Commonist

[supergee]

There are people who think common sense is wonderful and people who think it's awful. I am one of the latter, but I try to be reasonable about it. Common sense is what tells us that the Sun goes around the Earth. More generally, it's what seems obvious to us because we learned it before our critical faculties were developed. Sooner or later, we learn that it's not that common, and those who were indoctrinated differently may have common sense that is the opposite of ours, so I am wary whenever anyone says it is what we should all be doing or makes the absurd claim that it is as valuable as uncommon sense.

So it's good for me to encounter someone invoking "common sense" and not talking out of their ass, such as Digby discussing a couple of recent examples of people in power behaving abysmally. I just wish she'd been a bit more precise and referred to what they failed to do as "common courtesy" or "common decency."

Thanx to The Sideshow.

Comments

[laughingrat]

Mm, good point about "common sense." I normally use the phrase for "orderly thinking based on observation and experience," but people do tend to use it more in the vein you describe.