The Death Of Common Sense

Someone I trust deeply wants to me to do a Blog entry on the Death of Common Sense. A trip to the UrgiCenter for a sore throat led to 2 hours wait, and that is understandable, and forgivable, at 10 degrees below zero, and flu and cold season in full scope on a holiday weekend.

This person noted that there are no coat racks, no coat hooks, and almost no toys, play areas and books for children to fuss over, with two hour waits.

I can relate to this. I care for  medical clinics and have put in coat hooks, about 50 of them in the last year because doctors, administrators, architects and project managers do not see the clinics as do patients visiting it see clinics. When all are bundled up, but are not in a lobby at 71 degrees, what does one do with the coats? At the lab, in the exam rooms, and the infusion rooms, what does one do with one's coat during the visit? Again, the death of common sense, and it is getting worse everywhere.


What I need to do is define common sense first. Nowadays, common sense is really uncommon, good sense. People have always lived in packs, and pack-living can make one think and make conclusions that are not safe, sound, wise or humane. Idealism and study are great, but how something works in the real world requires that planners, the elite, ask for input from those in the real world that do the work, and make systems run. Elites regard common people as inferior amateurs so their input is not sought or regarded as desirable. The chasm is deep and wide. The ignored and wiser little people are on one side of the canyon, and the ruling, insular elites with their theories are on the other side of the canyon, impsoing structures, technologies and procedures upon society that may be good or completely ineffectual.

America was built on individualism, capitalism and Yankee ingenuity. From their hunches, their versatility of thinking, their working with their hands, their deep worldly with-their-hands working and interactions, they learned to adapt, to find workable solutions, to use their powers of observation and rich living context in the world to guide their judgment. And they were practical, and Hoffer regards being practical as worldly oriented and rooted in everyday life. There is a moderation and reasonableness, a prudential judgment wielded by such average people. Such people have their feet on the ground, and think in concrete, real-world ways to solve problems and grasp what is at hand and what needs doing.

By contrast, millions of people now go to college in very narrow, specialized fields. They are brainwashed by Leftists universities to solve problems just one way, and to have just one set of values. All are cogs in the hierarchy. Patriarchal values are eschewed and denounced. Rugged individualism, independent thought and self-reliance are replaced by metrosexuality, groupthink, group-living and increased dependency on the federal government for everything, even a reason to live. Is it any wonder that college educated people cannot think for themselves, think at all, or think outside the box? The educational process has bled all the brains out of them. They are clever and can spout ideology and the party line, but that is not the same as original thinking and engaging in dialogue, or finding workable, efficient answers for real-world needs.

Now, we have children growing up in the cities, the suburbs and smaller cities that have never worked with their hands. They do not do yard work. They do not reroof a shed. They do not feed cattle, or repair broken implements. They do not learn homemaking skills. They do not help the parents and the family unit as carpenters, electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, welders, mechanics and metal craft workers. They do not haul rock, fix fence or cut firewood for the family boiler.

80 to 100 years ago young women and young men all over America lived and worked with their hands as their parents did and had done. When such young people had to solve the problems of everyday life, their good sense, based in individualism, some level of independent thinking, a grounded sense of life and living and their Christian upbringing equipped them with the experience, wisdom and prudent judgment to do and conclude the right way over basic living questions. Their group-living might have distorted their group-thinking over national issues, but even there the common people, at their best, had sound hunches of what to do and what to believe to run their lives and their country. Our traditional values gave them what they needed to arrive at common sense conclusions to many problems.

Affluent children today, doing nothing with their hands, not working in the business world, not being reared as individualists, totally immersed in an electronic world, will not be equipped to use common sense because their living conditions do not permit or foster developing good sense, good judgment and everyday matters and regarding right thinking to act and respond the ethical way.

The cultural context is lacking to provide children with the backdrop of rich worldly time and manipulation of matter in physical world to give them the worldly skill, the street smarts, and judgement to know intuitively what to do and how to act.

Some always will lack good judgment, and many naturally possess this gift. To some degree it can be learned and taught if those lacking it practice prudence, self-control, moderation in all things, looking before leaping, and individual-live. With these aids the level of individual and communal uncommon, good sense can be strengthened and extended.