"...but he ain't got no common sense."
It's a communal sentiment, so regardless of validity it must be true—the notion of "common sense" is almost always a favored measure of one's competency over proven intellect.
Maybe I'm being too literal, but it seems to me that "common sense" must be the maximum faculty for reasoning we all have in common. So, in our weakest moments, when we are filled with self-doubt, are we supposed to take comfort in knowing we can only ever be as smart as the dumbest idiot we know? Should we trade our aspirations for a lesser, but collective understanding of the world? I have a hard time understanding the logic in that, but I guess I'm not the only one. Regardless, I'd like to apologize to those of you who have a greater capacity for understanding the complexities of "common sense", as I am embarrassingly aware that my lack of "common sense" sensibility is lowering everyone's stock in whatever "common sense" is.
Turns out, learning something new everyday doesn't make you smarter unless you can then teach it to every mouth-breathing nose-picker you know. What I mean is, if we can't be collectively smart, we'll just have to settle for being collectively stupid...that's common sense.
