• Common Sense: Friend or Foe?

    by Alexander Becker on November 16, 2007 | Link

    If there is one enemy to what we're trying to do here it is common sense.

    Really? Attacking common sense? Isn't common sense an ideal to strive for, something you attain at some point in life? Isn't common sense even a sign of maturity?

    Let's see what we've got --

    Common sense is sound judgement not based on specialized knowledge; native good judgement. That which is believed to be knowledge held by people "in common".

    Common sense is a good starting point, nothing more and nothing less either.

    There really is nothing negative about common sense. It's just that there isn't anything special about it either. Common sense is the lowest common denominator. It is the average. And that's the issue.

    On the other hand --

    Common sense is judgement without reflection, shared by an entire class, an entire nation, or the entire human race. --Giambattista Vico

    Judgement without reflection is a shortcut with judgement ultimately substituting experience. Short-circuiting common sense itself creates actual experiences.

    WOW, that is so -- common sense... Ever hear that? No?

    Extraordinary and common sense are mutually exclusive. The antonym is insanity, if you get my drift... Don't worry, not that kind of insanity.

    So what are we going to do about it? Ignoring the enemy?

    Ignoring common sense in the absense of something better? Half-knowledge and intellectual weakness is the result of ignoring common sense. Don't let common sense replace education, instead replace common sense with original experience.

    Here is the problem --

    Common sense is part of the home-made ideology of those who have been deprived of fundamental learning, of those who have been kept ignorant. This ideology is compounded from different sources: items that have survived from religion, items of empirical knowledge, items of protective skepticism, items culled for comfort from the superficial learning that is supplied. But the point is that common sense can never teach itself, can never advance beyond its own limits, for as soon as the lack of fundamental learning has been made good, all items become questionable and the whole function of common sense is destroyed. Common sense can only exist as a category insofar as it can be distinguished from the spirit of inquiry, from philosophy. --John Berger

    You first have to master the rule -- master common sense -- in order to intelligently and successfully break it.

    This obviously, does not imply to ignore common sense, quite the opposite is indicated and the way to go. Study common sense, master it and be aware of it, all the time, for it is changing and evolving the same way -- though not necessarily in the same direction -- you are evolving.

    There is no substitute for common sense except for the lessons you draw from going against it. Common sense itself is a substitute for experience. Again, the key is to closely follow the common in common sense, only to do the exact opposite and replace common assumptions with real experiences.

    Do not abandon common sense but instead become highly aware of it and approach it from the other side, fight it from the inside, if you want to.

    Do not rebel unreflectedly and against everything. Look through the common and determine uncommon sense instead.

    The trick is to not --

    Resist and defy a generally accepted convention.

    ... but instead to turn the convention upside down, not for the sake of rebelling but for the sake of doing the uncommon in order to create original experiences.

    Make use of common sense as a temporary placeholder to be filled with your own experience, it is neither friend, nor foe.

    It is the individual against the common. You cannot really collaborate and fight together against common sense. Joining forces means, implies, and requires defining common ground, a mutual understanding, it means determining the lowest common denominator. See above.

    Set yourself apart from common and bring out your individual best -- without anything common.

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