But you have not stated what common sense is?

Are we born with it?

How is 'common sense' acquired or developed?

If you say 'experience' then common sense is not based on facts, it is merely a subjective perspective. In that case common sense only makes sense to the individual whose perspective it represents.

Therefore, 'common sense' is not common at all, because it does not represent information that makes sense to a lot of people.

Common sense labels different things, one of which being pure wisdom, another being good circumstancial judgment, another being an irrefutable truth, etc.

The ambiguity is even used at times for a kind of defense mechanism should one feel less than 'booksmart' for some reason or another, or should one feel threatened by academics in some way.

It is a very blurry term.

some folk think
common sense
is an oximoron

Thank god someone's brave enough to say what everyone is thinking! We need to shut down the universities spewing out their biased trash to students as though it was the truth! What the hell do these "professors" know about anything?

We need to go back to a better time, when everyone had their own farm and education meant teaching children the importance of strong traditional values. I bet all those clogged, smoggy cities and all their machinery were built by university graduates. And what a coincidence! Universities are always in cities!

Google it.

Ummm, no thanks. I get tired of the city folks who move in to the country with no clue, and no genuine want to be here. Mine is a hobby farm and a fair amount of my animals are taken in from city folks who have no clue and get something they cannot handle. They pack it up and move back to the city and I get the animals. Majority of farmers out are out for money and don't care about their families or the land beyond what they can rape out of it. That's why their kids have moved into the city.

I have no problems with universities and the info that is put out. The problem is religions grasp on the people and some of the universities and what they spew forth. And in the US, our sciences suck and the intelligent ones are going overseas to continue their education. Its sad.

Now, if you had said we should teach people where and how their food comes to be, I would totally agree with you.

Redy,

My view on "common sense" is this. It is what is taught by our parents and people, as well as the instinctual process that we shouldn't have lost over the years, even as we have progressed.

Take crossing a street for example. We are, and should be taught how to safely cross a street, as a child. Look both ways, be AWARE of traffic, etc. Even into adulthood, this is and should be a trained unconscious issue by now. However, it seems to be more and more common that people really don't know how. Which seems to be a lack of common sense and not paying attention. My dad got out of jury-duty using this logic with school zones. A child or middle schooler should be protected, but if a high schooler doesn't know how to look both ways, then its population control, especially if they haven't bred.

It also involves instincts, because short of fear/terror/panic or hunger, even a dog can generally make it across the street. Obviously, not all do, but we'd have a far higher death rate if dogs were unable to do so.

Of course, some of it could be less an issue of common sense rather then an ego problem. We've become so sue-happy in this day and age that if someone hits a pedestrian the pedestrian sues. While I personally have no problems with this at a crosswalk of in a parking lot where the driver is supposed to yield to all pedestrians, I do believe it wrong for someone to sue because they were trying to cross a highway or some such thing.

Thanks for responding to my post. You brought up a good example too.

Crossing the street:
A child growing up in the inner city will generally learn a lot more about crossing streets than a child from a slower paced and suburban area, who will generally learn more than a child growing up in a very rural area.

Learning how to cross a street consists of some basic and general guidelines. That is the common sense we are taught, but through experience we expand on the basic common sense we’ve learned and can become adept in crossing streets anywhere in the world – simply by applying a little bit of 'common sense', which is usually that basic information we were first taught.

Most of what we consider to be common sense stems from those basic tid-bits of information and most of that information helps us develop our intuition as we apply that information to our experiences.

I would not argue that ‘common sense’ is ridiculous, useless, or wrong all the time, certainly is can be right, it’s how we have survived.

But the OP was:



Which opened the door for a discussion on whether we needed book learning (knowledge) or if ‘common sense’ is enough.

The point I’ve been trying to make is that while ‘common sense’ is a valid tool for our early education, it cannot replace the kind of education we need to maneuver within the high tech city and urban developments that are expanding to create the global community. In fact, we would not have gotten to this point if all we relied on was common sense.

Formal education should be complimentary to that early ‘common sense’ base. Just like those tid-bits of common sense information that allow us to expand and develop greater survival techniques (instincts), likewise we develop a much greater capacity of conceptual, abstract, and creative thinking when our knowledge base is expanded with all the

We develop our intellect in stages and common sense may be considered an early stage, learning facts and memorizing ‘letters, words, definitions, numbers, addition, subtraction….” is another stage. Eventually we build a broad enough base and gain enough experience to begin utilizing all that information in creative and abstract ways.

It’s not a matter of ‘common sense’ versus “book knowledge (formal education), they are two distinct epistemologies (different ways of knowing). When individuals lack an early and rich exposure to ‘common sense’ they often have a difficult time adjusting to social interactions and may take longer to develop abstract thought.

On the other hand, when ‘common sense’ is taught as a rigid set of beliefs to be fundamentally adhered to, knowledge from other sources can be dismissed or ignored, which can limit an individuals capacity for intellectual and emotional growth.

From my perspective, common sense, as a way of knowing, has utility and serves a purpose but it is not a replacement for, nor equivalent to, the knowledge we can gain from books or the formal education process.

I was just being facetious, but yeah. I think if this zombie apocalypse ever actually happens, the farmers are going to be laughing at people like me.

"Here, buddy, translate this cabbage into Latin!"

Yes, that could be. Common sense is that knowledge that is considered 'common' among groups that share similar life styles. I refer to one sector of my family relations as my farm family and they refer to me and my nuclear family as the city cousins.

We have different set of common sense values but we have had the good fortune of being being close enough to have learned different sets of values through out family exposure.

Common sense is not common to all because it is taught generationally it tends to be common only to the groups who maintain the kink of lifestyle past generations also shared.

Yeah, I had a feeling later in the day when I reread that that I had missed the sarcasm underneath.

People seem to forget there's always been "book-learning" even before there were books. Memorization by the lorekeepers of ones culture is a good example. The were taught and made to memorize ones history. Usually the priests and priestesses and my understanding is that it was deathly stringent. Literally.

Fortunately, it became less hierarchal and elitist through history and now most everyone has access to all kinds of learning.

Interesting point.

Many years ago mankind "learned" history and knowledge by the memory of epic poems, songs, poems, etc. The rhyme and music acted as mnemonic devices to help remember the words as well as add an entertainment factor to catch the attention of others. This system worked well for cultures without written language.

Those without inherent musical ability would come across as "retarded" and those with inherent mathematical ability would probably end up as the tribes warriors and craftsmen. The vector mathematics of the calculation of a spear hitting a moving deer at a full run is quite complex even if done internally. The recognition of geometry and spacial relationships in beadwork, crafts, arrowhead making, etc. have special skills also.

What is "learning", common sense, or special ability is subjective and mainly dependent upon the culture and state of civilization.

I was in Boston some years ago and went out to the beach. There was a huge boulder of volcanic glass laying near the water. Obsidian was used to make many knives and tools by early man. I knew the approximate shock plane needed to cut the mineral so I took a football sized piece of rock and selected a nice place on the big boulder and smashed it. A beautiful hand sized piece of razor sharp rock fell off exactly like the stone tools used by ancient man.

I wondered at the time if ancient man used common sense to know where to whack the big rock with the little rock... with a little practice.

Actual research from those ... hated Universities ... lol


shows that our abilities to memorize have seriously decreased since books and book learning.

And continues to decrease with blackberries and iPhones doing our memory work for us.

I'm glad I came back to this thread. Thanks for the interesting posts...As a child my parents encouraged me to "look around" and "pay attention" to what was going on "outside" of me and the effects that my behavior had on others...They also encouraged me to take time out to understand my feelings and what was going on "inside" of me too....I learned so much about life from my parents...I didn't become an "empty vessel" in school...I felt entitled to question everything...even the way I was treated. I learned to honor and explore my "gut feelings" versus accepting everything at "face value."...I have learned a great deal from school and my formal education but I copnsider myself "self-taught" most of all because I try to learn all I can from everyday life experiences. How about you? Thanks for your posts and insights.

I can believe it, though I think it's worse with computers and technology then with books.

Growing up, my folks, mom especially, quizzed me on the books I read. That helped retain tons more information then just reading the book as well as answering any questions I had on the more "adult" books that I was allowed to read. She and I still discuss books that we read even now, and I think it helps. I can go to a book I've read, and know pretty close to the spot if I need to open it up for a precise bit of info. I also use books more then the computer in my research on various things, and while it was written in 79, I still have a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and use it heavily.

Unfortunately, in the need to teach to tests, I'm finding book learning is basically regurgitating the book word for word, rather then contemplating and talking about it, in your own words. And since everyone can look it up via internet, and use the first 5 searches, its very unlikely they are actually even reading the article itself.

My folks did that as well. We had to journal when we took road trips, pay attention to what was going on around us. My folks were very involved with our school work and we couldn't get away with saying "nothing" when they asked us what had happened that day. They supplamented what the schools didn't teach, especially here in Texas with stuff like evolution, and tried to make us as well rounded as possible in our information.

My parents pulled us out of school to go to the Texas State Fair under the theory that we would learn more at the fair than that day at school.

They were right.

The more books you read the more you learn!

It's just common sense.