Common sense layers sedimented historical beliefs with crude realistic elements, remaining acritical

Evidence

But common sense is influenced not only by the crudest and least elaborated forms of these sundry Catholicisms as they exist today. Previous religions have also had an influence and remain components of common sense to this day, and the same is true of previous forms of present Catholicism—popular heretical movements, scientific superstitions connected with past cults, etc. In common sense it is the “realistic”, materialistic elements which are predominant, the immediate product of crude sensation. This is by no means in contradiction with the religious element, far from it. But here these elements are “superstitious” and acritical. This, then, is a danger of the Popular Manual , which often reinforces, instead of scientifically criticising, these acritical elements which have caused common sense to remain Ptolemaic, anthropomorphic and anthropocentric. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1504

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines common sense’s character: layered religious sediment plus crude realistic elements, all held acritically.
• QUESTION: Gramsci’s ‘Ptolemaic, anthropomorphic and anthropocentric’ common sense resonates with how Islamophobic discourse treats folk beliefs uncritically — worth chasing.
• XREF: Connects to Althusser and later hegemony readings on how everyday ideology retains sedimented historical layers.