On this date (Jan 10) in 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense. On the surface, this work was a plain-spoken argument for independence from England, but a deeper read shows it to be a treatise about society in general.
In light of recent events in our country – events that prove that common sense is anything but common – I thought it’d be relevant to remind us that humanity’s lack of it is not new.
After the tragedy in Tuscon, it’s sometimes hard to accept the fact that we live in an age where what passes for common sense in this country can be summed up by lyrics to a Jim Croce song:
“You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit in the wind. You don’t pull the mask off that ol’ Lone Ranger, and you don’t mess around with Jim.”
And even that sounds profound compared to today’s thoughts. So much of what passes for OK these days just isn’t… and it’s easy to get discouraged by what often seems to be a lack of societal progress.
But a quick look back over history reminds us that things have been worse. In very recent memory we have segregation and Jim Crow. Just a bit before that we have brothers fighting brothers because someone realized that their ‘property’ was actually a person, and it was somehow OK to break every single treaty with native Americans because they were different and they had what we wanted. When Paine wrote his pamphlet, it was common knowledge that white male landowners were the only people that counted. Before that, it was ‘reasonable’ to believe that bathing was evil, burning people alive was an acceptable way to get a confession, and that the bubonic plague was caused by Jews.
This gives me a bit of perspective. Suddenly I realize that Jersey Shore is just stupid and inane – not the harbinger of Ragnarok. Our love for illiterate pundits is just dumb, not pure evil. It seems we think that the First Amendment is designed to give us the freedom to be stupid, wrong, and loud… but then again, we have a First Amendment – which is more than Thomas Paine could say when he wrote Common Sense.