Friday, November 5, 2010
Common Sense
Common sense is really neither. Oh there is a such thing as common sense... Sort of. Common sense: When you stick your finger on a hot stove you get burned. That is common sense. When you are trying to justify your social/political/economic/religious views common sense flies out the window. It's not that anything is wrong, or that everything is wrong with any views. What IS true is that these things are not in the realm of common sense. Common sense really is for simple things. More complex ideas cannot be explained or justified using common sense. In almost any case you have several competing forces at work. "Unemployment is caused by laziness" whether you believe this or not, is not common sense. "_____________ (insert party here) are all ____________." Is not common sense. And any statement that "anyone who says __________ lacks common sense" is certainly not sensical. Lets everybody on both sides admit it. The world is full of complex issues, and we may not always see eye to eye. Common sense has nothing to do with it.
3 comments:
I think in those instances common sense refers to a sort of a glue... that holds dogma of idiological groups together... and as a tool to subjugate or marginalize those who are willing to express differing views, but also to circumvent time on the floor for presenting uncommon solutions to uncommon problems. Sounds a bit almost like something that if it were a product... would be one of those things you hear about in infomercials early in the morning or late at night. Or see in the back pages of catalogues...
I think it might just boil down to laziness. I don't want to make an argument about something that is actually complex and has several factors, because that requires me to consider too much, so I'll just say it's common sense.
For honest to goodness common sense you have to get real literal... whatever you are referring to really has to be both common and sensible... other wise it's just some form of an opinion. The hot stove example is good... because it is both common knowledge that a hot stove can burn you, and it is good sense to conduct yourself in a reasonable manner around one not to get burned. All the rest of that stuff is just an opinion... if an opinion were correct, it would cease being an opinion and become a fact. Common sense can only exist within the realms of fact, and you are correct... it only exists with the most simple things. The more complex you make it, the less common it will become. If it isn't something a reasonable thinking person of an appropriate age would know by default, you cannot claim it to be common. Sense comes from experience, and knowledge gained from said experiences. Of course all of this begs the question... just because someone has this knowledge making it common, does not mean they either have or will use the sense to heed touching that stove. I hate to make a huge complex narrative on something that should be so simple. So I reiterate, if something is not both commonly known, and seeded in good sense, it fails to be common sense.
Post a Comment