Common Sense: Touching the Electric Fence

 

The Return of Common Sense? 

I placed a question mark at the end of this title for a reason. Lately, the catchphrase “common sense isn’t all that common” has never been more true than it is today. In truth, despite misgivings from a well-meaning friend, advising not to post this until after the election in the United States—if at all. Well, here it is. My opinion about the whole affair regarding common sense. 

Hello everyone. I haven’t posted in a while due to publishing my new book and the issues that process can bring. However, during that time, I’ve given a lot of thought to common sense and the state of mind of some who have succumbed to cognitive dissonance, mass migration psychosis, gaslighting, hyperbole (exaggeration), media spin, propaganda, the BIG LIE, TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome), word salad, the semantics of misinformation and disinformation and all the rest of it.

Allow me to explain further. Common sense tells me that if I stick my hand in a flame of fire, I will get burned, and it will hurt—terribly. No one can tell me it won’t by using any or all the machinations listed above. As examples, I’ll try to illustrate what I mean below:

“Go ahead, it won’t hurt. You’re crazy if you think it will. OR, It’s only a blue/white flame. Are you scared? OR, Others have done it, and look at them; they’re okay. OR, They say it will burn you, but that’s mostly for people who don’t have the guts to do it—unlike you. OR, I read or heard somewhere that it won’t burn if you do it quickly, so it must be true; otherwise, why would they say that? OR, Why do you hesitate when your so-called friends or gutless family members tell you otherwise—you’re far more intelligent than they, anyway. OR, Everyone does it, so why won’t you do it? OR using esoteric reasoning, We all need to rally around this harmless activity that only serves the whole of us equally.”

WTH is this BS! I know fire is meant to burn; sticking my hand in a flame will burn me! THAT’S common sense.

More to the point in today’s political climate: Little Johnny will do everything he can to rally family members to protect himself from his dad’s wrath when he gets home, due to a punishment Little Johnny deserves because he has been a bad boy and disobeyed his mom. Punishment is not retribution but correcting a wrong by enforcing rules. If Order is to be maintained in the home, for a moment, due to an unruly child, it doesn’t make parent(s) dictators for a child’s entire life, nor is placing him in “time out” for a while jail hell. 

To believe otherwise is absurd and lacks common sense. 

At the very least, this kind of thinking smacks of hyperbolic reasoning, pouty, petty, and even juvenile. I could go on with other examples, but I think my point is clear. I, for one, have already stated my position on politics in an earlier post. I love America and make no apology for it. By “loving America,” I mean loving all the good things America stands for, not the bad. In retrospect, somewhere along the way, it seems that when throwing out the bad things, we had also decided to throw out the good. Like ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater.’  

That logic didn’t seem to make much sense to me.

It seemed to me that common sense took a vacation in the minds of many. Almost as if “Common Sense” (the cousin to Critical Thinking) has become “Rare Sense.” It became hard to find anyone who exercised the idea of what made sense versus what didn’t. The ability of many to fall for the absurd was astounding. In my experience, common reasoning can sometimes fly out the window, leaving me smacking my head in exasperation when trying to reason with the unreasonable. That in and of itself is insane; you can never reason with the unreasonable—it’s a losing battle. 

In this, I am reminded of Common Sense, written by Thomas Paine in 1776. In it, he argued very simply that America would be better off being ruled by its own government rather than by British rule. Otherwise, failing to do so would only cause Britain to look after its own self-interest, not America’s. To read more, click here.

Makes sense.

Living life is about making choices. We all have that ability, and our choices can make our lives either miserable or content. I choose content. I won’t sit around and gnash my teeth, moan, and groan about something I can do nothing about. If I can, then I will. But until then, it’s about looking at situations for what they really are without the ‘noise’ of others trying to sway my opinion one way or another.

It’s about common sense. Plain and simple.

Regardless of which side of the political aisle we fall on, we can all agree that returning to common sense is a good thing. It’s what gets us through our day without much analysis or second-guessing. We know what is truth and what is not. It is innate in our DNA and intuition to separate the ridiculous and absurd from what just makes sense. Some of us have more of that ability of discernment than others, granted—but we all have it.

Call it gut sense, common sense, or rare sense, whatever it is—I hope we return to it soon.

~DaMarie

Photo Courtesy of Alan J. Hendry