Re-birth of Common Sense?

Are we seeing common sense making a comeback? How did we lose it in the first place?

If one needs to look back at how common sense was lost, one must acknowledge its absence, but first one must ask when and how long has it been? Indeed one finds that it started a while back.

"Sensus communis", in Latin, is not to be confused with the five natural senses; "sensus" here refers to perception, sentiments, and understanding shared in the "communis", the community of people who believe or agree with the same.

So, perception, sentiments and understanding are of course expressed and received through language.  That is where we begin to look at why and how it all started. 

Almost innocently enough, and likely driven through academia or through minority progressives and liberal ideologists, words started creeping into conversations and social media discussions where the homeless who started setting up tents along sidewalks are now "unhoused people", illegal aliens coming into the country were "undocumented citizens", ex-convicts as "previously justice-involved", etc.

Where and how did all these words originate? 

Nottingham Trent University in England - home of the highly idealized Queen's English, of Shakespeare and Chaucer and Keats - came up with a long list solely for Recommended Terminology Concerning People with a Criminal Conviction. From all their concerns, I quote just two below a list of words to be avoided; (and note the "English" spelling, like "behaviour")

• Any language that aligns the current identity of a person with their historical actions should also be avoided, such as offender, perpetrator, ex-offender, or ex-prisoner.

• Avoid terms that suggest a homogeneous group that is defined and stigmatised on the basis of criminal behaviour that may have taken place once or infrequently, or many years in the past (e.g., sex offender or murderer).

Not to be outdone, or simply mimicking the English version (above), the State of Illinois came up with its "A Humanizing Terminology Guide".

TERMS AND DEFINITIONS GUIDE

"Incarcerated Person: A person confined to a jail or prison. This term makes no claim about guilt or innocence (contrary to words like “convict”), nor does it attach a permanent identity to an often-temporary status (like “prisoner” etc.)”

Formerly Incarcerated Person: A person who has been in a carceral setting. Examples of carceral settings are prisons, immigration detention centers, local jails, and juvenile detention centers".

Note that single words became phrases, like prison is now a "carceral setting".

We need to look at these because that is where the proverbial slippery slope started.  Remember that today, unlike in the past, where words or terms and opinions took a while to disperse into society, social media  is primarily primed and driven by academia or highly educated opinion makers at the speed of the internet. 

No less than the U.N.'s World Health Organization, 2018, section 6D32P, declared that "..pedophilia is a diagnosis of someone having an enduring sexual attraction to children; this does not however mean they have acted or will act on this unchosen attraction .."

The intent, of course, is that communities may not need to know if someone known to be a pedophile has moved into their city or town. Or that, employers may not need to know of the criminal records of job applicants.

As often the case with so  many of these virtue signaling ideals of the liberal mindset, offenders seem to be better protected than ordinary citizens.

However, there is a glimmer of hope. There was a flurry of media coverage just days ago of the re-awakening of common sense - an apparent about face from those efforts. For example, quotes from several newspapers said: 

A center-left think tank on Friday released a list of 45 words and phrases that Democrats should cut from their vocabulary to stop sounding like “enforcers of wokeness.” 

“Privilege,” “Othering,” “Triggering,” “Safe space” and “Body shaming,” are among the words Third Way lumped into the “therapy-speak” bucket. 

“Birthing person/inseminated person,” “pregnant people,” “chest feeding” and “patriarchy” should also be shunned to avoid “confusing or shaming people who could otherwise be allies,” the think tank urged. 

Democrats are also warned that terms like “justice-involved” and “involuntary confinement” make it seem as if “the criminal is the victim” and “the victim is an afterthought.”

There are reasons to hope; however, there are indications we need to prepare if such optimism might be short-lived.

You see, once after the expansion of pronouns and the discontent with the definition of what it is to be just gay, more letters from the alphabet were employed to come up with LGBTIQA+.  It makes it a lot harder for any effort by the center-left think tank to navigate the rushing waters that prevent common sense from getting through.

Getting rid of certain words from the language might seem like waking up from woke la-la land but adherents to conservatism may have cause to be cautious. (Foreign readers who may not know what "woke" means may want to read up on it).

Words are not enough if the same liberal idealists insist that biological male athletes are allowed to play in women's sports and that they are allowed to use girls/women locker rooms or bathrooms.  Words do not repair psychological harm to young girls subjected to sex re-assignment counselling by school administrators without their parents' knowledge or consent. One state mandated that female sanitary products are available in boys' bathrooms in high school.

One protester's held-up poster says, "Trans can't use girl's bathrooms is like blacks can't drink from white's water fountain" - a clear reference to racism in the U.S. during the era of segregation; which rankles the fabric of common sense.

Of course, it is politics that is driving the Democrat Party's new imperative to stay away from the 45 or so words that they deem to alienate voters.  But why or how did such words sneak into their vocabulary?  As far as we can tell, such re-defining of simple words could only come from academia. 

Only college professors or academics can come up with words like micro-aggression or environmental violence or inseminated person/birthing person just to avoid referencing the use of woman or female terminology by using chest feeding as opposed to breastfeeding. We saw liberal extremism when a Supreme Court nominee defied answering how she defined what a woman is.  She replied that she can't because she is not a biologist.  That was clearly a blunt expression against common sense. She was confirmed anyway. 

Can we still continue to expect for the rebirth of common sense, anyway? Yes, because that is the only way we can continue with our lives.  To lose hope completely is to lose faith in the human experience.  It means that despite all the craziness that had occurred throughout human history, civilization continued to raise the level of the human spirit and awareness of the presence of something supernatural and the acknowledgement that perhaps a Supreme Being's intervention is what will straighten everything that had gone crooked with humanity. That, or else common sense may once again take another leave of absence.