Common Sense
Posted: Thursday, July 22, 2010
by Randy Vaughan
There's a phrase used "all the time" that bothers me to no end. It shouldn't but
Face it: I'm getting old and cranky and I care far less about winning arguments and being right than for the simply joy of seeing people getting along. It is the folly of youth that winning and being right are important. Put this way: You might have all the brains and courage in the world, but if you can't cry and laugh with your friends, family, neighbors, and strangers, you still lack heart. And maybe humanity needs to be reminded that we're not made of tin and won't rust if we begin to have true empathy with others.
As far as I'm concerned, blue-collar types like me are indeed completely justified in their resentment of the emphasis placed upon formal education, degrees, and titles. Academic-types are, for the most part, terribly condescending toward those seen as being less educated and all too often pure erudition is valued more highly than a man's actual experiences in life. Yes, the heart surgeon who saves your life is deserving of respect and admiration. But when the sanitation workers go on strike and no one has picked up the garbage for a few weeks, you start to appreciate how thoroughly under-valued and under-appreciated are the men and women who do this type of labor. We need, sooner than later, to get over this notion that one is "better" than the other, of "more" value and importance. We all really are in this thing together, you know. I don't think you need a college degree to figure that out nor will all the formal education in the world blind one to something so obvious.
Face it: Each and every single human on this planet shares exactly three things in common. The first is gender, or sexuality. We are, by our very nature, sexual beings. After that, we all labor at something and in some form or fashion to make our way through life. And after that, we all struggle with varying levels of the fear of losing that for which we have labored. It's incomprehensible to me that somewhere along the way people haven't figured out how to start right there, with these obvious commonalities, and make living in peace and harmony more important than perpetuating the human drama of man's inhumanity to man. But I digress.
Long before I took up space on this planet, blue-collar types come up with an expression, an attempt to fight back at those perceived to view themselves as "better" because of their formal education, degrees, and titles. I'm certain you've heard at least once or maybe said it a time or two: "Too much book-learning and not enough common sense." The lawyer who can't begin to figure out why his car is running like crap is mocked and ridiculed by the mechanics who can't believe he didn't have the "common sense" to see that it was just a loose spark-plug wire. These daily occurrences and observations do wonders to help make blue-collar types feel, if not superior, at least equal to their more educated counterparts.
Only we have a problem. It's the phrase itself, "common sense".
"Sense" means what it says, the mental acuity to know and understand something (my words here), as in "Ain't got sense to come in out of the rain."
And "common" is something that is either cheap and vulgar or that which is shared among people, something "common" to us all, like breathing, or being sexual beings, or laboring at something to make our way through life, or being afraid we'll lost it all.
But there's no more reason to accuse the lawyer of having no "common sense" for not knowing auto mechanics than it is for the lawyer to think himself "better" for his education and better paying career. Is it?
All I'm saying is that it's time to lay to rest the meaningless "common sense" and rely on something each and every one of us can, and does, understand: Good Sense. It makes "good sense" that people get over all this class envy and warfare and focus on the trivial and unimportant matters that separate us-things such as levels of education and amount of money in bank accounts, nationality, and on and on-and accept the obvious. We're in this thing together and life's entirely too short for it to be wasted on the trivial and mundane.
Then again, I'm old and cranky. And maybe along with that comes too big of a dose of being a dreamer.
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Yes to good sense, Randy! All this fighting and needing to be right, it's so energy intensive. Much easier to just let everybody be.Thanks, Jennifer (and sorry it took so long for me to get back here)...I see far more commonality in life these days and it sure would be nice if people focused on that than the differences. Then again, I'd have never thought not said these things just a couple of decades ago, either....
Keep up the good work Randy- I always enjoy reading your stuff- Old doesn't equate with cranky tho- cranky old people were probably cranky when they were young too! LOLHi, Ella...Good point and I think I've always leaned a bit toward the "cranky" side. Even when I was a kid, my dad berated me for being too "critical". Even then and to me, at least, "critical" (as in "critical thinking") was a good thing...I tell Lisa I'm "old and tired and short and fat and grumpy" and she says only one of those isn't true....
Lots of common sense here. Good job.Michael, thanks very much. I appreciate that. As I told everyone else, apologies for taking so long to get back to this. I'm behind in comments and behind in reading....Again, many thanks...
Hi Randy.I had the good sense to read your article! :)You made some excellent points and I like your brand of insight combined with a little humor to ease the sting of the truth. Keep right on writing with passion ... PLEASE.DianneDianne, you just made my day. I've been "absent" because I've been working frantically on setting up blogs to try to draw some attention to my book and it often (usually) feels to pointless that I was just about to start hitting DELETE DELETE. And then you say this. Thanks very much and truly sorry for taking so long to respond....
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