There's no such thing as "Common Sense"

It's true. "Common sense" as a concept has never existed in any way, shape, or form. It's hyperbole that everyone takes literally. I advise you to stop using those words in any and all sentences until further notice.

Now, most people, when you say "common sense doesn't exist," will think that they're extremely clever and say something along the lines of "well that just what you think because you don't have any, ha ha I'm so fucking clever." Wrong, douchebag. You see, it's that exact humorless retort that proves my underlying point: we (only!) use the concept of "common sense" to belittle those who disagree with us.

Think about it: what is common sense supposed to mean? Answers.com defines it as "native good judgment," "not based on specialized knowledge." In other words, good judgment that we're born with. So already we're sidestepping the fact that there's an entire branch of philosophy devoted to the question of whether there's even such a thing as native anything in the human brain.

Was anyone born with good judgment? We had to learn to avoid burning ourselves on hot stoves, right? Sure, we knew how to eat right off the bat, but was that our intrinsic reasoning skills at work, or just physical reflex? And why, when we talk about people without common sense, are we never talking about people who haven't figured out how to eat? Approaching this from the opposite direction, have you ever heard of anyone being praised for having common sense? Probably not, because what the fuck would that even mean? "Man, he sure knows to look both ways before crossing the street, and not catch himself on fire or something." No, common sense is a concept we only use to insult.

Here's what set me off...it's the most recent status of one of my Facebook friends. It's about Ron Paul.

I want to say this man is a genius, but really, everything he ever says is such basic common sense.... I just don't understand for the life of me how people don't get it. Big Government is the Enemy of Liberty.

See what I mean? By "common sense," what she's really saying is "if you don't agree with me, you're an idiot." Which of course is the opposite of true. If I don't agree with her, I'm not a lunatic fringe nutbag with a tenuous grasp of political science.