The concept of common sense has a long history. In a criticism of democracy, Plato used the idea of doxa (a root word of orthodoxy, a partial synonym of common sense) to indicate the common beliefs of the populace. Athenian democracy was based on the common sense belief of one man one vote, so long as that man was male, owned property and satisfied a number of other criteria. I shall return to democracy later.
In late Roman times common sense became a synonym for truth with the expression of vox populi, vox Dei ascribing a sort of infallibility to the voice of the masses. This equivalence of mass wisdom with the dictates of omniscience reached its popular apogee with Tom Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense. This used biblical references to convince Americans of what they already believed, hence conflating vox populi with vox Dei to provide the foundation of what has led to current dictionary definitions of common sense.
Religion is an example of a regional form of common sense. There is a commonality of belief, lent standardisation by the presence of a text or oral tradition. For people in one place, common sense is praying to God or you will go to Hell, for others it involves performing the rituals of one’s totem to ensure favourable conditions in the future. For others, common sense is buying Rolex, Dior and Armani to give the right impression to the world. Ask them why they’re doing it: it’s common sense.
An Oxford Dictionary definition of common sense, ‘Good practical sense in everyday affairs’ is a shifting concept that relies for its definition on the indefinable word of judgement, ‘good’. Going further into the Oxford definitions, we find the qualifier ‘general sagacity’. The use of the term ‘general’, indicates that this means ‘commonly accepted’. Webster says ‘beliefs and propositions that – in their opinion – most people would consider prudent and of sound judgment, without reliance on esoteric study or research, but based upon what they see as knowledge held by people “in common”’.
Dictionary definitions are by necessity superficial, an invitation to an etymological and epistemological investigation rather than an end point. Einstein is alleged to have said “common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.” This is a decent approximation to a definition from developmental psychology of socialisation. How we are socialised determines what we see as sense. The common sense of hard work leading to greater reward is different from the common sense of doing obeisance to a God leading to greater reward. The changing nature of common sense through the ages is not merely a function of changing technology – it is evidence that common sense is not wisdom.
I prefer my own definition: common sense is the inability to link more than two concepts. Linking two concepts has its place. This device does not work. These two sections have come apart. If I rejoin them, this device may work. But similarly: You have a cold. You went out on a windy day yesterday. The wind gave you a cold. This is a problem. When it comes to anything more complex than a simple 1 + 1, common sense does not work. Avoiding, as Webster points out, anything involving research or specialist knowledge, common sense is the absence of wisdom. It is where such expressions as “too clever by half” and the mystifying “no better than she should be” originate; the source of the tall poppy syndrome – the distrust of anything that is not common sense.
Common sense has a comprehensive history of blocking advances in knowledge. The magnificence of the renaissance lay in its transcendence of common sense. Religious orthodoxy lost its grip on the legal prevention of wisdom. People were comparatively free to wonder whether the earth went around the sun or how blood moved around the body. The foundations were laid for people to think in the abstract – could rotation be described in mathematical symbols, could disease be caused by things that were too small to be seen, could heavier-than-air things fly if you made the air move differently? – without being burned for the general edification of the commonsense public.
We can see common sense expressed in the tabloid – and often in the broadsheet – press. It is common sense to say that we should lock criminals up and throw away the key. It is common sense to want taxes to be lowered. The two are mutually exclusive concepts in practice but people do not want to know this. The Archbishop of Canterbury made a supremely reasoned speech about the nature of global conflict including, among many explorations, wondering what could be gained if there were a forum for governments to speak with leaders of so-called terrorist groups. Journalists picked up on this point as one of the few that could be understood by the common citizen and reported it under headlines like ‘Archbishop says we should bow to terrorists’. Editorials in the Daily Mail and The Sun said that The Archbishop was not using common sense. They were right.
This leads us back to democracy, the concept of rule by the common people. Clearly, this is unwieldy and we tend to use representative democracy. The process of convincing enough people to vote for a candidate belongs in the realms of psychology. If people behaved in a manner dictated by common sense, we would not need the discipline of psychology. People act in interestingly predictable ways depending on concepts that are far removed from common sense. Eating at MacDonalds, buying Windows, wearing Dolce e Gabbana – none of these make objective sense. However, they are perfectly commonsense because advertising aims perfectly as an appeal to common sense, no matter how much we like to protest that advertising does not work on us.
One’s choice of candidate in an election is the result of advertising. It is tempting to say that one makes one’s choice based on the policies of that candidate. While it may be true that one’s perceptions of those policies contribute to one’s choice, it is not possible for any one person to understand fully the economic principles, the technological advances, the research projects that need funding, the legislative process, the issues of hospital management, and all of the other areas that contribute to these policies. This includes the candidates themselves. No matter how intelligent Barack Obama might be, he must rely on the judgments of specialists to formulate what he says he stands for.
But those policies are not necessarily what he stands for. The aim in a democracy is to gather votes. Obama said what he said in order to solicit the number of votes required to win office. If something that he truly believed had to be done would not be consistent with common sense, he would not be able to say it. His speeches did appeal to common sense – sweeping rhetoric, grand promises, occasional bits of gossip about the Republicans.
In any case, the policies did not matter. I spoke to a lot of people in the US about the election and it was the personal qualities of the candidates that were mentioned. Sarah Palin was taken seriously, a little incredulously by some, but they referred to her loyalty, her appeal to the common people, her family values, rather than any policies. She was not a drag on the Republican vote. In fact, the eventual showing in the election was a significantly higher percentage of votes to the republicans than had been indicated in polls prior to Palin’s nomination as Vice-Presidential candidate. Why? Common sense.
Obama did not need policies. Nor did George W. Bush. It is received wisdom, common sense, to say that Bush is stupid. This seems very unlikely if one digs a little deeper than the common sense ‘he looks stupid + he says stupid things = he is stupid’ approach. He managed to be the figurehead in two winning elections. In the first, he had to use questionable practices to get the required percentage, but the fact is that he won the presidency against Al Gore, a man considered by all to be more intelligent than Bush. In the second election, he easily defeated John Kerry, again a candidate who gave the appearance of being much cleverer.
This gave Bush eight years in power. During this time, members of his family and alliances developed a network of profitable business deals and establishments over the globe. The legislation for this was passed under Bush’s administration. The Iraq war resulted in fortunes being made as contracts for security and reconstruction were awarded to Bush allies. I am not saying that the war was initiated for this reason; simply that it resulted in great profits for a select group of people. Now Bush is free from the onus of reelection, he can pardon people who it is in his interest to pardon and appear reasonably intelligent without it harming his chances of getting votes. I don’t know if you have been paying attention but his recent statements on the bailout of the US motor industry have revealed a profound understanding of complex economic principles, coupled of course with the need to protect the personal fortunes of some of his family’s inner circle.
All of the evidence of Bush financial dealings is in the public domain. However, people don’t care. It does not fit into the realms of common sense. What people want to know is that he is a man of the people. People want to be represented in government by someone with their interests, not necessarily the people who are intellectually equipped to lead. People in the huge central portions of the US have again voted republican but McCain did not have the popular, good ol’ boy appeal of Bush.
John F Kennedy famously made a massive error of judgement during the Cuban missile crisis. He said, “We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors…. We’re not going to have any search for scapegoats … the final responsibilities of any failure are mine, and mine alone.” His popularity increased immensely. Social psychologists explained this with the startling finding that people actually trust politicians who make mistakes and admit it more than those who appear perfect. Bush appeared anything but perfect. He connected well with the majority of US citizens. People voted for him despite the objective knowledge that his policies were not the best for them.
This is a manipulation of common sense by intellect. Psychologists did a wonderful job of advising Bush on how to retain popularity and stay in a position to get unpopular legislation passed. He put on an act for eight years. Not believing that someone could do that is to misunderstand what a candidate does in order to achieve election. Obama’s public face is not his real one. To think so would be common sense. It is no coincidence that as broadcast media have taken over the machinery of electioneering, actors have become more prominent in politics. Ronald Reagan. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The reward for being a politician is potentially much higher than that of being an actor. Why wouldn’t a political party employ specialists to find out what most appeals to common sense, then present that to the voters? Thinking that this does not happen is akin to believing Dustin Hoffman to be autistic after a viewing of Rain Man. What you see is not what you get. There is too much at stake.
Common sense is a powerful tool and the temptation to conform to common sense is strong. I see it as more of a barrier than a useful manifestation of humanity. Common sense provides a reasonable guide to how to fit in, how to have comfortable, ultimately meaningless conversations with unchallenging people. If you want that, it is there as a blueprint for social survival. It remains as a barrier to thought that really means something, to communication that might result in an advance in understanding.
Perhaps the ultimate expression of common sense is the depressingly common utterance, “That’s the problem with common sense. It’s not common.” This is generally followed by a knowing chortle and a pause to invite assorted nods and monosyllabic expressions of support. That, to me, is common sense – the inability or unwillingness to engage intellectually with a concept: to fall back on an unthreatening, commonly accepted truism that has no logical or reasonable basis.
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January 6th, 2014 at 6:21 am
“Democracy is common sense” has all the appearances of being a statement that the average person would agree to and move on from.
Break down the word democracy into a definition may spark some disagreement: “Giving equal weight to the opinions of every citizen is common sense”
And going one or two steps further, into more subjective territory, what appeared to be common sense descends into near-farce: “Giving equal weight to the opinions of those who are wilfully ignorant as well as those who constantly try to educate themselves on current social issues is common sense”.
School class thought experiment:
Hands up whoever agrees with the first statement?
Hands up who agrees with with the last statement?
April 1st, 2014 at 1:53 pm
And this one…
The people who shout loudest about wanting democracy in Turkey are those who want it least. The Istanbul middle-class have had a privileged position since the 1920s with preferential access to universities, commerce and overseas travel. They are the most informed in the country about political theory and world affairs but they essentially despise the great majority of more traditional Turks. The trend towards increased Islamic influence reflects the desires of most people but is seen as undemocratic by the middle-class, and by much of the international community.
These are interesting times.