The Myth of Common Sense

Why we need to stop pretending we all see the same sky

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“It’s just common sense.”

There’s a kind of casual cruelty in those words.

A brushing off. A shutting down.

Like there’s something wrong with you if you don’t already know —

if you don’t instinctively see it the way I see it.

It’s a phrase I’ve heard too many times lately.

Tossed out like a weapon.

Like a badge of superiority.

As if what’s common to you should be obvious to everyone else.

As if wisdom was a thing people either have or lack.

But I’ve come to believe there is no such thing as “common sense.”

Not really.

What we call “common sense” is not some shared, universal logic.

It’s not the voice of nature or God or reason.

It’s a network of conversations

we were born into — not by choice, but by geography, by race, by class, by culture, by survival.

It’s the things your mother repeated in the kitchen.

The rules you were never taught, only punished for breaking.

The codes you absorbed in playgrounds and pulpits and classrooms.

The invisible scripts that shaped you before you had the words to name them.

And here’s the twist, love: most of us mistake those scripts for truth.

We call them “sense.” We assume they’re obvious.

But they’re just stories.

Stories that feel natural because they’ve been told so many times they’ve sunk into our bones.

But not everyone grew up in your story.

So when we say “common sense,”

what we’re really saying is: why don’t you think like me?

Why don’t you understand the world the way I do?

Why don’t you already know what I’ve never questioned?

But the problem isn’t people lacking sense.

The problem is a world that doesn’t teach us to think.

We teach obedience.

We teach memorization.

We teach compliance, performance, and perfection.

But critical thinking?

The kind that asks what’s missing here?

The kind that gets curious instead of reactive?

The kind that knows how to hold two truths at once?

That knows when to speak and when to listen?

That is a lost art.

And it is an art — not a talent.

Not a genetic trait, not some intellectual privilege.

It is a practice. A devotion. A muscle.

Something we can learn. And relearn.

If we choose to.

But we don’t choose it often.

Because critical thinking is uncomfortable.

It requires humility.

It asks you to set down your assumptions,

to make room for unfamiliar truths,

to be wrong,

to grow.

And that’s not something most of us were ever rewarded for.

But love — here’s what I know in my bones:

We don’t need more people shouting “common sense” across the divide.

We need more people crossing the bridge.

More people willing to sit in the unknown,

to ask better questions,

to choose dialogue over dismissal.

Because when we use “common sense” as a benchmark,

we silence the ones whose lives didn’t mirror our own.

We uphold the dominant narrative and pretend it’s the only one.

But when we begin to value critical thinking,

we create space.

Space for difference.

Space for nuance.

Space for truth that doesn’t always fit neatly inside the lines.

And that’s where real transformation begins.

Not in what we think we know —

but in what we’re willing to unlearn.

So no, it’s not common sense that will save us.

It’s not outrage, or certainty, or cleverness.

It’s the practice of thinking deeply and loving wisely.

It’s the courage to ask:

What if my truth isn’t the whole truth?

What if there’s something here I haven’t seen yet?

And then, the willingness to see it.

Together.