No common sense, no consensus

Ideas

22/06

Common sense...

...is not that common.

Common sense... ...is not so common.

About this world of ours today, which is evidently not taking the best course, because of us above all, it is easy to argue that both common sense and consensus are lacking. Nevertheless, neither concept will lead us to better paths. Both the cause and the solution may lie in common sense.

We use the expression "common sense" if we want to endorse someone. Namely, their ability to decide or act in the right way. Ponderance, reasonableness, wisdom, perspicacity or circumspection are qualities commonly attributed to those with common sense. The expression is subject to a great deal of subjectivity and prejudice, especially because of the presence of "good", which belongs to the group of words with the highest degree of relativity. With respect to "sense" the situation is less tumultuous: it means "sense", in the double meaning "direction" and "capacity to feel", and also the capacity to think and to judge clearly.

Curiously, in relation to sense, what we notice is its lack and not its opposite, although "counter-sense" exists. One does not accuse someone of having "bad sense" but a person who is reckless, impulsive, thoughtless, unconscious and irritating will have omitted good sense. In fact, it is not even necessary to make reference to "good" because "lack of sense" is enough to get the message across.

It is not, therefore, a pure dichotomy. It is not about one concept and its opposite. It is not on the same level as truth-truth, for example. This is due to the absence of objective criteria of distinction. On the contrary, as I have tried to show, the qualities of those who have sense or the lack thereof will be subject to the sense of those who are evaluating, thus becoming redundant. This is exactly how we work when we try to qualify people's characteristics ¹. Simply put, it is usual to resort to common sense when we evaluate people.

Common sense is a concept that encompasses a "set of opinions or ideas that are generally accepted at a particular time and place"². Basically, one could say that they are the "truths" constructed and followed by the people, by the common people of a certain time and place. For the sake of clarity, truth should be understood as a set of beliefs, prepositions and prejudices, transient and volatile. Moreover, as a concept, common sense has arisen to contrast with "scientific sense", the former being exempt from the detailed investigation that is used to reach more well-founded and hopefully more recognised "truths". In theory, often verified in practice, the "truths" that make up common sense are slower to evolve, more resistant to change, therefore, than the conclusions produced by science or philosophy³. This idea may seem contradictory or paradoxical because we attribute slower progress to scientific method and philosophical processes. The reason is simple: common sense is made up of the learnings that result from everyday experience and it is also there, in our routines, that we apply them. Therefore, there is no need for them to be reviewed or rethought. For this reason, they run the risk of killing curiosity because, precisely, curiosity results from not conforming to the explanations we already have for what is happening to us⁴.

Not infrequently, notions of common sense and common sense clash and may even merge, becoming indistinct as a result. In these situations, the effects can be dangerous. As an example, I share the case of a person I worked with. He is a person about whom I would say, without any doubt, that he has a lot of common sense. In addition to this set of characteristics, he had an impressive CV. He had accumulated decades of experience and work of excellence, including coordination functions, excelling in both the technical and human dimensions, in a particular sector of non-business activity. When we started working he had recently accepted a challenge in another area, although in the same sector, in a company. She directly assumed a coordination position of great expression and importance. Although she was used to high levels of pressure and workload, she felt that her quality of life had declined and that she was not managing to resolve everything that she had encountered and was being asked to resolve. This situation lasted for months, almost a year, and during this time she was being told by the people she reported to that she was not living up to expectations, which contributed to doubts about her ability and whether she had made the right decision by changing career.

The common sense of the business world is one of endless demands on people. They must always give more and do better. If what is expected is not being achieved it is because "they are not knowing how to manage priorities", "they are not knowing how to delegate" or "maybe they don't have the right profile". If the person gives in and gives up, this confirms and reinforces this common sense. If the person collapses it is because they were not resilient enough or, worse, they were weak, and the effect is the same. Fortunately, this person's common sense, made her put the hypotheses: "are they demanding too much?"; "is the volume of work too much?"; "are there not enough people for what they want to do?". Questions like these again arouse curiosity, asking for new explanations, alternatives to those that were given.

Today all kinds of sense seem to be confused. On the one hand, science deceives us - commissioned research, "hammered" results that serve interests other than the so-called "scientific truth" - leaving us to doubt its conclusions. On the other hand, the proliferation of means of publication and access to the opinions of most humans leads to common and even banal truths being presented and defended as more than scientific: absolute and perennial.

If the knowledge and truth coming from the sciences were destined for the elites, today the intellectual and cultural elites are those who move away from both common sense and the truths resulting from science. Today the "elites" are defined by the search for and use of "good" common sense, which implies a commitment to an integrity that allows one to seek not only the facts but to evaluate and judge all propositions and prejudices, starting with one's own. A commitment to going beyond post-truth towards "trans-truth": a truth that cuts across truths.

Such a concept, if it has legitimacy to continue to exist, makes it more difficult to reach consensus. And it is so difficult to achieve consensus regarding what is common sense, for example. Besides being difficult, I argue that they are not desirable, in line with the recent text by José Crespo de Carvalho⁵. Consensus implies conformity to the thought of the majority, approaching the definition of common sense. Literally means "to have the same sense", or to think and feel the same way. In my experience, this is very difficult and undesirable between people. Different ideas and perspectives are a richness, let us build on them⁶. One of the ways to build is through the refinement of good sense, individual and collective, and seeking to reform common sense, when it offends us more than it supports.

Written for Link to Leaders on 19 June 2022; published 22 June 2022.