Conventional Wisdom

[Baker, John]

        The New York Times again is claiming that Galbraith invented
"conventional wisdom," see
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/weekinreview/09leibovich.html.  We
discussed this in 2006, and it's clearly much older.  I can take it back
to the anonymous An Inquiry into the Moral and Religious Character of
the American Government 35 (1838) (Google Books full text):  "it will be
seen that we appeal in such a case, neither to the records of
legislation, nor yet to the conventional wisdom of our forefathers".
(For the full and nearly interminable sentence, see
http://books.google.com/books?id=XWcEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA35&dq=%22conventional
+wisdom%22.)  Can anyone do better?


John Baker

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