An Emotional Debt

Common sense is such a bogus concept. Shock jock Alan Jones recently telling the prime minister the only guide he needs to govern well is ‘a report on common sense’ underlines just how bogus.1 What you and I consider common sense is unlikely to be the common sense of Alan Jones or Tony Abbott. Yet common sense is resorted to all the time as though it is singular truth, as a way of closing down alternatives. If Abbott likes something it is ‘a gale of common sense’.2 Joe Hockey says that ‘Ultimately people expect common sense judgement to be used …’3 Various common senses underpin what people believe constitute reasonable and unreasonable positions and behaviours, but these can differ widely.