Jay Doubleyou: common sense and the british

[This post, published on 26th September 2020, was 'unpublished' by Blogger on 18th March 2023 - and then republished on 19th March! Thanks very much!]

The British like freedom quite a lot:

Jay Doubleyou: freedom-loving britons

And so they declare that they never, never, never shall be slaves:

Jay Doubleyou: rule britannia?

The British are also a very practical and reasonable people:

COMMON SENSE | Bedeutung im Cambridge Englisch Wörterbuch

This is 'common sense':

sound practical judgement concerning everyday matters, or a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge that is shared by ("common to") nearly all people.

The first type of common sense, good sense, can be described as "the knack for seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done". The second type is sometimes described as folk wisdom, "signifying unreflective knowledge not reliant on specialized training or deliberative thought."

Common sense - Wikipedia

And it does indeed seem to 'make sense':

Jay Doubleyou: informal learning > learning from experience

It's connected to 'heuristics' too:

Jay Doubleyou: heuristics in language learning

However, in Britain, the idea of 'common sense' has become highly politicised.

This is from the Financial Times a year after the Brexit vote:

Almost every system is more complex than it looks. Most people can’t describe the workings of a toilet, writes Steven Sloman, cognitive scientist at Brown University. The EU is even more complicated, and so leaving it has countless unforeseen ramifications. Most Britons had no idea last year that voting Leave could mean closing the Irish border, or giving ministers dictatorial powers to rewrite law. Because of complexity, so-called common sense is a bad guide to policy making. Complexity is also an argument against direct democracy.

Jay Doubleyou: the uk is now experimenting on itself for the benefit of humanity

When it comes to dealing with Covid, there are lots of political opinions.

In Scotland:

Nicola Sturgeon defended the new restrictions being imposed on students this weekend as “common sense measures” designed to curb the spread of accelerating outbreaks in universities. The First Minister has come under fierce criticism for the restrictions, which include asking students to not socialise in pubs, restaurants and cafes, as well as not within their halls of residences, over the weekend.

Nicola Sturgeon defends 'common sense' student restrictions as all students face socialising ban | The Scotsman

In the USA:

For six months, experts have given the American public contradictory and weaponized election-year directives on masks, social distancing, lockdowns, school closures, and workplace policies. All of these matters of public health reveal the disasters that follow when common sense is ignored and ideology reigns.

Most Americans know that only the police can protect the vulnerable in times of social chaos. Most people instinctively sense that when vast swaths of dead trees are not removed from dense forests, they will eventually serve as kindling for raging firestorms.

And when scientific expertise offers ever-changing, inconsistent, and occasionally absurd public health advice, then people turn to their own instincts and innate common sense to protect themselves and their livelihoods. Experts, not commonsense citizens, have been failing America.

Common Sense Is Required of the Collective for Civilization to Continue

Common Sense - Do We Ever Need It Now!

And in England:

Mr Johnson said: "And I know that faced with that risk, the British people will want their government to continue to fight to protect them, you, and that is what we are doing, night and day. And yet the single greatest weapon we bring to this fight is the common sense of the people themselves - the joint resolve of this country to work together to suppress Covid now."

Coronavirus map LIVE: Boris issues ultimatum - Use common sense or face new rules! | UK | News | Express.co.uk

Coronavirus: Boris Johnson says common sense is 'single greatest weapon' | The National

In the UK, it's very much a matter of political arguments over 'natural character':

When, just under six months ago, we as a people had to get used suddenly to a restriction of our civil liberties not experienced in peacetime since the rule of Lord Liverpool 200 years ago, it presented a test of our national character. Indeed, it threatened to challenge the very idea of whether we still had one. I wrote then how, for all the formidable threats the pandemic posed, including to human life, it presented a rare opportunity to show what we believed to be the best about the British people: kindness, decency, neighbourliness, courage and determination....

Common sense? Decency? We can't allow that in Covid Britain, I'm afraid...

• Boris Johnson has again stated that we should rely on our common sense to slow the increase in infections of Covid-19. But common sense is highly subjective. Mine tells me that the government’s initial response in March should have exploited our natural advantage as an island nation by immediately closing the borders to non-UK residents, quarantining residents returning from overseas, and beginning testing in the community. Perhaps if common sense looked more like decisive action, we wouldn’t now be in such a quandary over whether to protect public health or the economy. It seems increasingly impossible to protect both.

We won't beat Covid by channelling Churchill | Coronavirus outbreak | The Guardian

This is the Prime Minister back in May:

Coronavirus: Johnson on 'good solid British common sense' - BBC News

And this is the British showing common sense in June;

Digested week: good old British common sense has people besieging the beaches | Politics | The Guardian

Here's an excellent essay with a long look at the themes:

Why Boris Johnson must stop talking about ‘good British common sense’

June 18, 2020 Peter West Lecturer in Philosophy, Trinity College Dublin

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has lately made a habit of appealing to “good British common sense” as a solution to any problem or controversy...

Encouraging the public to follow “good British common sense” may seem a harmless piece of advice. Philosophical debates about common sense, however, reveal that there is no consensus about what the phrase means. Even worse, it often turns out that seemingly innocent appeals to common sense are actually masking controversial ideas or viewpoints. This suggests that asking the public to rely on common sense is an irresponsible thing for a politician to do...

Why Boris Johnson must stop talking about 'good British common sense'

Perhaps we can finish with an advert for the UK's most popular TV show at the moment:

telling baking enthusiasts to use "common sense" over their hundreds and thousands use.