A belief’s lack of supporting evidence signals how deeply it is held as commonsense

Evidence

Today, it is rare to hear bold and unqualified statements about sport’s positive racial force (at least in part for a want of supporting empirical verification). But the relative dearth of clearly articulated and empirically supported claims that sport is a positive, progressive racial force does not mean that the notion has fallen out of favor. Quite the contrary, I believe that the absence of empirical investigation and systematic argumentation is actually evidence of how deeply held and commonsensical it has come to be in American culture. The notion that sport is a positive, progressive racial force is more than just an idea, it is an ideology, an idea that has taken on a life of its own. It doesn’t need to be restated or defended. It is cultural commonsense, an article of faith held by Americans, black and white, liberal and conservative, even those who don’t care about sport in any other way. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2760

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The inversion — that absence of empirical defense is evidence of ideological entrenchment — is a genuinely paradigm-shifting analytic move about how common sense works. Top-tier.
• APHORISMS: The principle that ideas needing no defense are the ones most fully in charge of us reads as durable advice about how to examine one’s own assumptions.
• XREF: connects to: Irony works only where shared self-evidence makes proof superfluous; Disconfirming evidence rarely topples deeply held doctrines and worldviews. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 94; Marginalization itself functions as evidence of truth for believers — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 190