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There's a modern rhetorical trend where the phrase "common sense" just means "whatever I personally think to be obviously right", so that's given me a pretty st
by brundolf 5y ago
There's a modern rhetorical trend where the phrase "common sense" just means "whatever I personally think to be obviously right", so that's given me a pretty strong distaste for anything/anyone using it.
But I maybe shouldn't make the assumption that that's how it's used here.
- prox 5y agoYeah, a semantic shift might have occurred. Remember we live in a hyper individual society compared to the time of Thomas. It’s more about an appeal to our common humanity, if that makes sense :)
- prox 5y agoAlso, adding to my comment , this is the first paragraph: >Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
- uxjxbjkbuiduid 5y agoThe work referenced here is an argument distributed as a pamphlet by Thomas Paine before the American separation from Great Britain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense Whether that corresponds to your modern rhetorical trend is, I suppose, up to you.