Demystifying - Conventional Wisdom

What makes conventional wisdom an conventional option for the people en masse? Is it the idea of getting in sync with scores of other people's views or is it just the Idea of making yourself reluctant about looking for a change?

An opinion or an idea that becomes the circumcentre for quite a good statistical figure of intelligible creatures with the repetitive times of its occurance, along with popularity makes that idea/opinion a Conventional wisdom.

I suppose I just made describing a simpler thing (conventional wisdom here)in such an unconventional long description, just a convention mode for me. Well - if you agree this could rule such a way of describing things - a conventional wisdom.

But is conventional wisdom necessarily true? This part of posting is just my tryst to get over this. A yet another approach to bring out conventional options that can help me redefine things in my own conventional sense.

But wouldn't that tantamount to going against the conventional beliefs which already has been laid down?

Well, its here where the conventional idea of making things conventional wisdom an applicable thing works. Conventional Wisdom is not a necessary truth. Yes, it has the flexibility to change along a gradual line. It is just the convenient way of expressing things so that you can get the picture across.

But, Why be so specific about conventional wisdom? Well, thats not the point. Some say - conventional wisdom makes it harder for the people who tries to bring in change to a certain belief. It paves in as hurdle for people bringing in new theories, postulates etc, for the fact that Conventional wisdom appeals to large number of people. This develops an inertia that opposes any other views pertinent to the conventional wisdom being subjugated to a challenge over its(read CW) existence.

Well - to what I believe its not true. Would it have been possible to come up with a new innovative idea if there weren't any conventional wisdom at the first place?

Certainly not!

Conventional wisdom forms the basis for any ideas. It provides the required ramification of ideas that can lead a new idea to emerge as a much better refined conventional wisdom. However - it takes time to finally get over ther.

This is an incident that happened to me yesterday. (ya...thats why am with this post).

Part1: The event -
I was at cousin's place for two days - and I didn't bring my Mobile phone's charger. What next - I wanted to cut short my stay and go back to my place and get my mobile recharged, so that I do not miss any of the calls once my battergy gets over.

My Cellphone is a Samsung-ABC model. My cousin's cellphone was samsung-XYZ model. I knew his cellphone charger's pin would hardly fit into mine. So I told him that I needed to go.

Part2: the conventional wisdom at work:

My cousin removes his cellphone's cover and finally the battery. He takes out mine. He shows me both of it(the batteries) are same. We crosscheck - yes it is. He finally shattered my conventional wisdom of thinking ABC model cell needs ABC model cell charger only.

What next- he charges my battery in his cell, and I use his till my battery gets recharged.

Part3: the irony of conventional wisdom

Ya- it is not a wisdom infact. It is just a slight variation of your personal thoughts/ideas to match it with populist's beliefs of the Crowd.

It's wiser to be with the crowd sometimes. And thats an uncanny attribute of conventional wisdom.

If you want to check your conventional wisdom IQ -
then you might want to check this: CW quiz