9 October

When people evoke 'common sense' in my experience, it always means the same thing. I don't agree with you, my ideas are sensible (common sense) and yours aren't. The literal meaning of common sense sense is 'common meaning' - the meaning most widely shared by people. The problem with common sense as an idea is - it doesn't exist. There are hardly any widely shared beliefs in the world. For example in politics, many assume there are fringe radicals, but that the vast majority - the 'quiet majority', as ScoMo calls them - have sensible, common sense views, in the 'centre' of the radicals. It's rubbish, time and again when tested it's been shown that those people have as widely divergent views as the radicals. Lewis Carroll, a favourite of mine, played with common sense his whole life. He used non-sense to do it. Some assume this was just for fun, but he was a serious thinker with serious intents. A bit like Zen for the West, to snap people out of their lazy 'common sense' un-thinking.