CSS releases "Protecting the People: Limited and Absolute Governments," a free curricular supplement designed to support middle school and high school educators.
We have a chance to rediscover the principles of freedom and democracy.
Ordinary people still have an extraordinary love of liberty and hatred of authoritarianism.
Exploring liberty, prosperity, and beauty with the next generation of leaders.
Common Sense Society is an international network that promotes liberty, prosperity, and beauty—aspirational ideas that are indispensable to human flourishing and happiness.
With a community-focused model across North America and Europe, we educate 21st-century generations and inform public discourse. Our fellowship programs, curriculum resources, publications, events, civic initiatives, and targeted national media campaigns illuminate the enduring ideas that have transformed the course of human history for the better. Ideas have consequences.
We are cultivating a future that draws on the best of the past—a future that is free, flourishing, thoughtful, and full of enduring meaning.
Common Sense Society was founded as a debating forum in 2009 by a group of American and European university students. They aimed to explore the ideas that have shaped our history and will greatly influence our future. In doing so, CSS became a celebration of the moral, social, political, and cultural inheritance which has formed our common civilization.
Today, Common Sense Society has spread across Europe and North America. Our National Branches offer different resources and programming, but our mission is the same: Advance the ideas of liberty, prosperity, and a culture that fosters human happiness—aspirations that all people, in all places, can achieve.
Each Common Sense Society Fellowship offers the opportunity to study with leading thinkers in social, thoughtful atmospheres and to strengthen their professional relationships.
From June 5 - 9, 2022, Common Sense Society convened the Founders’ Foreign Policy Fellowship—a five-day-long intensive series of seminars that examined the distinctive moral and political principles of U.S. statecraft as understood by its Founders.
Intended for recent college graduates and early-to-mid career professionals with an interest in foreign policy broadly understood, its purpose was to provide participants with an understanding of what the Founding Fathers envisioned as the role of America in the world, and to connect that timeless vision to the contemporary national security, commercial, and human rights policy issues we face today.
The Common Sense Society Teacher Seminar comprised two consecutive three-day-long programs (July 17 – 19 and 20 – 22) that explored the foundational principles of Western civilization and culture, and introduced educators to high-quality supplemental resources for use in their classrooms. Intended especially for middle school, high school, and home school educators seeking to cultivate higher levels of civic literacy as a means of creating a patriotic and engaged American citizenry, the program’s purpose was to explain how free market democracies work, why they are the most effective way ever devised to promote the common good, and why only free market democracy is consistent with advancing and preserving the freedom of all individuals, as well as the lessons learned from the experience of collectivist and totalitarian systems.
From July 31 – August 5, 2022, Common Sense Society convened the Carolina Fellowship—a six-day-long intensive series of seminars that explored the foundational principles of the United States in the context of Western civilization.
Intended for recent graduates, graduate students, and young professionals from North America who have demonstrated leadership potential, its purpose was to ground future leaders in the ideals of responsible liberty at an early stage of their academic and professional development.
Convened in beautiful Bluffton, South Carolina, the program served as a retreat where participants explored the interrelationships that exist between liberty, prosperity, and beauty while acquiring the necessary tools to further their education and become effective leaders in their respective communities and career fields.
The Europa Fellowship is a six-day-long intensive seminar series that explores the foundational principles of liberty, prosperity, and beauty within the context of European culture and our shared civilization.
Intended for recent graduates, graduate students, and young professionals who have demonstrated their leadership potential, the Europa Fellowship focuses on grounding future leaders in the early stages of their academic and professional development in the ideals of responsible liberty.
Convened in the beautiful Károlyi Castle of Fehérvárcsurgó, Hungary, the Europa Fellowship provides an opportunity for participants to explore the interrelationships among liberty, prosperity, and beauty while acquiring the necessary tools to further their education and become effective leaders in their respective communities and career fields.
The Britannia Fellowship is a six-day-long intensive seminar series that explores the foundational principles of European civilization and a free society.
Intended for recent graduates, graduate students, and young professionals from the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America who have demonstrated achievement in their profession or field of study, the Britannia Fellowship focuses on grounding future leaders in the early stages of their academic and professional development in the ideals of responsible liberty.
Convened at the Bowood House in the United Kingdom, the Britannia Fellowship provides an opportunity for participants to explore the interrelationships among liberty, prosperity, and beauty while acquiring the necessary tools to further their education and become effective leaders in their respective communities and career fields.
Common Sense Society's John Quincy Adams Fellowship is a nine-month-long program that examines the fundamentals of American grand strategy, the realities of great power competition across multiple theaters of conflict, and the asymmetrical foreign threats to freedom and prosperity.
Issues explored include isolationism and alliances, foreign commerce and economic warfare, political development and human rights, public diplomacy and strategic influence, as well as means and ends in land, sea, air, cyber, and space.
Intended for mid-career foreign policy professionals who are U.S. citizens, its purpose is to provide participants with the opportunity to explore these issues in cooperation with other similarly situated practitioners under the guidance of leading American economic, diplomatic, military, and intelligence officials. The program consists of two retreats and a series of monthly off-the-record dinner conversations.
Common Sense Society's Caledonia Fellowship is a six-day long intensive seminar series that explores the foundational principles of Western civilization and culture, with a special emphasis on the thinkers and ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Intended for recent graduates, graduate students, and young professionals from the United Kingdom (particularly those from Scotland), Europe, and North America who have demonstrated their leadership potential, the Caledonia Fellowship focuses on grounding future leaders in the early stages of their intellectual, academic, and professional development in the ideals of responsible liberty.
Convened at historic Carberry Tower in East Lothian, Scotland (just 15 minutes from Edinburgh), the Caledonia Fellowship provides an opportunity for participants to explore the interrelationships among liberty, prosperity, and beauty while acquiring the necessary tools to further their education and become effective leaders in their respective communities and career fields.
