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.
The Carolina Fellowship brings together a selective group of professionals committed to preserving and advancing the principles of liberty, prosperity, and beauty. Over six days of intensive seminars with renowned faculty, fellows explore the foundational principles of the United States in the context of Western civilization. Convened in beautiful Bluffton, South Carolina, the program serves as a retreat where participants explore 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 brings together a selective group of professionals committed to preserving and advancing the principles of liberty, prosperity, and beauty. Over six days of intensive seminars with renowned faculty, fellows explore the foundational principles of liberty, prosperity, and beauty within the context of European culture and our shared civilization. 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 Caledonia Fellowship brings together a selective group of professionals committed to preserving and advancing the principles of liberty, prosperity, and beauty. Over six days of intensive seminars with renowned scholars, fellows explore the foundational principles of Western civilization and culture, with a special emphasis on the thinkers and ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment. Convened at historic Carberry Tower in East Lothian, Scotland (fifteen minutes outside of 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.
The John Quincy Adams Fellowship brings together a selective group of advanced foreign policy practitioners who are currently guiding America’s strategic and diplomatic efforts. Over nine months, fellows examine 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. The program consists of two brief retreats in the DMV area and a series of monthly off-the-record dinner conversations in Washington, D.C.
The Founders’ Foreign Policy Fellowship brings together a selective group of aspiring foreign policy professionals seeking to guide America into a secure and prosperous future. Over five days of intensive seminars with renowned faculty, fellows examine the distinctive moral and political principles of U.S. statecraft as understood by its Founders. Convened at historic locations—including Mount Vernon, Monticello, Montpelier, the National Constitution Center, the Alexander Hamilton Custom House, Fraunces Tavern, and the Old South Meeting House—the program provides a total immersion experience, enabling participants to wrestle with the dilemmas of statecraft and to tread the same ground as Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Jay, Hamilton, and Adams.
The Britannia Fellowship brings together a selective group of professionals committed to preserving and advancing the principles of liberty, prosperity, and beauty. Over six days of intensive seminars with renowned scholars, fellows explore the foundational principles of European culture and a free society. 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.
