Life In A Non-Common Sense World
What’s in it for me? This is a worrisome question we either hear or observe everyday in businesses, shops, schools, on street corners and so on. When women, men, and children are asked to do something in their lives, the immediate response is a question in return. For instance, what will they receive for their allegiance, for their money, for their time, or simply for their attention? It seems nothing is free these days. Consequently, even change in a person’s status comes with a price. I wish to offer a currency used in America for purchasing how people should see things, and how they should think in common. It is tagged as Common Sense. A side note: it did not originate with Thomas Paine, let alone with Glenn Beck.
In this brief essay I will challenge this frame of thought, which many individuals apply as a basis for understanding human behavior. I contend that outside of religious beliefs shared by groups of people, we do not have anything resembling a common sense, which appears immune to context, change or points of view. Although people, collectively, may WILL to believe in the presence of common sense, they are actually applying personal filters to a scene called reality.
Let me clarify one important point among many. We do need features in our social political, and economic landscape, which serve as beacons of understanding. We find them in our laws and other social contracts. Yet, even these are always open to interpretation by different people and in different times with evolving histories. We should not forget, we Americans are creatures of our particular places in time; plus, we are captives of myths, technologies and the medias that “own” them. Yet……….
Times change! When we are confronted with a major event, such as a recession, an earthquake, a hurricane, bank failures or other human catastrophes, we must face a fact, we do not own nor can we negotiate away. The fact is apparent that something has happened to our world. Ignoring the situation doesn’t change it for it is either happening or it is in the process of enveloping our sense of reality. In a space full of motion, we are expected to come to grips with our feelings, the images unfolding around us and discipline our senses to absorb and structure everything. It is usually an overwhelming experience. Such is the combined power of facts. Again, it is a power no one owns, not even the media, a President, a CEO, a Congress or political party. Yet, all do not respond with the same sensitivities to such events.
In those moments, some of us experience the situations differently. Either from our cultural upbringings, training, education, or temperaments nurtured by direct experiences, we respond with different thoughts to what we see. All that we share with the majority around us is the setting. We see what they see, plus we smell and hear what they sense as well. Yet, our feelings prescribe a different response.
Buried in our intellectual, emotional and social experiences is a menu in how some people respond to radical changes in their environments. Unlike other people, they will not be shaken by the onslaught of change. Their makeup is uncommon as are their viewpoints of the world. When the multitudes are captives of two-dimensional displays of the world, a few see life in three dimensions, free from constraints of nose-length depths of field. Thus, it should not be a surprise to find a self-selected minority expressing disbelief in unsubstantiated opinions—fashionably called common sense. Especially when they are expected to share an extensive commonalty in thinking and acting like others. That collective judgment is shaped by imposing, common fears of being different from the crowd. Consequently, disobedience to the crowd warrants exile into the Unknown. Of course, no one returns to the crowd from the Unknown.
Consider society’s members, who live and think away from the cohort called the crowd, cannot be herded by the barking of sheep dogs, intent on corralling all into narrow chutes of intellectual impotence. For it is inside the chutes, where sheers of regressive uniformity cut away self-respect, insatiable appetites for knowledge, questions, curiosity, unique skills and debate. Funneling out the other end are “fleeced,” simple people, who only know how to follow others. The dogs are waiting there for them. With others already spinning around and around in a common circle, the dogs bark gleefully! Eventually, the old are trampled away by the new in this circle of commonality, where personal growth is forbidden.
The non-common sense men and women of America and the world are pragmatic students of irrefutable facts. These individuals set a collective WILL to directly and unselfishly confront reality, without filters or blinders. They do not fear the truth and its consequences, no matter what price it charges. In contrast, irrefutable facts and non-restrained intelligence are threatening to people who need the protection of what they call Common Sense. They may say their need is for freedom, but in essence they are seeking to be free of the responsibility to think and decide for their selves.
It is here that a declaration of the need to accept and follow Common Sense, unfolds its power of persuasion. It demands that people should fear their own abilities to think, or judge what they see with their own eyes. Thus, when the rule of Common Sense tethers itself to the minds of individuals, who are unwilling to think for themselves, then ignorance controls everything it can reach. That which ignorance cannot subdue on its own accord, it gains through partnerships with: mediocrity, passive-aggressiveness, unimpeded greed, docility, hubris, and The Fears.
When you hear the dogs barking, they sound full of common fears. Their sounds crescendo as if someone or something were whipping them beyond the constraints of inhumanity. It is here that denial, the cruelest master of self-respect, bites and suffocates the thinking of its prey. Only independent, critical and well-reflected thought can keep one from becoming the prey of denial and its dogs of common fears.
Please remember that Common Sense takes no sides in political discourse. Yet, it will continually shadow marketers of: denial, fear mongering, half-truths, greed, ignorance, fascistic control and hubris. It hungers for the minds of people unwilling to think for their selves. Where you find the marketers you find their prey. Look around to see what is watching you.
Michael Mason Norman, ED.D. February 2, 2010
Copyright 2010 Michael Mason Norman, ED.D.