clearly while they were blinded by ideology. But this is precisely the trap.

Gramsci identified how ruling groups achieve dominance not primarily through violence, but through intellectual and moral leadership. They don't just impose their interests—they present them as everyone's interests. The businessman's freedom to maximize profit becomes "economic liberty." The homeowner's desire to exclude becomes "property rights." Particular interests get dressed in universal clothing.

This transformation requires enormous cultural labor. Think tanks generate studies. Media outlets repeat frameworks. Universities teach methodologies. Politicians invoke principles. Over decades, a specific arrangement of power becomes simply "how the world works." To question it marks you as naive, extreme, or dangerously utopian.

The genius of hegemonic common sense is that it doesn't feel like ideology at all. Ideology is what other people have—those with agendas and biases. Our beliefs are just reality. This invisibility is what makes hegemony so durable. You can't resist what you can't see.

Takeaway

When an idea feels too obvious to question, that's precisely when you should examine who benefits from it being treated as natural rather than as a choice that could be made differently.

Power doesn't maintain itself through abstract ideology—it uses specific, identifiable techniques. The most effective is naturalization: presenting social arrangements as if they were laws of nature. Markets aren't political constructions; they're organic phenomena like weather. Hierarchies aren't maintained by institutions; they reflect innate human differences.

Watch for the language of inevitability. "There is no alternative" was Margaret Thatcher's famous declaration about free-market capitalism. "That's just human nature" closes discussions about whether cooperation could organize society differently than competition. "The market has decided" treats an aggregate of human choices as if it were a natural force beyond human control or responsibility.

Another technique is historical amnesia. Current arrangements appear permanent when their origins are forgotten. The forty-hour workweek seems natural until you learn people died fighting for it. Weekends feel obvious until you remember they were won through strikes. The minimum wage appears as old as employment itself until you discover it was once denounced as communism.

Perhaps most subtle is the technique of reversing causation. Poverty is explained by the characteristics of poor people rather than by the structures that produce poverty. Women's underrepresentation in leadership is attributed to women's choices rather than to the barriers shaping those choices. Effects are treated as causes, making systems of disadvantage invisible.

Takeaway

Whenever you encounter claims about "human nature" or "inevitable" outcomes, ask what political choices created the conditions being described—and who benefits from those choices remaining invisible.

If common sense is manufactured, it can be interrupted. The first method is historical consciousness—recovering the origins of what now appears natural. Every "obvious" arrangement was once controversial. Knowing that public schools, labor rights, and environmental protections were all once dismissed as impossible reminds us that today's impossibilities may become tomorrow's common sense.

The second method is comparative consciousness. Other societies organize differently. Universal healthcare is obvious in Canada, absurd in America—despite similar populations. Generous parental leave is common sense in Scandinavia, economically impossible in the United States. These variations reveal that arrangements are choices, not necessities.

The third method is standpoint consciousness—listening to those whom common sense disadvantages. What appears as neutral meritocracy from above often looks like rigged competition from below. What seems like freedom to some functions as domination for others. Those harmed by an arrangement see its political character most clearly.

Finally, practice denaturalizing questions. Instead of asking "why are things this way?"—which invites justification—ask "how did things come to be this way?" and "who worked to make it so?" and "who benefits from it appearing inevitable?" These questions open political imagination by revealing that the world was made and can be remade.

Takeaway

Cultivate the habit of asking "who benefits?" whenever something is presented as obvious, natural, or inevitable—this simple question can reveal the political interests hidden behind common sense.

Common sense is never innocent. It represents the successful conversion of particular interests into universal assumptions—the moment when power becomes invisible by becoming obvious. Recognizing this isn't cynicism; it's the prerequisite for genuine political thinking.

The goal isn't to reject everything presented as obvious. Some widely-shared ideas genuinely serve collective flourishing. The goal is to restore choice where false necessity has eliminated it—to recognize that what appears inevitable was constructed and could be constructed differently.

Every expansion of human freedom began with someone questioning what everyone knew was impossible. The first step toward transformation is simply noticing that common sense always has an author—and that author has interests.