Why stupid people love "common sense"

05 Jan, 2026

Psychology is a field of study that is uniquely burdened by the curse of "common sense." New discoveries are reacted to by a tepid "duh." This isn't for no reason, as many discoveries are statistical backing of a common observation. This is an intrinsic attribute for psychology. Yet, when the statistics don't support the common observation, or in fact disagree with it entirely, the science now pales in comparison to what people call "common sense." This comparison feels justified, as to them it's a battle of intuition. Really, it's disregarding an innovation in engineering because I already knew a bunch of weight breaks a bridge. Advancements in Psychology have the unpleasant ability to easily fit into a news headline, while other sciences don't. "Breaking: weight breaks bridge."

The layman's experience of psychology is intuited, It's not intellectual, or even emotional. It's intuited, or as a special kind of intelligence only granted to a select few. It falls into the same category as "street smarts." The stupidest people you'll ever meet will praise their own common sense. It's as simple as seeing a sunrise and recognizing that it is the morning. It's almost a spiritual exercise. My ability to see ghosts is because of my sensitivity to the paranormal, and if you try to detect these ghosts with an instrument you'll scare them away! This is how common sense works. Me and my in-group have a internal gut check to detect truth, and the out-group ignore their gut check to endlessly theorize in their academic circle-jerk. In my last post, politicophobia, I criticized the right-wing tendency towards this type of thinking. My thesis was that this no-nonsense, common sense thinking simply lends itself to reaffirming the status quo. In a political context it serves to reaffirm the specific beliefs of the in group.

Ad Populum, ad nauseum

Ad populum refers to a logical fallacy where a claim is validated by it being believed by the greater population. I think it's clear why common sense is subject this criticism, but I want argue that it is inarguably and inseparably an ad populum fallacy. First I want to acknowledge that communal agreement doesn't have nothing to do with truth. Language, for example, is based entirely on communal agreement. You probably wouldn't want to argue that an object has an intrinsically correct word associated with it a priori. A chair is only called a chair because we have agreed to call it that, obviously. You cannot measure a chair with a tool and objectively derive what the word for it is. But no doubt every language us humans could ever come up with would probably have a word for that stable thing you can sit on. Whatever that word is has an inseparable relationship to what it describes. ¹ What this really means is an intuition based on their own criteria. "You are not recognizing what I find readily apparent." Perhaps what they're missing is that you likely do recognize the base opinion, and actively disagree with it.

Un-common sense

If you ever happen to be in an argument with someone over this topic, I think I have a question that will get both participants to the root of the disagreement. "What is common sense if it were not common?" or, "if everyone disagreed with your judgement, by what criteria is it sensible?"

TLDR;

Common sense is not a real thing. is is a means to reaffirm the status quo. in doing so, it is anti-intellectual.

Footnotes

#political