Common Sense

For the past several years I have paid close attention to the use of "common sense," especially in political discussions. Most often the term is used by people who would describe themselves as conservative. So how does common sense work to support a conservative viewpoint and criticize a more liberal viewpoint?


Dictionary.com posts this definition of "common sense":

"noun -- sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like; normal native intelligence."

In other words, common sense is judgment that does not depend on intellectual questioning, but on recognizing what has worked in the past, the conventional wisdom. The sun comes up about the same time day to day, but over weeks or months gets earlier or later depending on the time of year. Cows need to be milked twice a day. A watched pot never boils. Red sky in the morning ... oh, wait, that doesn't really work around here.


Common sense is a way to get through the day without getting hung up in details that will keep from getting done what's gotta be done. It is, simply, a way to keep from thinking too much and acting too little. 


But sometimes you won't be able to solve a more complex and singular problem without delving deeper. In those cases, relying on common sense may, eventually, add to your difficulties, or even bring disaster. Sometimes using common sense results in "Ready, Fire, Aim" types of strategies when the only way to really deal with a problem is to make sure you've got the right target and your aim is true. (I highly recommend Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" as way to think about the limits of common sense on a cultural level.)


For myself, when I hear the term "common sense" I get suspicious. It is the close equivalent of hearing "trust me" from a salesperson: I am being asked to suspend my skepticism and intelligence in order to go along with someone else's program. First question: Who benefits? Trying to discern the answer to that will make common sense thinking all but useless. For one thing, you soon realize that someone else's common sense is rarely exactly the same as yours. Appeals to common sense are too often emotional appeals to blind obedience, more about being negative than actually solving a problem. "Stop asking questions, just do what I say, it's common sense."


In this current political discussion, there are some who are  making appeals to common sense based on connections to the revolutionary pamphlet penned by Tom Paine. If they would read that work they might see that Paine's use of "common" had more to do with using the common language of ordinary people than rejecting the value of rational inquiry. Few people have made a more damning indictment of common sense and conventional wisdom.


"Common Sense" was meant to arouse a political reaction -- it was avowedly provocative in its rejection of the divine right of kings and hereditary wealth and power. It was in effect a direct attack on the prevailing common sense. 


If you're really interested in understanding Tom Paine's attitude towards politics and society you might want to read his later works "The Rights of Man" and "The Age of Reason." These books were unapologetically based on the use of deep, intellectual questioning of the conventional wisdom of the time, and advanced a view of social responsibility that would have 2009 conservatives (justifiably) shouting "socialist." At the time, these works were reviled by many, particularly in Britain, where he was tried in absentia for seditious libel.


In other works Paine also let it be clearly known that he viewed private property as theft from the common inheritance, and slavery as an absolute iniquity. None of these positions made him many friends. When he died there were only six mourners, two of them black freedmen, perhaps because they recognized his basic, and uncommon, humanity.


That Tom Paine should be a hero to our current clique of fear mongers indicates that they know little about the real person or his writings. They want to be revolutionaries without the heavy lifting. Unfortunately, it also indicates how little we know about either common sense or "Common Sense."