“Common sense is seeing things as they are and doing things as
they ought to be.”—Harriet Beecher Stowe
***
And it came to pass that a German law professor administered the same written examination to his entire class. The scenario was straightforward:
Two neighbors found themselves in a legal conflict. One possessed apple trees, and the branches extended over the fence, causing apples to fall onto the other neighbor’s tulip beds. The falling apples damaged the fragile flower stems.
Half of the class supported the tulip enthusiast. The other half advocated for the orchard proprietor. They all referenced statutes, paragraphs, and displayed their extensive understanding of German property law.
However, in the end, the professor highlighted one simple truth: Apples fall in the autumn. Tulips bloom in the spring. The situation they had been examining so meticulously could never actually occur.
All objections were met with the professor’s composed reply: “Before you begin citing the law, consider applying common sense.”
Sometime in 1776, Thomas Paine – a prominent political activist, philosopher, and writer during the American Revolution – wrote a pamphlet entitled Common Sense. When it was first published, there was no author. “Written by an Englishman” were the only words found. Nonetheless, it became an immediate success.
Common sense is defined by Merriam-Webster as “sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.” As such, “common sense,” in this view, equates to the knowledge and experience which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “the basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way.”
Whichever definition is used, identifying particular items of knowledge as “common sense” is difficult.
Someone shared this thought-provoking explanation about the subject: “Common-sense ideas tend to relate to events within human experience (such as goodwill), and thus appear commensurate with human scale. Humans lack any common-sense intuition of, for example, the behavior of the universe at subatomic distances, or of speeds approaching that of light.
“Often ideas that may be considered to be true by common sense are in fact false. Conversely, certain ideas that are subject to elaborate academic analysis often yield superior outcomes via the application of common sense.”
So, what’s the point? Nothing except that I received an e-mail from a friend about the Stella Awards. The awards, if you care to know, are ranked lists of personal injury lawsuits that, on their face, are frivolous but resulted in large damage awards in the United States. “If you think the court system is out of control and America has lost all common sense, be sure to pass this on,” said the end of the message.
The originators of these lists choose to remain anonymous (for reasons you already know). The reference to “Stella” comes from Stella Liebeck, now deceased, who, in 1992, ordered a cup of McDonald’s coffee at a drive through, took off the lid and put it in between her knees while sitting in the passenger seat of her grandson’s car. The 180 to 190°F (82 to 88°C) coffee spilled from the cup, causing third degree burns. The lawsuits are documented by Colorado writer Randy Cassingham.
For further details, you can visit this website: stellaawards.com.
In the email I received, there were seven people listed but allow me to feature just two of them. Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.
A jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?
Now, are you wondering why common sense is no longer common these days? During the time of Albert Einstein, the science wonder said, “I never allow myself to become discouraged under any circumstances. The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are first, hard work, second, stick-to-ittiveness, third, common sense.”
Einstein also said, “Common sense invents and constructs no less than its own field than science does in its domain. It is, however, in the nature of common sense not to be aware of this situation.”
Here’s a reminder from Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde: “Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.”
