Common sense? WTF?

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Hey all,

I keep being told about "common sense"... but it just makes no sense to me. It's as if I'm expected to be psychic.

like: "common sense would tell you that if someone you're close to is sick... you do whatever you can for them"...

What if you've never been in the situation before? What if you've never had someone close to you get sick to the point of needing your care?

In this situation, my gf was sick... I cared for her... but not as much as she expected me to. Now we're in a(nother) s**t fight because I don't use "common sense"...

What is "common sense"? Am I the only one in the world who apparently lacks it? I've heard about it all my life, but it's never made any sense to me at all.

common sense is a phrase used to describe a person's assumption of what you know based on what they do.

if something is simple to a person, they might assume that it is simple to everyone else.

some people understand that not everybody knows the same things.

in the end, ironicly, it is ignorance that causes a person to blame someone for not using 'common sense'.

this gets complicated when it comes to feelings. some people assume that everybody feels the same way about things. so if they feel a certain way and feel that they should expect certain treatment when they feel that way based on if someone else felt that way they would expect the same thing, then they can misconstrue where the person that isnt giving them the expected treatment is coming from.

when it comes to feelings, communication is key. if she wanted more from you its up to her to tell you.

Uh - common sense would tell ME that if someone was sick, that I should stay as far away from them as possible so that I didn't catch it!! !

Seriously, no, I wouldn't put this situation into the category of "common sense" - because not everyone reacts the same or wants the same thing.

e.g. f I am sick, I just like to be left alone - if I need any shopping done then I will ask someone for it.

Unfortunately, "common sense" is no longer considered common.

It's not just you. I just recently realized (in the past 3 years or so) that hardly anyone has common sense, AS, NT, or otherwise.

Common sense tells me that if someone I love is sick, I help them/be with them/do everything for them, even if they aren't really THAT sick. I do this because I can empathize. I know what it's like to feel under the weather, and even though you are still physically capable of doing it for yourself, you don't want to. And don't you feel extra-loved when someone goes out of their way to do that for you? I want them to feel that.

I find that most "common sense" situations are based on SOCIAL interaction with other people. While someone with no common sense thinks, "What do you want from me?! I'm not psychic!" Someone with common sense thinks, "Well, you are human! Put yourself in my shoes!" Most other kinds of common sense, people have. You know not to run out in front of a car, right?

Personally, I have my common sense strengths and weaknesses, too - I have little FINANCIAL common sense, but a great deal of social common sense.

I have uncommon sense.

I think ivetastedflight hit the nail on the head when it comes to the idea of "common sense" in relationships.

Now, I don't know the specifics of your situation of course. But it essentially comes down to always trying to put yourself in the other person's shoes- you can't expect them to dictate your every action for you if you're in a romantic partnership. The best you can do is try to be aware, genuinely want to help, and ask questions if you're confused. (Questions= "Can I help you with this specific thing?" not "Well, what do you want me to do about it?")

Based on info. I read in a book called "Asperger's Syndrome" by Tony Attwood, we aspies have something he calls a "one-track mind": our mind is not as flexible as a typical person's mind, it follows a different thinking pattern and it becomes difficult for us to break that pattern and acquire skills we lack,such as the famous "common sense".
I too, most of the time,lack of common sense, and also empathy and many other similar things a "normal" person would consider natural and even obvious.

Common sense doesn't exist because everybody learns differently.

Oops, sorry - duplicate post - mods please remove!

I wrote about this in my blog a while back, so pardon me for copy pasting:

Common sense cannot be trusted!

Let me give you an example: I once encountered a little girl, who upon being to hold another childs hand replied; "I don't wanna hold a Somali's hand, I just washed my hands."That girl was using her common sense. Her parents were from a country where it was normal, even expected, to hate and look down on people from Somalia. Her parents had tought her what their parents had tought them. The knowledge that Somalis are "dirty" has been passed on for generations, in other words; it's common sense.
Now let me tell you a piece of common sense that has been passed down through the generations of my family: You shouldn't judge others by their nationality!
It would seem that we don't have common sense in common.

When people are talking about common sense, they are really talking about their outlook on the world. Now PART of this outlook is based on experience, but chances are that a great deal are things they have just accepted to be so without checking.
It used to be common sense that the world was flat. It used to be common sense that the earth was the center of the universe. Too far back in history for you? It used to be common sense that hose with dark skin were stupid, and that they deserved nothing better than to live as slaves. It used to be common sense that women were below men, and that they should stay home and stay out of mens business. Thank God we got over our common sense huh?

But isn't it common sense that you shouldn't stick your hand in boiling water? Obviously we can trust that!
Yes, you can trust that you will hurt yourself if you stick your hand in boiling water. You wan't to know how I know that it is so? Because I have tried scolding myself, and so have many others, some of which are trustworthy. (Experience) Furthermore, if you have a basic knowledge of biology then you will know that cells (like those in your hand) are very sensitive to heat (like that of boiling water) and that when cells break down they signal the brain to make the heat stop; this signal is called pain. So if you have the basic knowledge, you can make the conclusion that you will hurt your hand if you stick it into boiling water. (Logic)

There are certain fields where one can generally trust common sense, like the exact sciences for instance (Only generally, remember the flat earth? We don't know everything yet)
There are also certain fields where common sense is practically useless. Human behaviour for instance: Common sense would say that when someone smiles, it means that he/she is happy. Is it always so? Is it impossible to smile while being anything other than happy? Ofcourse not! Here logic and empathy is required, there is a myriad of things to consider, and not untill everything has been taken into account can you draw a logical conclusion.

Logic CAN be trusted you see. Where common sense is just a piece of experience passed on as fact. Logic leaves room for for error, that more data might be needed for a conclusion. Where common sense says that [indsert group] is [indsert prejudice]. Logic says that based on the observation that there ar not two people who are exactly the same, logically not all of any given group fits any given prejudice, even if some might.

At best common sense offers a set of guidelines to follow. Every piece of common sense, no matter how little sense it makes, has been made for a reason. Unless you know this reason to be faulty, you should not discard it. Common sense should never just be accepted though, it should be tested and examined thoroughly, whice once again brings us back to logic.
Once it was just accepted that jews were rats; a plague on mankind that should be eraticated... it is so sad when people forget to use logic!

In a form of conclusion; we don't always have common sense in common, and it doesn't always make sense... so don't trust it!