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| Rudy Giuliani is afraid that you are not scared |
If you see the world as an apocalyptic struggle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, then you are feeling pretty affirmed right now by this week's Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Various and sundry sitcom, soap opera, and reality television stars have taken turns warning us of a dualistic battle between "common sense" and "political correctness." The nominee's son, Donald Trump, Jr., extolled the wisdom of those who avoided fancypants schools like Harvard and Wharton (from which his father graduated in 1968) in favor of an education culminating in a "Doctorate in Common Sense."
One advocate for this linguistic theory was former New York mayor and current world-record-holder-for-breaking-blood-vessels-in-his-face-while-he-yells Rudolph Giuliani, who denounced anyone who refused to name the "enemy" of the United States as "Islamic extremist terrorism." According to Rudy, shirking this label denies the obvious violent threat that lurks everywhere. It is this assertion of obviousness, of simplicity in the face of apparent chaos, that gives common sense its force. Rather than accept self-evident reality, those imprisoned by political correctness cannot speak the truth because of their paralyzing fear of hurting people's feelings.
That the truth is apparent to everyone is what makes it common. This idea has its roots in eighteenth-century Scottish Common Sense Realism. In response to idealists and skeptics who offered complicated explanations for how people came to know and talk about things, thinkers like Thomas Reid argued that people's ordinary sense of the world was trustworthy. If you had a table right in front you, then you knew it was a table because you touched it and saw it, not because you had some idea of a table in your head. If intricate philosophical arguments seemed to contradict people’s ordinary sense of reality, it was overthinking that was at fault. As Reid asserted in his 1764 An Enquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense:
Poor untaught mortals believe undoubtedly that there is a sun, moon, and stars; an earth, which we inhabit; country, friends, and relations, which we enjoy; land, houses, and moveables, which we possess. But philosophers, pitying the credulity of the vulgar, resolve to have no faith but what is founded upon reason.Idealistic philosophers offered unnecessary confusion and doubt. For Reid, it was absurd to throw out one’s ordinary sense of the world because theories could not explain it:
But if indeed thous hast not power to dispel those clouds and phantoms which thou hast discovered or created, withdraw this penurious and malignant ray; I despise Philosophy, and renounce its guidance: let my soul dwell with Common Sense.Reid did not despise philosophy as such, but only philosophy that required a choice between abstract thought and everyday experience. Rather than disproving what we see, smell, hear, taste, and touch, philosophy should take this sensory data as the foundation for further inquiry.
When convention speakers appeal to common sense, they reassure you that Islamic extremist terrorism is an easily recognizable thing like a table sitting in front of you. This feels good if the world seems to be a confusing and scary place. But this raises a question of what "sense" allows you to see social identities like religion or extremism, or what allows for common sense pronouncements about ethnicity or gender or race. These are not things you can ordinarily see unless what you mean by "seeing" is confirming whatever your initial intuitive impressions are. In other words, what Rudy means by common sense is a visceral, precritical response to new information, what we often call a gut reaction. He relies on immediate, intuitive reactions as a necessary preparation for sudden threats. Refusals to act on common sense leave people vulnerable in an insecure world.
Overthinkers who challenge common sense, especially those who Rudy calls politically correct, suggest that these immediate reactions are not reliable sources of information but are instead shaped by prejudices and assumptions produced by social forces. Or to say this in a less fancy way: Trump is the candidate of common sense because common sense is where racism comes from. Common sense offers a visceral feeling of satisfaction that comes from learning that your intuitions, prejudices, and assumptions were right all along. Assuring people that political violence is an inevitable outgrowth of a scary thing called Islam affirms a view of security that cautions against waiting around to analyze complex social problems. Making generalizations about people you don't know is one way of feeling safe in a world that you don't understand. Political correctness, therefore, poses an existential threat to those hoping to "Make America Safe Again."
