MICHEL FOUCAULT, info.

Dear All,
The notion of 'common sense' fascinates me. Although, historically it has 
on occasion been employed as part of anti-establishment critique (Thomas 
Paine's (in)famous "Common Sense" published in the late 18th C springs to 
mind), it seems to me that it can be more often associated with the vital 
principals of conservative Christian morality. Perhaps this is all too 
obvious to most of us, perhaps it is just 'common sense' (though a 'common 
sense' which is not often pulled into the spotlight of consciousness, 
rather one that forms a large part of the backdrop, the unspoken 
assumptions and taken-for-granted ideologies, the 'historical apriori', of 
Western evaluation), however perhaps today the Christian roots of 'common 
sense' lay too often in analytical darkness. Comparatively our Western 
'secular society' no longer clings as affectionately and as proudly to 
Christian codes of belief as did, generally, the English high-Victorian 
period. 'Common sense' here has moved into and filled the ideological 
vacuum, especially in relation to the political domain. Although it could 
be argued that even during the Victorian period the nature of the 
universalized code of 'respectability', to which the attribute of 
'common-sense' was an essential element, was sometimes more 'secular' than 
religious, the general assertion that 'respectability' and 'common-sense' 
turned on the fundamental tenets of a Christian morality is hard to 
dispute. I say this, as part of 'a history of the present', to remind us 
that today when we judge  and condemn someone on the basis of 
'common-sense' that we are often not making a universal 'rational' 
decision, one to which any 'objective' inquirer would nod their assent, but 
are simply reinforcing the historical ascendency of the fundamental 
principles of Christian evaluation.
all the best
Bradley Nitins
University of Queensland