Common sense, defined as “sound judgment derived from experience rather than study,” is one of the most revered qualities in North America.
It evokes images of early and simpler times in which industrious men and women built countries into what they are today. People with common sense are seen as reasonable, down to earth, reliable and practical.
But here’s the rub — common sense, from my perspective, is neither common nor sense. These days, (especially in Penticton city council) there seems to be very little evidence of sound judgment, so it’s not common. If common sense were common, most people wouldn’t make the kinds of decisions they do everyday. If you really want to get specific and timely, people wouldn’t buy things they couldn’t afford. They wouldn’t smoke cigarettes or eat junk food. Many politicians would not get caught up in sending and harbouring untoward private emails at work. In other words, people wouldn’t do a myriad of things that are clearly not good for them.
To me, common sense isn’t real sense, based on the definition of common sense being sound judgment. Too often experience is used as a benchmark but doesn’t always offer enough information to draw reliable conclusions. To me, common sense is a contradiction of terms. It is not very often that real sense comes from experience alone because most people’s experiences are limited.
In fact, I think that so-called common sense is something that has been dumped upon us by our culture of ideology (any ideology that tells us what we should think and do) and seems to want us to be stupid, ill informed and poor decision makers. This seems to be especially true of many politicians, so called elites who lack common sense, and, as a result, are out of touch with the local gentry. If we use our local elected representatives as examples (though I can’t vouch for how representative they really are), I think that it is safe to say that unsound judgment, or the absence of common sense, doesn’t discriminate based on political ideology.
Relative to the city and some of its recent issues, we get the picture that common sense is neither common nor sense. Some recent decisions made either publicly or in-camera relative to current issues, seem to be poorly thought out or arbitrarily decided upon without consideration for down the road consequences. When will they learn, if ever?
Ron Barillaro
Penticton
