Guest columnist: Common sense uncommon today

April 1, 2009

Lots of interesting ideas about common sense! It’s a paradox that we call it 'Common Sense' and we say it’s not so common. It’s also an irony that we find it so difficult to put definitive theory around it...but I can think of one aspect that may nurture common sense.

The innate ability to use the information in front of you, and decide on the course of action... is very common in people. But the formal education system does damage to this self -belief that helps to rely on one's own resources in dealing with a situation. Since childhood, we accumulate so much of specialized knowledge about so many subjects, and in the process we get conditioned to looking for ‘that expert’ whenever we have to choose. For example, one of project mates was impressed with a case analysis I did. He then tried very hard to find the name of an imaginary book, which he assumed to have given me the skills to do that case analysis. I was so surprised with his unshakable belief that I read a book and figured it all out. The truth is that I did not read any special book. Then I realized that many people fail to realize that books are also written by someone like us. More so with the Internet. Anybody writes anything and many people read all that! I hope they also think on their own while processing the information on the net! I think it has lot to do with confidence building and the assumptions our authoritarian system of education gives us.

I know of another real life example: when I was in Bangalore, I know an old man who was suffering from chronic asthma. He went to so many doctors, tried so many medicines, over so many years. But all that is of no avail. It so happened that one of his old friends, who is also a doctor, was traveling to Bangalore and thought he would check-up his friend as well.

Because the doctor visited the old man at his residence, he could figure out the cause. The old man's bedroom was under the water tank, causing it to remain damp! He shifted the bedroom, and cured himself of asthma. So now, how many of us would first use our common sense before wasting so much of effort? Do we have the courage to use the information in front of us once and see if we can find a solution, before praying for help?

Is it our dependence on external factors which prevents us from using common sense? Is it the lack of confidence in oneself? Are we victims of the modern specialized and authoritarian education system? Any one of these, or even something else, may be the reason. But, there still are some people who think for themselves, even though they grow in the same environment. Those are the ‘common sensical’ people who are not so common!

-Vishnu Kodukulla