The Collapse Of Common Sense

I was only about 13 years old when one of my teachers, an old man who had been a politician in his prior life, wondered aloud if open-book examinations had any value.  “There will always be people who can never find the answers to questions asked, even if you help them open the book to the page where the answers are.  Common sense", he said, "is not common".  If it were, everyone would have it but not everyone does.  At the time, the comment seemed like nothing more than a gibe at the types of students that can often be found in classrooms in every society: those students who not strongly endowed academically; those who stay up at night and fall asleep in the classroom during the day; and those for whom education does not rise beyond a secondary priority.  To a young religious mind, the comment also felt to me like hyperbole because I was convinced that everyone was endowed with common sense, which simply means the ability to exercise sound judgment.

If I could turn back the clock and be 13 again, I would pray to God for courage to be able to request my teacher to meet privately with me in a society where teachers were considered so powerful that even the meekest of them radiated what felt like an intimidating presence.  With my request for courage granted, I would ask my teacher to expand on his comment about common sense.  I would ask him to educate me about the role of common sense in building and sustaining a society and people.  I would ask him how one would know that common sense was lacking in anyone or any environment.  Finally, I would ask if he had a crystal ball into which he could look and tell me what would become of a society and world in the event of a widespread collapse of common sense.     

Well, none of that matters now.  I am probably now around the age where my teacher was when I was 13.  To the extent that age confers the privilege of, and opportunity for the kind of wisdom that lived experiences make possible, I am now in a vantage position from which I can see the world in ways that I could not at age 13.  Now, I see a world in which people vote against their own self-interest; a world in which the down-trodden applaud, celebrate, defend and protect their oppressors; and a world in which people who have never themselves fought (and will never personally fight) beat the drums for war while those who have everything (including their lives) to lose dance to the drumbeat at the command of so-called leaders who will not miss a meal in mourning when the battle is joined.  I see a world in which pastors would rather purchase private jets on the backs of indigent members of their congregations while the latter still follow them as if their salvation rests on man.  I see a world in which pastors build and claim to own universities where they set the cost of attendance so high that the church members whose money built the universities cannot afford to send their children there.  Yet, those members continue to attend those churches and continue to give money to the men and women who tell them tales that make them empty their pockets.  I see a world in which religious adherents allow themselves to be turned into suicide bombers while the leaders who send them to perpetrate such hate against others and themselves continue to live, sometimes in the lap of luxury.  I see a world in which historically exalted offices have been debased by the corrupt, arrogant and selfish instincts of individuals whose supporters shamelessly continue to applaud, make excuses and blame others for every irresponsible behavior that common sense would otherwise prevail on them to condemn.  I see a world where too many things no longer make sense.

We have become a world in which what common sense once prescribed as right is now considered a loser because too many of us have foreclosed on conscience and outsourced our common sense either to the highest bidders or to sweet talkers with no records of accomplishment beyond personal gain.   We have become a world that cherishes the easy way out instead of the right way out.  Common sense requires that we love rather than hate, that we collaborate rather than obstruct, that we tell the truth rather than intentionally mislead others who depend on us to be reasonable.  Common sense requires that we do the work that is needed to make our world a better place rather than retard the progress that had been made by others.  It requires that we stand for what is right rather than applaud evil perpetrated from high and low places, and that we look out for our neighbors even if we may not like them.  Common sense lays the foundation on which communities and nations are built.  A society, country or world in which common sense is doomed is one that is destined for ignominious failure.  We may not be there yet but the clock is ticking and we each have a responsibility to play our part in righting the course and averting the complete collapse of common sense in our lives, our communities and our world.