Why aren't people taught how to think, before they are taught what to think? The term "common sense" is defined in many different ways, depending on secular and religious philosophy, customs, and beliefs. Even though I hold a social science PhD, I am also a 1965 high school dropout with a GED certificate I picked up while on active duty in the U.S. Navy. My formal college education began teaching me scientific reasoning during my sophomore year, and continued throughout my formal education, leading to the defense of my doctoral dissertation---That would be the Mother of All Term Papers. For me, "common sense" is the how we think process we use to draw conclusions on what we directly observe during our individual experiences. If you think about it, the words Common and sense are akin to how every one of us use the biological senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste that are given to us by our Creator to observe and predict the “what” of our individual and collective now and future. Most importantly, we folks, more than any other beings, have the capacity to learn lessons from present and past others of us, mostly taught by our families, trainers, educators, politicians, and preachers. However, these folks tend to concentrate more on "what" we learn, than on "how" we learn. Therein lays a potential problem.
Have you ever read something in a textbook that didn’t make sense to you? You were no expert on the subject, not like the text author you expected to be. But, for some reason that you just couldn’t bring to mind, what you read simply didn’t make sense to you. Have you ever been in a long conversation with someone and, after a while, began asking yourself, “What the heck is he, or she, talking about? He, or she, is not making sense.” Have you ever sensed that you were being “played” by a salesman in an auto showroom? Have you ever sensed that someone you trusted to have your best interests in mind, like a personal political or spiritual advisor actually had their own best interests in mind? Have you ever sensed you were being told what you wanted to hear, not what you needed to hear? Yea, I think you likely have. Well, the good news is that you are in touch with your common senses. Unfortunately, the bad news is that all of us can be played, even by the people we trust the most, even if those playing us don’t mean to. One major reason behind those of us with the most finely tuned common sense being played and potentially led in harm’s way is called “WILLFUL IGNORANCE.”
Willful ignorance is the first of my “Threats to Common Sense.” I now share it with you because it is the most threatening. It can sneak up on the most rational individuals, swallow them up, and make them an easy target for the most obvious deception. Victims can lose valued loved ones and friends, go bankrupt, wind up behind bars, and shamed in the worst kind of way. There are many published definitions of willful ignorance, but my favorite is the definition published online by the Farlex Free Dictionary:
Willful Ignorance…”is an intentional obliviousness to something that one knows to be true. I can’t believe you’re still smoking, despite knowing all the risks! Your willful ignorance just blows me away.”
Citation: Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
What makes willful ignorance so threatening to the most logical, well meaning, honest, and law abiding person is its underlying reliance on strength of faith in intrinsic belief. While I will begin reviewing on future posts, in layman’s terms, the process of empirical common sense reasoning, it is important for me to briefly demonstrate the difference between empirical, or evidence-based logic, and the opposite reasoning process, belief, or evidence free logic. Empirical scientific conclusions require the support of evidence measurable by the five human biological senses. On the other hand, non-scientific theories, conclusions, and beliefs do not require the support of evidence to be valid. In essence, such beliefs are self-evident. Then again, seminary educated theologians often argue that, while religious beliefs are self-evident and need no this worldly evidentiary support, theological arguments, theories, and conclusions must be logically consistent. Unfortunately, this logical consistency is not always present, and believers cherry-pick the passages they most favor. Another, non-theological example of willful ignorance is when there exists ample empirical evidence that one spouse is being unfaithful to the other. In spite of overwhelming evidence of adultery, the victim spouse chooses to ignore the evidence and sincerely believes in the fidelity of the marriage. This is what makes willful ignorance so dangerous.
A secondary legal threat of willful ignorance, willful complicity, is when willful ignorance drags a person into a case of criminal complicity. After all, ignorance of the law is no excuse. At any rate, willful ignorance has no up-side. That is why I’m bringing it up in my first posting of HOW TO THINK. Be certain, I am not proselytizing! I am only offering to anyone interested in learning how to get in touch with their inner, evidence-based, logical common sense to help them make better choices in the predator-prey, winner-loser, capitalist America we now live in.
I’m just a retired old dude that’s made a mess of my life many times—I’m just a grandpa that has decades of knowledge in applied scientific common sense---I’m just a retired professor that wants to be helpful to people that are interested.
I’m using my elementary school teacher daughter to help me with this, a project I’m putting together from memory as we wade through my ideas. I’ll be putting out my second post sometime next week. Stay tuned.
The Moderator
