Common Sense

In 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, a pamphlet arguing that Americans should actually stop, think, and question a corrupt system that didn’t make sense. His straightforward language and arguments helped persuade colonists to independence, and one of his work’s biggest accomplishments was the unification of divided colonists. Two hundred and fifty years later, perhaps we need another pamphlet. 

By definition common means ordinary, widespread, or shared, while sense is sound judgement and practical understanding. Put them together, and you would expect reasonable judgement to be everywhere. 

Common sense means putting your dishes up in the dining hall, not using generative AI on homework assignments, and not sending an influx of lost emails. It means being kind when being rude would be easier. It means not opening the obviously compromising email promising fun parties too good to be true. And occasionally, it means pausing for three seconds and actually using your brain before doing something you’ll immediately regret. 

For the top private school in Alabama, there needs to be better. Maybe the real problem with common sense is the common part. Good judgement is far from hard, but it does require us to think, in the exact same way you are expected to on your calculus homework.

Paine used Common Sense to argue for a revolution. The least we can do is use ours to survive the school day, and collectively make our lives a little less hard. So let’s start putting the common in sense and equating efforts regarding academics and common good.