“Common Sense” is another way of saying, “My opinion, stupid.”

Let’s get out of the way what most people think of when they think of the term “common sense.” Most people think of “not touching a hot stove is just common sense.” It is. For most adults with no obvious abnormalities, they aren’t still touching hot things without knowing what will happen. While this knowledge is common to most people, however, none of us are born with it. We all got that idea of “hot things burn” because all of us, at one point or another, have been burned. We gained that new experience that taught us hot things burn, outlets shock, knives are pokey, and don’t trust the government. A point of reference, I have a one year old, and I constantly watch her about to make choices and weigh in my mind if this is an experience I want her to have to develop her “common sense” engine, or if I just don’t have the heart to watch her cry. My belief, therefore, is that what we traditionally think of as common sense doesn’t actually exist. Though there are some self-evident truths in life, we only arrive at them through experience, and those that lack experience either through willful slothfulness or inopportunity, are retarded in their ability to make sensible decisions.

Still, I wouldn’t correct anyone for telling their kids, “don’t touch the stove when it’s hot. That’s just common sense.” That’s usually telling a child that they need to put a little bit more thought into something, at which point they will probably rationalize on their own that stealing a cop car is an unwise decision.

Where I have a problem is when adults use this to create the notion that their audience or target is an ignorant child for the purpose of bullying others into believing as they do. When someone claims something is “common sense” they are really just making an opinion claim, but making it forcefully enough to suggest that anyone who disagrees must lack a sort of intelligence universal to all rational men.

A second point of the matter, is that the person stating something is “common sense” believes as such because they are completely ignorant of other alternatives. They have filtered out or are as yet not unaware of whole aspects that nuance one’s view to the point that they really do think their viewpoint is a universally correct choice. I’ll take this moment to mention the Dunning-Kruger effect and Mt. Stupid. To paraphrase, the DK effect states a person who learns a little bit about a subject few people understand, will then speak with authority on it. That happens until they start to become aware of just how much they don’t know on the said subject, become humbled, and start the slow climb back up to being a true authority figure. “Mt. Stupid is that place where you know very little but believe in yourself more than a 5th greater with a special star sticker and a spirit award.

The path up Mt. Stupid is paved with the words, “Common Sense”, but that path ends at “Actually…,” cliff.

This is where most of us fall when we say, “Common Sense”. Few truths are truly self-evident, but often we say it because we lack an understanding of the other side when speaking about our views to people who admittedly have no idea.

It’s also arguing against the argument, as if to frame the opposition to the “common” sense as stupid and therefore anyone who questions the statement is intellectually enfeebled as well. Rather than have a reasoned analysis of an issue, they usually want to deny that any argument should even be allowed by marginalizing the validity of other views. This forces many who know they are ignorant (there’s nothing wrong with being humble) to feel as if there is something wrong with them (this is called gaslighting) and they adopt the view because… well they don’t really know, but now it’s there, for better or worse.

A last point of view is that the person simply hates anyone who may disagree. Many are fed certain opinions and solutions to complex problems that are short, simple to understand, and completely wrong, but they’ve been told for so long that this is the only way and people who disagree are morally inferior, as opposed to just intellectually so. Late night “politertainment” reeks of this mentality. You have a professional comedian read you the news before babbling off some silly jokes, before “getting real” and pulling on our heart strings before saying, “How could anyone not agree that this is wrong? It’s common sense!”

Then you start to think about how familiar this speech’s format was to the one two weeks ago on a completely different subject. And a few weeks before on another, and another. You realize after fact checking everything they left out. And then you start to realize something important. These people appear to be experts on everything… but given that funny little graph we talked about earlier… they’re really just building an empire on many different Mt. Stupids. If this was just you or me, it wouldn’t be a very big deal, but since literally millions of people follow these people religiously and hang on their every word… well, I would be concerned when that “Valley of Despair” makes contact with your face on the way down.

So when someone says, “… is just common sense!” you need to translate that’s as, “I am overly confident of my opinion. I am also afraid of being intellectually challenged or am intolerant to other viewpoints, even those which are posed by better experts or with better reasoning. Don’t argue with me, or I will make you out to be an inferior human.”

To put it more simply, “it’s just common sense,” is a more polite way of saying “it’s my opinion, stupid.”

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