Common Sense

They say that common sense is uncommon.  This is certainly true with respect to politics.  As a result, whenever a politician touts a proposal as “common sense,” we must brace ourselves for something that is probably wrong-headed.  To date, the Obama administration has not disappointed.

But let me start with something different.  This summer, when I was teaching about social class differences, I explained that research demonstrates that spending more money on education does not improve the outcomes.  There is, in fact, no correlation between school funding and student performance.

I went on to explain that almost no one wants to believe this.  Ordinary folks regard the opposite conclusion as common sense.  Obviously if we pay teachers more, reduce the number of students per class, and introduce additional computers, students will learn more.

Except that they don’t.  We have spent trillions of dollars more on schools than when I was a child with negligible impact.  If anything, achievement scores have gone down.  Certainly minority students have not caught up with majority students.

What the research shows is that parental attitudes count for more.  Hence, when parents value education, their children usually do.  Schools have less impact than we desire because the reverse is also true.  The only exception, and it is a small one, is that peers can influence one another.

As a consequence, magnet schools don’t work, bussing didn’t work, and Head Start hasn’t worked.  But who believes this?  And why not?  Clearly, because we want them to work!  When we have a problem, we wish to do something about it.  We are not willing to sit around allowing it to fester.

And so when someone says that he has an answer, we listen.  We then allow our good intentions to substitute for concrete results.  Instead of checking to see whether a program has previously succeeded, we are persuaded by rosy pictures of what is supposed to happen.

Nowadays we see this when Bernie Sanders promises socialistic extravagance.  Nowhere on this planet has socialism ever worked.  It has always delivered less than expected.  The young do not know this, however, because they have not been paying attention.

The same tendency exists among conservatives.  When Richard Nixon told the nation he would end inflation by introducing price controls, his partisans wanted to believe.  This strategy has never succeeded—including in ancient Rome—but who among them knew history?

We see this predisposition today when the poor agitate for a higher minimum wage.  Many of them would lose their jobs, but they are convinced it won’t be them.  Nor will inflation nibble away at whatever benefits they receive.  After all, it is common sense that higher wages can buy more things.

And then, there is gun control.  Of course, it is common sense that if we take guns out of the hands of terrorists, fewer people will be massacred.  Conservatives protest that it is people who kill people.   Still, they do so more effectively with assault weapons.  So let us identify these individuals and deny them the opportunity.

Doesn’t President Obama tell us over and over again that he merely wants “common sense” gun legislation?  Doesn’t he imply that anyone who disagrees has no sense?  Those mean spirited members of the National Rifle Association are so enamored of their guns and Bibles that they cannot see straight.

But what about the fact that gun control has not worked in Chicago, or France, or, for that matter, anywhere?  And what about the data showing that an earlier assault rifle ban in the U.S. did not reduce crime?  This evidence apparently means nothing.  Since it goes against common sense, it has to be wrong.

Will this inclination to go with our gut feelings change any time soon?  I doubt it.  The politicians also doubt it.  Bernie Sanders went a long way with his version of common sense.  So have Hillary and Donald.  Millions of people will therefore continue to believe what they want, while the rest of us pay the penalty.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University