“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.”
Albert Einstein
Common sense is common because it favors the answer that seems obvious to the many. Yet truth is often subtle, nuanced, contextual and relative. Rarely is it black and white and almost always it is a matter of opinion.
Politicians and charlatans often appeal to common sense as a ploy. They use it to deflect inquiry and to lead the intellectually lazy and gullible down all manner of paths. Likewise, many people aver common sense because they fear to press beyond the obvious—to discover what might lie beyond their comfortable assumptions. As T.S. Eliot said, “only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
© Michael Maurer Smith 2009
Yes, but…
“Common sense” also can function as a kind of Occam’s razor – itself the proposition that one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.
Certainly, truth can be “subtle, nuanced, contextual and relative”. On the other hand, there are people more than willing to turn subtle into obscure, nuanced into unbearably complex, contextual into beyond the limits of understanding and relative into valueless.
When those folks show up on the block, it’s often common sense that asks, “Aren’t we making this a little more complicated than it needs to be?” Or so it seems to me.
In any event, there’s another wonderful Einstein quotation that feels like it belongs here:
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
The reference to Occam’s razor is apt, as is the Einstein quote you cite. I certainly do not advocate for the obscure or unbearably complex. However, I have grown weary of the many people who tell others what they should believe, because it is only “common sense.” Too often their common sense is but spouting the party line and intellectual sloth.