The Appeal to Common Sense

By Gary Berg-Cross

Everyone appeals to common sense. President Obama recently used it:

“The idea to shut down the government at a time when the economy is gaining some traction ... I am assuming that they will not take that path… I have confidence that common sense in the end will prevail.”

I’m not so sure he’s right there that sound judgment will prevail.

You hear in the debate over Immigration (A plea for common sense and compassion in the immigration debate) where the common sense appeal to is one of a humanitarian and, ultimately, moral basis in distinction to economic, social and enforcement aspects of the issue.

I might agree with that priority, but this argument is not that common. common sense is a term with philosophical origins, which is today commonly used to refer to a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things which is shared by ("common to") nearly all people, and can be reasonably accepted by nearly all people without any need for debate. A practical example these wet summer days is if it looks like rain take an umbrella when you go out.

This comes out of our everyday world of seemingly direct perception and experience of getting wet.  Common sense evokes the idea of practical world and easy, harmonized knowledge and reasoning we can use to plan our day.

There is idea of a reasoning independent of particular training and experience and hence shared by us all.  Or perhaps we might say that just the common life experience of growing up in the world gives us the base to reason from.  It’s not an idea that holds up well under examination given the appeals to it we see used widely.  

The trouble is that common sense appeals often seen to be about values that immediate perception and involving basic knowledge acquired from age 2-8. .

All too often the topic is something we might or should agree on and don’t. In these cases common sense gets argued for secondary things, not the primary ones and that is an important debating point.  Such hidden agendas are technically way beyond a topic of 8 year olds. The argument in the previously cited article is for an immigration bill that “upholds values Americans cherish—hard work, opportunity and compassion.” 

Sounds great but values are much more abstract than immediate and a subject for well informed and reasoned debate with agreed upon facts. Consider the reasoning applied to the recent Farm Bill:

Today we have crops that are more resilient to extreme weather and disease, meaning that the livelihood of my family is less tied to the whims of Mother Nature. In fact, about 90 percent of corn and soybeans have been improved with biotechnology today. By producing a higher yield, these crops allow me to do more with less and help meet the growing food needs of our world.

Any technology that helps me and my family earn a little bit more for each hard-fought acre we farm is a welcome advancement. But not everyone chooses to see the benefit of these technologies for America’s families.

It’s a simple, linear type argument but not everyone would agree with the chain of reasoning because our knowledge, experience and reasoning differ:

·         less tied to nature’s whims is good (does nature really have whims?)

·         Biotech improves crop yield (or does it reduce pest damage if we use it with,,,?)

·         Result more food crops that the world needs (cost/benefit analysis please)

·         It helps my family so it is good (what about damaging other families with pesticide food?)

All too often we get the inverse labeled as “common sense”. There is, for example, a common sense show http://thecommonsenseshow.com/. It is a little disconcerting to see some of its topics:

•  the communist inspired practice of paying an income tax. 
•  The Invasion of Sharia Law with a claim:

o   Sharia law, illegal immigration and the free trade agreements are designed by the globalists to subvert the Constitution and to undermine the national identity

We should be progressing in better and better common sense.  Some blame education for the lack of it. I think the reasons go deeper and include an anti-intellectual culture attitude which dis-respects reflection and encourages a divisive acceptance of shallowness.

Updating Common Sense

By Gary Berg-Cross Thomas Paine, author of COMMON SENSE, is perhaps the most controversial of America’s founding fathers. He certainly captured the democratic, revolutionary spirit and provided cogent arguments about the nature of society  While unjust government was the focus of that time, I wonder how he might adapt some of his arguments in Common Sense for our times.  Below is my reworking of the first few paragraphs of his Intro to Government to Common Sense. It is perhaps a bit of what Tom Paine might consider now. SOME writers have so confounded corporations with society or government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different and have different interests, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, which government should help ensure and has licensed corporations to help in that task. Civil society promotes our happiness positively  by uniting our affections, and is balanced by governance that can restrain human vice and should likewise restrain corporate vice and encourage productive intercourse.

Society in every state is a blessing, but corporations like government even in their best state are but a necessary evil. In their worst state untied as crony capitalism or fascism an intolerable one. Crony capitalism seeks a largely society indifferent cooperation between the governing class, government representatives and business. And in this crony capitalism cooperation many sly mechanisms are employed:   Bush Tax cuts - crony exhibit 1 Bailouts, stimulus, special loans, too-big-to-fail, favors, mandates, barriers to entry, political appointments, tax breaks, campaign contributions, 'sole-source' procurement, connections, grants, government-union cooperation,exemptions, government sponsored enterprises, political insider trading, and legal bribery.  While this cooperation benefits invested business and political interests, its sly mechanisms generally hurts the politically and corporately unconnected and through them society as a whole. Over time the power and narrow benefits of crony capitalism lead to political and social corruption, a fact which my friend James Madison recognized when he noted, in a letter to mutual friend Tom Jefferson in 1788: "Wherever there is an interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done, and not less readily by a powerful & interested party than by a powerful and interested prince."  For were the impulses of need to be satisfied by corporations be clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, consuming people would need not sign the fine print of arrangements and need a lawyer at every turn. But this not being the case in our daily life, we find it necessary to surrender up a part of our property and property to satisfy daily needs. ; Wherefore, the pursuit of happiness being the true design and end of society and its tools of corporation and government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. Images Common Sense: http://www.history2u.com/common_sense.htm Paine: http://morallaw.org/blog/2012/01/hidden-faith-of-the-founding-fathers-who-were-they-hiding-it-from/ Crony Capitalism: http://www.campustimes.org/2011/03/31/crony-capitalism-corruption-and-collusion/ Jefferson on arbitrary seizures; http://cronychronicles.org/2012/07/29/image-just-government-prevents-abritrary-seizure-jefferson/