By Edwin Cooney
Let's see now, I've been writing columns and discussing them with readers since June 16th, 2005. The topic no one, not even my closest friends, agrees with me on is my insistence that there's no such thing as "common sense.” So, here's one more try.
Example: You're in an intense discussion on a subject with someone who insists your whole approach to that issue or circumstance or even behavior is totally wrong. Finally, your antagonist says: If you'd just use a little plain "common sense,” you'd change your mind!
With that admonition, the subject is closed. The issue is no longer about the substance of the topic at hand. It's now about the differences between you and the other party. If that other party is your parent, spouse, teacher, preacher, close friend, or your boss, their influence and authority rather than how true their advice may be will inevitably carry the day. After all, everyone knows that somewhere out in the blue there lurks a body of pure "common sense" that, if tapped, can solve all mysteries, quandaries and challenges no matter how complex or serious. To that, I say “nuts!"
As I see it, “sense” is a combination of instinct, feeling, and logic which is applicable to any and all circumstances. "Common sense" insists that by human nature there is a common, positive or negative response to any and all circumstances which is readily available and obvious to everyone at all times. Were that the case, there would never be any disagreement between two people equipped with the same spiritual, emotional and mental coping mechanisms.
Invariably, people devoted, as most people are, to the existence of "common sense" insist that pulling one's hand from a flame or a hot stove is an example of "common sense.” To that I insist that the act of pulling one's hand from a flame or hot spot is instinctual. It's not even logical. One doesn't have either the time or inclination to decide whether it's healthy to keep one's hand in a flame.
Breathing, eating, sleeping, seeing, hearing, walking, and our capacity for emotional reactions to events are phenomena that are naturally available to us at birth. However, even these natural gifts are vulnerable to genetic interventions or other physical maladies that are too often beyond our control.
Beyond our instinctual or natural gifts is our reaction to the circumstances that create pain, stimulate hunger, cause anxiety or anger, or stimulate various types of love. All of these reactions are subject to both expectations and to the experiences we've had with those circumstances.
As I see it, too often "common sense" is ultimately a bullying tactic to keep any one of us in line. Here's a current example of what I mean: as we consider the value or lack thereof of impeaching President Trump, both sides appeal to our concept of "common sense" for and against impeachment.
I insist that the admonition to use “common sense" is mostly a myth, designed to somehow justify one person's dominance or superiority over another person's ideas.
Since we are all very human, we are subject to error from time to time. Thus, the true alternative to "common sense" is the phenomenon we ought to refer to as "good sense.” Good sense is an appeal to apply one's already recognized capacity for logic and wisdom.
Your spouse, child, other next of kin, neighbor, drinking buddy, student, or parishioner is, most of the time, someone who has not only the capacity for good sense, but their capacity for good sense might even be greater than yours! Rather than closing off all discussion by asserting that your contentious companion in a disagreement lacks "common sense," you should generously assume that he or she ultimately does share your capacity for good sense and it's likely that a resolution to your conflict will be closer than you ever thought was possible!
All of us are vulnerable from time to time to the misleading effects of myths. As I see it, ”common sense" is a mere myth. Good sense, on the other hand, is something that most of us possess in one way or another.
The fact of the matter is that our capacity to make any sense at all is highly individual. “Common sense” just doesn’t exist. If it did, our dream of “peace on earth” would surely be real rather than a prayer.
I rest my case!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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