All Too Common Sense

Tradition for him was all the test of truth:
“It must be right, I’ve done it from my youth!”

-- ?

“It’s just common sense.” How often we hear that phrase offered up in defense of a political position. We’ve been hearing it a lot lately, particularly from conservatives. For example, “Marriage should be between a man and a woman. It’s just common sense.”

One wonders, however, what lies behind this common sense. I suppose a century ago one might have heard a conservative say, and say with absolute conviction, “Only men should be allowed to vote. It’s just common sense.” But it was not common sense. Or rather it was common sense, all too common. By that I mean crude, vulgar, and ignorant. It was actually sexism, convincing itself it was sense.

And fifty years ago one might well have heard commonly said, “Negros and white folks should never marry; it’s just common sense.” Again, it was common, but it was not sense; it was racism, convincing itself it was sense.

Just a few days ago I was listening to talk radio. The topic was Iraq, our invasion of that country and our possible justifications. A man called in and argued that, despite the fact that there was no evidence to support it, and there was copious evidence against it, the claim that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were collaborators “was just common sense.”

What did the caller mean? I think I can reconstruct his reasoning. Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are the same kind of people: swarthy-skinned, Arabic-speaking, Allah-worshipping barbarians (to use Ann Coulter’s generous characterization of Muslims). All those people are alike. All of them hate us. Their version of the Golden Rule is, as everyone knows, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Therefore Saddam and Osama must be friends in their hatred of us. They must be working together for our destruction. It’s just common sense!

Once again, no. It is not common sense. It is racism masquerading as common sense.

Such thinking—or non-thinking—on the part of conservatives has given common sense a bad name. From not on, let us abjure employing the phrase to characterize our own thinking. From now on, let liberals and progressives, when defending their positions, say “It’s just uncommon sense!” We thereby avoid being associated with the common-sensical folk out there: the sexists, the racists, and the homophobes.