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 Founders’ Foreign Policy Fellowship is a five-day-long intensive series of seminars that examine 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 is 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 comprises two consecutive three-day-long programs that explore the foundational principles of Western civilization and culture, and introduce 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 is 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.
Common Sense Society’s Carolina Fellowship is a six-day-long seminar series that explores the United States’ foundational principles in the context of Western civilization.
Intended for recent graduates, graduate students, and young professionals from North America who have demonstrated their leadership potential, the Carolina Fellowship focuses on grounding future leaders in the early stages of their academic and professional development in the ideals of responsible liberty.
Convened in beautiful Bluffton, South Carolina, the 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 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 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.