“Common sense is the best shared thing in the world; because everyone thinks they are so well provided with them, that even those who are the most difficult to please in anything else are not in the habit of wanting more than they have. » Thus begins the Discourse on Method by René Descartes. This sentence, at first glance innocuous, seems obvious. Indeed, few people will admit to lacking common sense; Generally, we rather attribute the lack of common sense to others.
This state of affairs leads to the second part of Descartes’ statement, which goes on to say: “This testifies that the power to judge well and distinguish truth from falsehood, which is properly what we call common sense or reason, is naturally equal in all men; and thus the diversity of our opinions does not come from the fact that some are more reasonable than others, but only from the fact that we conduct our thoughts in different ways, and do not consider the same things. »
In a word, this distribution of common sense in each and every one of us leads to a plurality of opinions which all claim to be the representation of common sense and reason.
This observation could help us interpret a host of human behaviors – let’s think about our credulity in the face of certain statements present in social media as soon as they come close to our preconceptions -, but I would like to focus here on its consequences in the field of politics.
When a politician claims to express the voice of “common sense”, each of his supporters rejoices by concluding that a politician has finally listened to his complaints, which must be those of all those who possess “common sense”. . However, Descartes tells us that if the belief in possessing common sense is universal, the definitions of this common sense are multiple.
So, using “common sense” makes everyone believe that the politician speaks like them. As everyone believes themselves to have “common sense”, everyone can believe themselves represented by this politician, whether he is a Marxist, libertarian or conspiracy theorist.
The logic of “common sense” implies that everyone has within themselves the keys to acting appropriately in a given situation without resorting to a more experienced or educated person on the subject. However, Descartes’ remark reminds us that common sense dictates different behavior depending on the individual and that there are an incalculable number of “common sense” solutions that do not agree with each other.
In the tragic case of Walkerton, an Ontario town where the drinking water source poisoned the population in the year 2000 following deregulation carried out by a government advocating the “common sense revolution”, the common sense of A microbiologist would have come up against that of the untrained employees who led to the disaster, while everyone would have believed they possessed the common sense shared by everyone.
By advocating the use of “common sense”, certain politicians are condemned to lock themselves into a logic where they cannot describe their future policy in detail, since they claim to follow “common sense” which, by definition , is plural and multiple. Defining a concrete and clear political program would convince part of the electorate that these politicians do not represent “common sense”, since their intentions would differ from those of these same voters, each of whom is imbued with “common sense”. which varies depending on the individual.
People will tell me that followers of “common sense” do not read Descartes, obviously. But the philosopher does not provide a way forward that would address them: he is content to interpret reality. It remains to be hoped that the government of “common sense” that we are told will not lead us to a situation where everyone will watch the boat of the State sink while telling themselves that their own “common sense” would have personally dictated to them to act otherwise.