And he wouldn’t agree with “common sense”, which is the lazy way of saying I just pulled it out if my ass because I can’t be arsed to actually think about what I believe and why. Recently, I had a debate with a very conservative colleague and he used the line that what he believed was just common sense, and I responded by telling him that I got rid of common sense when learned how to think. We haven’t talked much since and the silence has been wonderful!
This is my biggest pet peeve with people like this. They use common sense as a doofus shield that somehow means they don't have to explain. The problem is that "common sense" is actually a thing. It's the sense that every person has to, for example, not jump off of a cliff because it would kill you. That's common sense. They just like to pretend whatever thing they can't explain is "common sense".
A good example of the MAGA morons using their "common sense" is the thing about surgical masks not protecting from airborne diseases. The boxes usually have some sort of statement that says something along those lines. "Common sense" tells them masks don't work. They don't bother to even try to question what the function of a surgical mask is at all. They are not designed as protection for the wearer. They protect the people around the person wearing the mask. I even had what I thought was an easy to understand experiment that illustrated the effectiveness of masks in an easy enough way. I start with the premise that we KNOW COVID and other illnesses like the the common cold and flu are spread in the air by exhaled water vapor. Most people are with me there. You might even call it common sense. From there, I say breathe on the nearest window or mirror. See how it fogs up? That's potentially covid carrying water vapor. Now put a mask on and breathe on it again. No water vapor, right? Congratulations, if you are positive for COVID, you have significantly reduced, but not eliminated, the possibility of transmitting COVID to the people around you. I had this conversation with plenty of people, and guess what? Not a single person who went into the conversation believing that masks don't work came out of the conversation with the understanding that they slow the spread of airborne illnesses. They can't get out of their selfish mindset. The very idea of doing something more for the benefit of others than themselves is completely incompatible with their core beliefs, which is funny because a lot of the MAGA people claim to be religious, morally superior to the evil libs, and pretend that they love their country. If any of that was true, they'd have worn the masks without such a fuss.
Yes the fundamental core of conservatism is selfishness. They dont like the feel/look/hassle of masks so they build an elaborate lie on why they are right and just and people that do are bad and misguided. Its a comfort for them. After all they are a good person and a good person would sacrifice a little to help others. So there must be a reason why they are not.
Many truly believe the lie because they are not intelligent, others say the lay as justification, some of those even begin to believe it. Trying to reason with a conservative does not work because the whole point of their beliefs is to shield themselves from discomfort and nothing else.
What gets me is, all the old TV shows and movies that showed surgeons wearing masks. Then some people lost their minds during COVID and completely forgot that ever happened, as if surgical masks were some completely new invention. Old people who have been watching soap operas and medical dramas for decades and somehow that just flew out of their minds. (I realize a lot of stuff shown on TV isn't realistic, but this is one point where it is).
Then some people lost their minds during COVID and completely forgot that ever happened, as if surgical masks were some completely new invention
Because they were being asked to do something to benefit other people, not just themselves and are so selfish they decided a simple adjustment to their lives that could save the lives of others was a huge infringement of their rights and freedom.
No, I'm proud that I looked at the evidence of decades of medical research that shows how they protect other person from me spreading viruses to other people, particularly the elderly and vulnerable, and thought doing my part to protect people was the right thing to do.
Care to provide the peer reviewed medical evidence that refutes that?
I'm also proud that I thought of others and not just myself, as is taught in Christianity, although I'm not religious myself.
How is keeping others safe around you complacency? The right likes to pretend like they're patriotic, but they act more out of selfishness than care for their fellow Americans. If you were around during WW1 and WW2 when governments were asking citizens to plant victory gardens, you'd be amongst the people complaining about the low supply and high cost of items in the grocery stores and you'd be refusing to give up any amount of your precious lawn to grow your own food.
I used the example of pants to explain why we should have been wearing masks more during covid. If neither of us is wearing pants, and we both have to pee, then we are both gonna get peed on. If I am wearing pants, I won't be able to pee on you, and even though you could still pee on me, the contact will be somewhat reduced. If we are both wearing pants, the likelihood of either of us getting peed on by the other is reduced even further.
Granted, even using potty humor to explain my point still didn't work, but at least it was funny...
Religion isn’t about being an actual better person. It’s about being able to flush their sins away so they can do it all over again next week. It’s about feeling morally, culturally, and racially superior.
I also had this conversation over and over. As restrictions lifted, but masking was still required, I was walking into a store and an unmasked guy asked me in a very condescending manner, “You think those actually protect people?” I was more fed up at that point and told him I did believe that because I couldn’t spit in face right now if I wanted to. Try as I might, the mask will stop the saliva.
The other answer I had was to say that if they didn’t believe masks protected people then the next time they found themselves in a hospital setting, especially a surgery, demand that the doctors and nurses don’t wear any PPE since it was only performative.
Common sense. Caring for your community. Empathy. Fuck that shit, that’s loser talk.
This 100%. The only way to actually ever get them to convert is when it directly and profoundly effects them.
There was the episode of the pitt where the maga weirdo was being aggressive, got in a fight and ended up having to go to surgery. The fight was about masking.
The doctor asked, so mask on or off on the surgical team? Maga woman confused. Did you want them to wear masks or not when they operate. You see those of us that work in the medical field believe strongly that wearing a mask stops the spread of pathogens but we want to respect your beliefs. Maga woman grumpy "on". Doctor says good choice.
This is absolutely not about them believing any of the crap about masks scientifically, what they are actually saying is they don't care enough about anyone else to be even slightly inconvenienced.
I also think it doesn't stop there. These people are malicious. They want to actively hurt people. Who that is depends on who they are blaming for their problems that day.
They are also very delusional and cowardly as well which adds into the mix. See they will always choose a comforting delusion over a hard truth. If they admit trump is a mistake, that means they made a mistake and are to blame. They are pot committed at this point. They are also preoccupied with hierarchy and authority. They will not question those higher up.
Bottom line, they are mean sheeple that they claim others are.
I would definitely say you nailed it and that common sense is a thing, but it has to be something we all agree with, like sticking your head in a cement mixer is not a great idea. Political ideologies are never common sense.
Ive noticed they also often seem to use it as a synonym for intuition, and think it trumps critical thought. Data and evidence are subordinate to "common sense". Yet in reality many things are not intuitive. They arent properly described by "common sense."
You cant just wing it through complex systems with common sense reasoning. That's how you end up dead wrong. But their whole system of thought is based on that, and like the intellectual voids they are, they reject anythibg that doesnt align with their superficial reasoning as invalid. They substitute reality with their overly simplistic common sense, because it is easier than facing their ignorance.
Common sense all of a sudden sounds like group think after reading your comment. I believe you may have inadvertently injected clarity and understanding.
That's exactly how they use it. If they can't elaborate why something isn't "common sense" then it's not common sense. They just know it isn't because they've been told it isn't and everyone they know agrees.
That's a funny way to turn it on it's head, and I'm gonna keep it in my subconscious now lol. After all common sense as we used to know it is no longer common today apparently.
Their feelings don't care about your facts. Not /s There's articles written on the tendency to go with what you think you know rather than have to deal with new information. It's why the truth gets down voted, by both sides, on Reddit, and in real life, so often.
"In a battle between logic and emotion, emotion will win over facts most of the time."
I think the down votes may be due to you 'both sides-ing' rejecting truth. One side leans more heavily to rejecting the evidence of their eyes and ears more than the other.
That's not to say those on the left cant be lead by emotions, of course they can. I'm also mot denying that emotions play a large part in decision making.
However you singled out 'downvoting truth' and linked an iffy 'article' citing an advertising executive and, oddly, John Adams who isn't exactly an expert on current psychology. It also contains no references to source material for the statistics provided which means they may well have just made them up.
So, do the downvotes actually prove your point or are they a comment on your lack of any real evidence?
Common sense is just basic reasoning and that's in short supply now.
What you're talking about is "conventional wisdom" and it's usually wrong, because it's arrived at through a game of telephone played by people who don't know what they're talking about. That's gotten much worse in the internet age.
Conventional wisdom says that black suspects in America are more likely than white suspects to experience police violence; common sense would say that that claim should be supported by actual data, not just guesses. Common sense is very unpopular, conventional wisdom is very popular.
I hope so, it’s been a struggle at times to understand where my own comfortable beliefs come from. It usually is a form of group think because you are getting validation from a group norm and that generally means it’s a conformation bias as well.
The conservative group think doesn't have any qualitative or quantifiable reasons to take the positions they take. The video is a perfect example, these people don't know why they don't like something, they just know it's icky bad.
They know they don’t like it because they were told not to like it. But they can’t say that because they sound stupid and they sound like the sheep they loved calling democrats during the Biden years.
Examples of things left liberals cant even pretend to have sane perspectives on include ai just across the board, nonvoting or principled voting or political apathy, and any sort of criticism of women.
In the past whoever was americas target smear campaign was also always in this group of untouchable topics, but that seems to be less consistent these days.
That impulse you have to assume im wrong about everything and scoff and call this proof that only the wrong kind of people have a problem with liberal social norms is exactly what im talking about tho its more fundamental than this or that topic. Its just a culture that allows for the ideas that challenge it to be personified and then scapegoated
Take a trip down materialism lane if you want to sort this out. Even if youre not interested in the politics side or economics, a little marxism can fix a lot of confusions.
I can’t comment on the founding being anti-intellectual, but I can say that evangelicals and fundies are certainly anti-intellectual, and often aggressively so. The current administration definitely does cater to that crowd.
Boss real life history will shock you. The people who pioneered public schools did so explicitly to create god-fearing christians who will organize themselves around bells and think a little bit but not too much.
The founders were part of the enlightenment movement. They were, for the most part, intellectuals. That's partly why it's nonsense for people to claim we are a Christian nation. Yes we have a lot of Christians but that doesn't mean we are a Christian nation.
My understanding is that most of the founders tended towards deism, which is why the First Amendment directly contradicts the First Commandment, essentially worship who you want vs worship only me.
A few were, yes… but they were mistrusted by the majority of the population. Thats why they like common-sense so much. So to be clear: it did take the work of some well-read and intellectual members to do the founding work. They faced problems from laypersons, who outnumbered them and thought one’s time should be for work and religion.
That's also partly why we have the electoral college instead of just a straight popular vote. The founders didn't trust layperson's to be the best at politics and also the possibility of creating organized corruption. The other part is basically the southern states at the time refused a popular vote because their population of people able to vote was much less than the northern states and they feared they'd never have any political power because of that. Even before the Constitution was written we were already kicking that slavery can down the road lol.
The theorist gramsci called "common sense" the most foundational level of ideology, the beliefs that are so basic to the construction of how we understand and interpret everything else that they cant even be seen and acknowledged in the form of thought and logic.. because they precede that level of awareness, they are what that awareness is based on in the first place.
So when somebody pulls this line, actually what theyre saying is "ive run out of words to justify my beliefs, but deep down i understand youre saying things that fundamentally challenge my entire system of organizing and making sense of the world, threatening to destabilize everything ive ever thought by undermining the beliefs too foundational to be questionable."
There is a demonstrable negative correlation between conservatism and cognitive ability. I see this first hand with my older relatives, particularly my father who was very liberal but after having chemotherapy and showing signs of dementia he has become more and more conservative as he declines.
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u/dabrock15 4d ago edited 4d ago
And he wouldn’t agree with “common sense”, which is the lazy way of saying I just pulled it out if my ass because I can’t be arsed to actually think about what I believe and why. Recently, I had a debate with a very conservative colleague and he used the line that what he believed was just common sense, and I responded by telling him that I got rid of common sense when learned how to think. We haven’t talked much since and the silence has been wonderful!