Voltaire, the witty and prolific 17th-century writer who espoused the familiar concepts of Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Expression, and Separation of Church and State, once said: “Common Sense is not so Common.” What did he mean by this? I suppose that because of what we are, physical beings with a spirit and emotions, our sense of cause and effect is often muddied by our personhood.
We develop our knowledge of all aspects of the world through experience. The familiar Latin term for this is “A Posteriori” reasoning. We know from experience that a dog staring at us feels threatened, so to stare back invites aggression. If you don’t understand this, you will likely discover it at some point. The knowledge we gather from our experience gives us insight that we leverage to our benefit in all future situations. A Posteriori, literally “looking behind,” is what builds our common sense.
The development of common sense takes time and experience. It also takes a growth mindset. Too often, we can let the lessons our life presents us slip by without benefit. Too often, this is during those frequent episodes of failure where we miss the lesson because of false pride or entitlement. It is my experience that modern western culture promulgates these vices. Experience isn’t taken at face value but interpreted through the lens of social media. The distortions to our perceptions resulting from our modern modes of communication create generational challenges that we must be aware of. The amount of change in the last quarter century is exponential. This radical change requires new ways of connecting that circumvent social media.
To embrace a growth mindset and temper our emotions, we can look to the great stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, who showed us how to put our insignificant lives into the proper perspective. In the practice of humility, we can find liberation from thought patterns that violate the foundational agreements we must make with ourselves: don’t take things personally and don’t make assumptions.
More on the Defense of Common Sense next week…
