"Common sense as well as common values all lead us. Our future depends upon it and our present is going to be vastly better when we get back to these basics"
About this Quote
“Common sense” and “common values” are doing heavy rhetorical lifting here: they’re not arguments so much as social passwords. Joan Blades, best known for civic-tech and organizing rather than boardroom bravado, reaches for language that sounds nonpartisan and unthreatening while quietly drawing a boundary around who counts as “us.” The phrasing implies consensus before it’s earned, inviting listeners to feel reasonable just by agreeing.
The intent is coalition-building through simplification. “Basics” promises a reset button: a return to fundamentals that bypasses the messy work of negotiating policy details, competing interests, or evolving norms. That’s the subtextual move: if disagreement persists, it’s not because the issue is complex, it’s because someone has drifted from the “basics.” The line flatters the audience with moral and practical clarity, framing critics as ideologues or out-of-touch elites without naming them.
Context matters because “common sense” rhetoric typically spikes when institutions feel gridlocked and trust is low. It’s a response to fatigue: people are tired of procedural fights, culture-war escalation, and information overload. Blades offers a mood more than a blueprint, positioning civic participation as a return to decency rather than a confrontation over power. “Our future depends upon it” raises the stakes, but the vagueness is strategic: it allows multiple factions to project their preferred “values” onto the same sentence and march together, at least until specifics are required.
The intent is coalition-building through simplification. “Basics” promises a reset button: a return to fundamentals that bypasses the messy work of negotiating policy details, competing interests, or evolving norms. That’s the subtextual move: if disagreement persists, it’s not because the issue is complex, it’s because someone has drifted from the “basics.” The line flatters the audience with moral and practical clarity, framing critics as ideologues or out-of-touch elites without naming them.
Context matters because “common sense” rhetoric typically spikes when institutions feel gridlocked and trust is low. It’s a response to fatigue: people are tired of procedural fights, culture-war escalation, and information overload. Blades offers a mood more than a blueprint, positioning civic participation as a return to decency rather than a confrontation over power. “Our future depends upon it” raises the stakes, but the vagueness is strategic: it allows multiple factions to project their preferred “values” onto the same sentence and march together, at least until specifics are required.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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